With less than six months to the 2016 presidential elections, Ugandans have serious doubts about the ability of the opposition to run the country, a new poll has revealed.

According to the Afrobarometer survey, 65 per cent of Ugandans say they will vote for the ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM). The opposition will get only 15 per cent, which is less than the undecided voters at 20 per cent.

Trust in the opposition has, however, been steadily increasing since the 2005 referendum (from 16 per cent in 2002 to 31 per cent this year), and this has been matched with an increase in political affiliation and support for opposition parties.

About 41 per cent of Ugandans see the opposition as presenting a viable alternative to NRM, but the ruling party remains popular across the country – drawing its greatest support from rural areas (over 70 per cent).

NRM also commands strong support especially in the West, North, East regions and enjoys a lot of backing from women.

Parties frozen
While 7 out of 10 (71 per cent) Ugandans say that multiparty is necessary for the country to have a real choice in who govern them, NRM, a party in power since 1986, still enjoys widespread support across the country.

Fredrick Golooba-Mutebi, one of the authors of the survey, told The EastAfrican that there are historical as well as sentimental reasons why the party is still popular among Ugandans.

“Political parties were decimated during the 1980s when the country had a no party system,” said Mr Golooba-Mutebi.

“While they were only allowed in Kampala, they could not recruit or field candidates. Political parties were essentially frozen in time,” he added.

NRM also came to power during a period of political instability from the 1979 war that ended Idi Amin’s era to 1986 when Milton Obote was deposed by President Yoweri Museveni.

To many Ugandans, NRM is credited for bringing law and order in the country and overseeing the social and economic transformation witnessed in the country in the first two decades when the party took over.

“Rural Ugandans have a difficulty separating NRM from the government,” said Mr Golooba-Mutebi.

“Having come to power in that period, many who grew up in that time still remember those years…they have a tendency to see politics through security and order.”

Mr Golooba-Mutebi adds that the support NRM enjoys may be due to the fact that people see the opposition as being too weak and divided to take on NRM.

The polls shows Kampala is a battle ground with support almost evenly split between the opposition and NRM.

However, despite increasing support for pluralism over the years (from 29 per cent in 2000 to 73 per cent in 2015), Ugandans are still frustrated with the state of multiparty politics.

Many of the respondents said they were not happy with the shrinking of political space and the incessant infighting within the opposition.

More than half (55 per cent) of Ugandans perceive competition between political parties to often result in violent conflict, with 63 per cent fearing that they could be victims of political violence themselves.

Earlier in June, the country’s leading opposition parties, several prominent political leaders and representatives of civil society groups announced a new coalition that will front one presidential candidate.

The Democratic Alliance, which could for the first time give President Yoweri Museveni a run for his money in 2016, will still have to manage several personal ambitions within its ranks, and field a single presidential candidate to face Mr Museveni next year.

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