As the 2016 General Election draws near, most people believe it will be a walkover for the ruling National Resistance Movement party.

The NRM has an overwhelming majority in parliament and last time around, in 2011, its presidential candidate won with an even bigger margin than he got in 2006. Though many observers would put their money on NRM come 2016, they could be wrong.

Ugandans have a preference for tough, macho candidates as they generally believe that presidency and leadership are not about teaching Sunday school.

The last gentle candidate they voted for was Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere in Uganda’s first post-Independence general election of 1980. When he failed to translate his popularity into power, the voters switched tastes and have since favoured the tough talking men of steel.

So a tough breakaway party from the NRM could defeat the ruling party in the coming elections. Even in the past three general elections, the government’s strongest challenge has come from its breakaways, not the old parties.

The next breakaway group that could deal the NRM a fatal blow has yet to register as a party, and for the time being it is simply called the Mafia.

In the second post-Independence general election of 1996, the successful guerrilla commander Yoweri Museveni defeated gentleman Ssemogerere. But the third general election in 2001 presented voters with a tough choice between two tough talking soldiers, Gen Museveni and Colonel Kizza Besigye.  

Museveni threatened to send somebody six feet under; Besigye moved around with a hammer, which voters took to be for crushing somebody’s bald head. The two faced off again in the tough fourth and fifth general elections of 2006 and 2011.

The race between Museveni and Besigye is tired and for 2016, the exciting new force is being called Mafia, because, like the real thing, it is secretive but powerful. Some NRM leaders have come up openly but fearfully to swear that the Mafia is slowly taking over or has actually taken over the government.

No less a personality than the immediate former vice president called the public’s attention to the growth of the Mafia party while he was still in office. And he was dead scared of them.

And now no less than the minister for works, he who runs one the biggest government budgets, has openly declared the growth of the Mafia party.

Now this is what Ugandans love, guys who are powerful enough to scare those in power. And the Mafia party has shown it has those credentials.

But will the Mafia go to the elections with that same name or will they register their party under another name? My free advice is that they retain the Mafia label otherwise their macho credentials could be lost.

They already have the claim to having the ability to make NRM ministers cry like babies. So why change to some boring name like “Progressive” this, “Democratic” that or “Unity” something? Ugandans have heard those before. People want some mean sounding guys to shower with votes.

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International Fellow for development journalism. E-mail: [email protected]