By Reacheal Wambuzi: Over 10 million voters out of the 21.6 million registered with the Electoral Commission participated in the January 15th general election to elect their preferred leaders at both presidential and parliamentary levels.
The presidential election was won by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who scored 71.65 percent of the vote with 7,946,772 votes, whereas his main challenger, the National Unity Platform’s (NUP) candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, garnered 24.72 percent of the total number of votes cast, with 2,741,238 votes.
The other presidential candidates were James Nathan Nandala Mafabi of Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) who received 209,039 votes (1.88 percent), Gregory Mugisha Muntu of Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) with 59,276 votes (0.53 percent), Franck Bulira Kabinga from the Revolutionary People’s Party (RPP), 45,959 votes (0.41 percent), Robert Kasibante of the National Peasants Party (NPP), 33,440 votes (0.30 percent), Mubarak Munyagwa of Common Man’s Party (CMP), 31,666 votes (0.29 percent), and Joseph Mabirizi of the Conservative Party (CP), 23,458 votes (0.21 percent).
Out of the total 11,366,201 number of votes cast, accounting for 52.50 percent of the registered voters, 275,353 of them, accounting for 2.42 percent were invalid votes.
Now, elections are known for brewing excitement and emotional piles among supporters, with some resorting to physical violence against each other over ideological differences.
There are no conclusive statistics detailing the exact number of different cases of election-related violence; however, several social and mainstream media reports have continued to highlight the plight of the victims of politically related face-offs.
Reports of election-related violence stem from the intensive political campaign period, all through to the post-election era, where individuals accuse either their fellow community members or security forces of escalating violence, which creates more hostility among neighbors, rather than resolving for sustainable peace.
Some of these election violence-related incidents escalate into extensive chaotic face-offs, prompting the intervention of security forces, whose action is blamed for causing permanent disabilities to the victims involved. These face-offs are known for stirring long-term hatred among the victims involved, with some harboring intentions of revenge even after the polling days.
Eseza Tibendha, a resident of Nawaikoke town council, in Kaliro district, said that the scars of election violence are hard to live with, but she intends to move on nonetheless.
Tibendha said that rowdy youths beat them up during a campaign meeting in the first week of December 2025, causing her to miscarry at three months.
Tibendha said that some of the perpetrators are suspected to be residents in the area, which creates a sense of panic; however, she has since opted to move on. “Losing that pregnancy cost me so much emotionally; however, I chose forgiveness as my easiest way to heal from this pain of suffering loss,” she said.
Tibendha noted that, she has resolved to preach peace and in turn use her story to warn neighboring communities against involvement in election related violence, but rather coexistence in harmony.
As a young woman, Tibendha said that lessons of focusing on the future prospects of life should formulate the post-election period for all progressive citizens, rather than confinement in the shadows of past pains, which instead ignite continuous hatred within communities.
Ramula Kibwika, a resident of Iganga municipality, said that the campaign season had become part of her everyday life for the past three months.
Kibwika intimates how she participated in endless debates with neighbors on the qualities of the different candidates, who were fit enough to lead them, nonetheless. These debates, she said, consumed most of her time, with little left to tend to the family of three children, since her husband passed away one year ago.
With the general election done, Kibwika has refocused on devoting more time to her retail shop from where she hopes to derive a sustainable livelihood for her family. Kibwika, who boasts of exercising her civic duty in electing political leaders, noted that her main focus is working hard to secure a bright future for her children.
“I am a widow, and my children need school fees to study in credible schools; therefore, with the active political cloud off, I will dedicate more energy to work hard rather than rant about the past campaign experiences,” she said.
Grace Musubika, the Secretary of Women Affairs in the Jinja City Youth Council, noted that the realm of politics in the country has evolved, where some things that were unheard of in the past seem to be politically right today. “I am a young person myself, but I have read about the politics of reason, which dominated the leadership spaces about 20 years ago; a realm of egoism and hooliganism seems to be gaining ground nowadays,” she said.
“This sidelines qualified leaders from standing out for fear of not fitting within the political gymnastics at play and at times breeds ground for mediocre politics to thrive,” she added.
With her observation, Musubika hopes to spend the better part of the post-election period tracking down the political lines of most newly elected leaders, with hopes of assessing reason from mediocrity.
As a youth leader in Jinja city, Musubika plans to spend most of her time mentoring young leaders in institutions of higher learning to embrace leadership above self, rather than giving way to what she termed as “political dwarfism,” which disregards key elements like servanthood and instead opts for other issues like voter bribery and tribalism, among others.
On his part, Joel Kafuko, a political analyst based in Jinja city, pointed out that, much as politics governs all aspects of life, which warrants citizens to track down on all undertakings, whether advantageous to them or not, there ought to be time for personal reflection on future aspects.
These future aspects, he argued, ranged from sustainable work plans to maneuver through both the positives and negatives of a political decision considered to be made by the majority.
Understanding such notions, Kafuko believes, is key in steering peace amongst neighbors even when they seemed disagreeable to each other during the intense campaign periods.
In the aftermath of a fiercely contested election, the experiences of ordinary citizens reveal that the true test of democracy extends beyond the ballot box. For many Ugandans, the post-election period is a moment of reckoning, one that calls for healing, reflection, and a deliberate return to peaceful coexistence. As political passions subside, attention is gradually shifting from rivalry to responsibility, from confrontation to productivity, and from personal loss to collective growth. This transition is critical for sustaining peace, nurturing accountable leadership, and restoring trust among citizens.
