Entebbe, Uganda: President-elect Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has heaped praise on his Senior Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs and Manager of the Office of the National Chairman–NRM (ONC), Hadijah Namyalo Uzeiye, for what he described as a well-coordinated vote protection operation during the recently concluded general elections.
Museveni praised Namyalo on Friday, January 29, while receiving Electoral Commission declaration forms at State House Entebbe, crediting ONC’s coordination with security and technology agencies for safeguarding the integrity of the vote.
He said the digitisation of vote tallying, implemented jointly by ONC, the Internal Security Organisation and State House Science and ICT departments, ensured timely transmission and verification of results from more than 50,000 polling stations nationwide.
According to official results announced by Simon Mugenyi Byabakama, Museveni secured 7,946,772 votes (71.65%), defeating his closest challenger, Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine of the National Unity Platform, who polled 2,741,238 votes (24.72%).
The victory marked Museveni’s seventh consecutive presidential term and his strongest electoral performance since 1996, when he last crossed the 70 per cent threshold.
The President attributed the margin partly to ONC’s vote protection structure, saying it ensured that votes cast in his favour were fully accounted for.
Earlier, while delivering her report to the President, Namyalo disclosed that during the vote protection exercise, ONC deployed four personnel per polling station, including two official NRM polling agents and two discreet operatives, a model she said delivered over 98 per cent operational success, the highest since the office was established.
“This structure ensured every vote was defended from polling station to tally centre,” Namyalo told the President. “This is a huge success I cannot claim as an individual, but with this wonderful I came along with here.”
The ONC boss also flagged concerns over the rise in invalid ballots, with 275,353 votes, about 2.42 per cent of the 11,366,201 ballots cast, declared invalid, noting the figure was higher than in the previous election cycle and warranted urgent voter education reforms.
Despite Uganda having 21,649,067 registered voters, Namyalo expressed concern over low voter turnout, with only 52.5 per cent participating. She partly attributed the shortfall to logistical delays linked to Biometric Voter Verification Kits (BVVK) in some areas and gaps in voter education.
She urged improvements ahead of future elections to encourage broader participation, especially among young voters.
Namyalo further appealed for expanded access to government wealth-creation programmes, including the Parish Development Model (PDM), Emyooga, and other empowerment initiatives, to help low-income Ugandans transition into the money economy.
In response, Museveni tasked Namyalo to intensify mobilisation for PDM, which he credited for lifting thousands of households into the middle-income bracket.
The President is expected to be sworn in for his seventh term in May 2026, pending gazettement of the presidential results by the Electoral Commission and absence of a successful legal challenge.
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