{"id":92028,"date":"2026-02-19T00:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/92028\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T00:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:13:21","slug":"uganda-vote-sees-anti-homosexuality-act-backers-lose-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/92028\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda vote sees Anti-Homosexuality Act backers lose seats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Ugandan<\/a> MPs closely associated with the country\u2019s Anti-Homosexuality legislation have lost their seats<\/a> in January\u2019s parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

Official results were released after a vote marked by unrest and allegations of irregularities.<\/p>\n

Read next<\/p>\n

Former minister of state for trade David Bahati was defeated in Ndorwa County West by Eliab Naturinda Mporera. Regional election results show Bahati lost by a wide margin after contesting as an independent candidate. Bahati became internationally known after introducing the 2013 Anti-Homosexuality Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am glad the parliament voted against evil\u201d \u2013 former minister of state for trade David Bahati on the 2013 Anti-Homosexuality Act<\/p>\n

Speaking when parliament passed the legislation at the time, he said: \u201cI am glad the parliament voted against evil,\u201d before Uganda\u2019s Constitutional Court later annulled the law because it had been passed without quorum.<\/p>\n

During his time in public office, Bahati faced criticism from international organisations over statements about LGBTQ+ people, including calls for \u201cserial homosexual offenders\u201d to be hanged. He later supported the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 and remained a visible supporter of the legislation in parliament.<\/p>\n

Sarah Opendi also failed to retain her seat. She was narrowly defeated by independent candidate Angella Akoth in the race for Tororo District Woman MP, losing by 35 votes after a tightly contested election that later prompted legal challenges.<\/p>\n

During debate on the 2023 bill, Sarah Opendi called for the \u201ccastration\u201d of LGBTQ+ people<\/p>\n

During debate on the 2023 bill, Opendi called for the \u201ccastration\u201d of LGBTQ+ people, arguing that prison sentences would not stop homosexuality. In 2024, she said her support for the legislation was linked to a US visa denial to attend a UN event, although officials did not publicly confirm the reason.<\/p>\n

Asumani Basalirwa, who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023<\/a> as a private member\u2019s bill, also lost his seat representing Bugiri municipality. During debate around the law, Basalirwa said: \u201cWe always talk about human rights but it is also true that there are human wrongs. Homosexuality is a human wrong that needs to be tackled through a piece of legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several MPs who supported the legislation were voted out. Despite those parliamentary changes, President Yoweri Museveni, 81, secured a seventh term in office, extending his rule beyond four decades amid reports of violence, arrests and intimidation targeting opposition figures during the election period.<\/p>\n

\"ZackZack Polanski is Attitude\u2019s latest cover star (Image: Attitude\/David Reiss)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Ugandan MPs closely associated with the country\u2019s Anti-Homosexuality legislation have lost their seats in January\u2019s parliamentary elections.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[35306,261,153],"class_list":{"0":"post-92028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uganda","8":"tag-anti-homosexuality","9":"tag-politics","10":"tag-uganda"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116094409363863166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}