It is inconceivable that anyone can defeat NRM’s founding chair and Uganda’s long time President Yoweri Museveni.

The current political and administrative structure still gives him an enviable head start in any election and he and his party have done well to harness the advantages of incumbency.

Uganda heads to the polls in three years’ time – the fifth such general electoral exercise since Museveni came to power over a quarter-century ago. He has, as usual, said the decision to run again in 2016 will be made by his party and family.

But, his recent activities in Luwero Triangle, in the long loyal Busoga region, and Buganda Kingdom have left little doubt that the president has hit the campaign trail in earnest.

READ: Museveni in early campaign mode, starts with rural voters

In Luwero, the region that bore the brunt of the five-year guerrilla war that first brought him to power in 1986, he announced new agricultural projects and elected his brother, Gen Salim Saleh, to oversee the revival of its fortunes.

In Busoga, which has recently demonstrated its discontent at unfulfilled promises by returning opposition candidates in recent by-elections, he carried a full sack of money and dished it out to the youth.

In Buganda, an ever-present thorn in his flesh, he decided to return its properties, which the central government has occupied since kingdoms were abolished in 1966, and agreed to pay all outstanding rent arrears to the tune of Ush20 billion ($7.83 million).

In the last election, Museveni reversed his declining electoral fortunes even as his close competitor Dr Kizza Besigye, then leader of FDC, Uganda’s largest opposition party by parliamentary representation, watched his figures dip.

To note, the incumbent grew his absolute vote tally by 1,349,378 from 4,078,911 votes in 2006 to 5,428,369 votes in 2011. Runner-up Besigye lost 505,640 votes from 2,570,603 in 2006 to 2,064,963 votes in 2011.

Some 5,681,369 out of 13,954,129 registered voters did not vote in 2011. The Electoral Commission expects the total number of registered voters to have grown to 18 million by the 2016 polls.

When Uganda reverted to multiparty politics in 2005, the NRM established party structures at all administrative levels from the district right down to the village.

Uganda comprises 57,000 villages, 15,000 parishes, 1,000 sub-counties, 275 constituencies, and 112 districts. At each of these levels, the ruling party has a committee of at least 30 members, which assures it a headstart of at least 2.2 million votes from its party officials.

The FDC has tried to replicate this model but has fallen woefully short. In the last election, for instance, it managed to field candidates in only 180 constituencies, leaving the ruling party to dominate the rest.

To his credit, the party’s current leader, the retired Maj-Gen Mugisha Muntu, has focused his presidency on revamping the party at the grassroots level.