Tanga Odoi faces final litmus test as NRM electoral boss

By Kazibwe Jamil

Kampala, Uganda: After more than a decade at the helm of the NRM Electoral Commission, Dr Tanga Odoi remains the party’s longest-serving Chairman of elections, having taken over from Rt. Hon. Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, the pioneer chairperson.

Throughout his tenure, Tanga Odoi has enjoyed significant goodwill within the party, bolstered by access to better facilitation than his predecessors. His abrasive, domineering character has often allowed him to bulldoze his way through internal party dynamics at Plot 10 Kyadondo, even when his actions courted controversy.

However, his outspoken nature and defiant posture have long masked what critics say is a glaring incompetence in core election management. Despite presiding over some of the most acrimonious and disorganized internal elections in the history of the NRM, Tanga has, until now, survived scrutiny and calls for accountability.

But the tide seems to have shifted.

There is now a widening consensus within NRM ranks that Tanga Odoi has become a liability to the party. The chaos, confusion, and credibility crises stemming from poorly managed internal elections under his watch are increasingly seen as an existential threat to the party’s future cohesion and survival.

Today’s primaries are the ultimate litmus test for Tanga Odoi.

This time, there are no excuses. The Party Chairman, President Yoweri Museveni, provided all the resources necessary for timely preparations. Every tool Tanga requested has been availed to him.

Yet signs of trouble are already evident. Reports indicate that election management personnel across the country are neither sufficiently trained nor adequately motivated for the daunting tasks ahead. Many presiding officers at village levels are known to be aligned with specific candidates’ factions, casting serious doubts on impartiality before the first ballot is cast.

The implications are stark: the primaries are rigged before they begin.

Tanga’s desperate, last-minute efforts to swap or even sack district election teams are largely futile. The real rigging happens at village level, during the handling and retrieval of Declaration of Results Forms, long before results reach district tally centers.

These are precisely the glaring electoral gaps Tanga has consistently failed to plug, resulting in a surge of independent candidates after every cycle. Early indications suggest this round will be no exception—the number of independents is bound to skyrocket.

Concerns also persist over the timely distribution of election materials across the 72,000 villages. Where materials eventually arrive, they are likely to be mismatched, disorganized, or tampered with. The biggest source of conflict in today’s exercise will be the registers—yet these are the most fundamental documents for any credible election. It is on these that President Museveni has personally invested heavily to ensure accuracy.

What is clear is this: Tanga Odoi has run out of excuses.

It is highly unlikely that President Museveni, who has painstakingly reignited public enthusiasm across the country through his Parish Development Model (PDM) wealth creation tour, will sit back and allow the NRM’s hard-earned momentum to be squandered by an incompetent electoral commission whose actions continue to fracture the party’s internal democracy.