NRM, PLU AND THE QUESTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL SUCCESSION
A response to Dr. Pereza Ahabwe
By Asuman Kiyingi
Dear Dr. Pereza,
I have read with considerable interest your thoughtful analysis of the relationship between the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), and your central question: whether PLU represents the rejuvenation of NRM or its eventual dissolution.
I also noted the observations attributed to Hon. Augustine Ruzindana. I agree with the general proposition that generational change is inevitable in political organisations. Where I differ fundamentally is in the suggestion that the rise of PLU, or Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s presidential ambitions, can be sanitised as an exercise in passing through the “rigors of constitutional commands.”
To suggest that a transition anchored on an active-duty military commander operating a political platform passes constitutional rigour is to mistake formal legal ritual for genuine constitutional compliance. The question is not whether constitutional words can be invoked to justify a political transition. It is whether the constitutional order is actually being obeyed.
PLU and NRM: Two Sides of an Exhausted Political Coin
I am therefore less persuaded that Uganda is witnessing an organic generational renewal or a simple transition from NRM to PLU.
Nor do I think it is helpful to compare a formation led by a serving Chief of Defence Forces with civilian renewal initiatives such as the DP Mobilisers Group or UYD. Those formations operated within a fundamentally different institutional environment.
My reading is that NRM and PLU increasingly display symptoms of the same underlying political exhaustion. Rather than a constructive synthesis, what we are witnessing is a struggle to preserve political power through increasingly militarised, patronage-based and personalised structures.
The manifestations are visible in the progressive normalisation of arbitrary arrests, abductions, prolonged detention, theatrical prosecutions and the shrinking of civic space. Both formations appear to draw upon overlapping patron-client networks and similar imperatives of political survival and access to state power.
Olivia’s memorable formulation in The Observer — “SUSU”, or “Steal Uganda, Save Uganda” — captures the cynicism with which politics can degenerate when the preservation of power becomes an end in itself.
As Muhwezi Joshua Lawel observed in The Observer, “The PLU number is a badge of risk, not honour.” The attempt to reproduce NRA historicism through membership numbers risks becoming a hollow spectacle if historical sacrifice is reduced to a badge for contemporary political positioning.
A political movement cannot renew itself merely by changing its name, generation or organisational architecture. Renewal requires institutions, ideas, accountability and a credible conception of national citizenship beyond the distribution of political patronage.
That is why I am sceptical that PLU, in its present form, represents the institutional renewal of NRM. It may instead represent the reorganisation of an existing political order around the question of succession.
PLU: Renewal or Succession Vehicle?
PLU’s own genealogy is significant.
It emerged from the political mobilisation that had developed around Gen. Muhoozi, initially associated with the MK Movement. PLU subsequently became the institutionalised successor to that mobilisation. The political trajectory therefore runs in a fairly clear direction: the Muhoozi political project preceded the institutionalisation of PLU.
That distinction matters.
Today, PLU leaders openly mobilise around Gen. Muhoozi’s 2031 presidential ambition, gather signatures and seek political endorsements while he remains Chief of Defence Forces.
One may disagree about whether PLU should be described legally as a political organisation, a pressure group or a civic organisation. But nomenclature cannot by itself resolve the constitutional question. The substance of political activity matters.
Uganda’s political history also provides reason for caution about claims of autonomous reform within the ruling establishment. Reform currents have repeatedly struggled to develop into independent centres of political power.
The question, therefore, is not simply whether PLU will replace NRM.
It is whether PLU is being permitted to develop because it represents genuine institutional renewal — or because it forms part of an emerging succession architecture.
The Constitutional Question Cannot Be Postponed
This brings me to the central issue raised in my open letter in The Observer, “Open letter: Gen Muhoozi, constitutionalise your journey to State House.”
My call for Gen. Muhoozi to leave military command is not a suggestion that he should wait until nomination day in 2031 before separating military service from partisan politics.
The constitutional and statutory framework already places important restrictions on political participation by serving members of the UPDF. Article 208 establishes the UPDF as a non-partisan national force subordinate to civilian authority. Section 16 of the Political Parties and Organisations Act prohibits a member of the UPDF from being a founder, promoter or member of a political party or organisation, holding office in one, publicly engaging in political-party controversy, or canvassing support for a political organisation or its candidates.
Section 99 of the UPDF Act separately provides that a serving officer who desires to seek political office must first resign or retire from the Defence Forces.
These provisions exist for a reason.
