The political tensions that have built up in President Yoweri Museveni’s ruling party over the past month have seen the Ugandan leader weather probably the toughest 30 days of his long presidency, and point at a difficult year ahead as lawmakers increasingly challenge his 26-year rule.

The tensions peaked at an otherwise dull retreat of the ruling party that was called on January 11, to bring into line vocal MPs of the National Resistance Movement (officially described as a review of implementation of the party’s manifesto), which suddenly burst into life on the first day when Buyaga County West MP Barnabas Tinkasiimire told president Museveni to reinstate term limits, fold his tent and leave.

“Who is this person who doesn’t get tired? He is going to make 30 years in power,” said the fiery legislator, to which Museveni replied that he had been politically active for 50 years.

In an interview with The EastAfrican, Mr Tinkasiimire insisted the retreat — at the National Leadership Institute, Kyankwanzi — was not about the NRM manifesto.

“They came with their own focus, to silence MPs. This has nothing to do with the manifesto. If you call a retreat, why don’t you allow us to discuss the issues that are making the party weak?” he asked, alluding to President Museveni’s waning popularity.

It now remains to be seen if President Museveni will bow to internal party pressure.

During the retreat, President Museveni warned that the army would take over “if the confusion in parliament persists.”

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According to John Nagenda, a senior presidential advisor on media and public relations, a weak opposition and the ruling party majority in the ninth Parliament means that most of the rebellion is within NRM, as the legislature tries to find a voice and experiment with its power.

The rebellion in parliament reveals a serious fault line within the party, which has been widening since June 2011, and came into the open towards the end of last year during the passing of the controversial law that gave the Minister of Energy the power to negotiate oil deals, a move most MPs opposed, only to lose out to President Museveni’s brinkmanship.

Come mid-December 2012, when former Butaleja MP Cerinah Nebanda died in mysterious circumstances, the battle lines were drawn as the executive and parliament traded accusations of foul play in the events before and after Ms Nebanda’s death. As a result, five MPs of the ruling party have been arrested.

As tensions heighten, it could become a matter of who blinks first between President Museveni and the group of critical NRM MPs that Tinkasiimire represents; the others are Theodore Sekikubo (Lwemiyaga), Wilfred Niwagaba (Ndorwa East), Mohammad Nsereko (Kampala Central) and Vincent Kyamadidi (Rwampara).

The group, often referred to as “NRM rebels” due to their penchant for dissenting positions, will now face the disciplinary committee. Yet some party insiders consider this to be an over-reaction.

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“The movement should not be in a hurry to penalise these people. They can be irritating, and if they were more measured, they would get the attention of the party leadership. My view is that the movement is no longer as it was in and after the bush war.

"So, yes, there has been a shift. In my writing, I’ve said that the movement should go back to debate because debate is a good thing,” said Mr Nagenda in a telephone interview with The EastAfrican.

“Have we done an analysis of why we have the so-called rebels?” asks Trade Minister and NRM Treasurer Amelia Kyambadde. “Have we listened to them? Has this party reached a level where divergent views are not listened to?”

As the infighting rages within the NRM, the opposition is silently watching from the sidelines. As Democratic Party president Norbert Mao said: “When your opponent is making mistakes, you don’t interrupt.”

In another three years all of President Museveni’s contemporaries within East Africa will have left office. With this year’s election, Mwai Kibaki will be the second Kenyan president, after Daniel Arap Moi, to leave President Museveni in power.

In 2015, when Jakaya Kikwete’s second term ends, three Tanzania presidents (Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa and president Kikwete) will have left power during the Ugandan leader’s tenure.

Mr Nagenda argues that President Museveni should leave at the end of his current term in 2016 and play an elder statesman’s role similar to Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s, when he handed over power to former President Mwinyi in 1985.

“I honestly believe that the people of Uganda have been very appreciative of President Museveni in the sense that he brought peace and security. So they ask, what happens if he goes? But having said that, I personally think that much as the nation has gained, the president can be the father of the nation in the background, pretty much the same way Mwalimu was. The time has come to talk about a successor,” said Mr Nagenda.