The military is entrusted with coercive power on behalf of the entire republic. Political organisations compete for power on behalf of particular programmes, candidates and constituencies. The constitutional principle separating those functions is therefore not a technicality. It is one of the foundations of civilian government.
If Gen. Muhoozi wishes to remain CDF, the constitutional expectation is institutional non-partisanship. If he wishes to lead a political movement and pursue elective office, he should relinquish military command and enter civilian politics.
Military command and partisan political mobilisation should not occupy the same institutional space.
Why Muhoozi’s Declaration on Legality Matters
This issue became considerably more serious with Gen. Muhoozi’s recent declaration on X:
“Apart from Mzee Museveni and Afande Saleh, I am the biggest defender of Constitutionalism. I was fighting and defending Uganda from Joseph Kony in Teso and Lango in 2003 – 2004 when most lawyers today were still kids. I will define what is legal and what is not.”
The statement deserves to be taken seriously.
Defending Uganda with a gun and being constrained by the Constitution when exercising public power are two entirely different things.
The first is a soldier’s duty.
The second is the essence of constitutionalism.
A constitutional state does not determine legality according to the personal experience, military rank or political authority of the person exercising power. Law is authoritative precisely because it binds those who exercise power.
An episode from the Amin era illustrates this principle.
During the enforcement of Amin’s anti-miniskirt decree, Chief Magistrate Wilson Kityo reportedly refused an external direction to imprison a convicted woman without the option of a fine. Kityo insisted on exercising the discretion given to him by law. When the matter reached the attention of Chief Justice Wambuzi and President Amin, the judicial position was defended and the matter was resolved without the magistrate being removed.
The historical significance of the Kityo episode is not that Uganda under Amin was a constitutional democracy. It plainly was not.
The significance is that even under military dictatorship, a judicial officer understood that legality was not whatever the most powerful person in the country happened to command.
That is the lesson Gen. Muhoozi’s statement should invite us to revisit.
Neither the CDF nor the President nor any other individual office-holder is the personal source of legality. The Constitution distributes power and subjects its exercise to law. Courts interpret and apply the law. Public officials exercise powers conferred upon them by law.
When a serving military commander says that he personally will define what is legal and what is not, the danger is not merely rhetorical. If such a conception of power becomes normalised, personal discretion begins to displace constitutional restraint.
That is the precursor to arbitrary rule.
The Slow Poison of Institutional Erosion
Mahmood Mamdani’s Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State provides a useful lens through which to understand this danger.
Institutional decay need not arrive through one dramatic rupture. It can accumulate through the normalisation of exceptional practices, the erosion of institutional boundaries and the displacement of formal structures by informal centres of power.
That is why the present moment deserves attention.
As Olivia observed in her Observer piece, “A letter to Uganda’s reigning overlords: What manner of patriotism is this that betrays Uganda?”, there is a profound contradiction between invoking patriotism while weakening the constitutional restraints designed to prevent arbitrary government.
The Preamble to the 1995 Constitution expressly records Uganda’s determination to break with its history of political and constitutional instability.
That commitment cannot be honoured by treating constitutional restraints as obstacles to political succession.
Nor can a military-led political project acquire constitutional legitimacy simply by repeatedly invoking patriotism.
The question is not whether the individuals involved consider themselves patriotic.
The question is whether the institutions they are creating and using are consistent with the Constitution.
Constitutional Succession, Not Political Inheritance
The fundamental contradiction facing Uganda today is therefore not merely NRM versus PLU.
It is militarised political succession versus constitutional succession.
Presidential power cannot be transmitted by organisational inheritance, family proximity, military command or political mobilisation around an individual.
It must ultimately be acquired through the constitutional process.
That is why Gen. Muhoozi’s journey to State House should be constitutionalised now, rather than retrospectively at the point of nomination.
If he genuinely believes that his political future belongs to the presidency, there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about aspiring to the highest elective office. But the journey matters. The constitutional separation between military command and partisan political mobilisation matters. The independence of courts matters. The authority of law matters.
And above all, the principle that no individual defines legality by personal command matters.
The danger before Uganda is not simply that NRM may be replaced by PLU.
It is that both may become instruments for avoiding the harder task of constitutional renewal.
The ultimate question for our generation is therefore simple:
Will Uganda’s transition take place through the Constitution — or around it?
That is the conversation your article has opened.
And it is a conversation that belongs at the Elders’ Fireplace — Ekyooto.
Yours in constitutional dialogue,
Asuman Kiyingi
