70% OF MPs TO FAIL IN 2026 GENERAL ELECTIONS REPORT

By Dramadri Federick

Arua City

A new report by Afro barometer indicates that the attrition rate for members of parliament in Uganda could increase to 70% once electorates weigh the MPs democratically.

According to the African Based research organization out of the 457 MPs in the 10th Parliament, 319 were not voted back to the 11th Parliament running 2021-2026, while 31 did not contest or chose to run for other offices, and only 107 MPs returned, the organization warns this figures could escalate once voters push for accountability.

Twaib Feni the executive director West Nile Regional Civil Society Network says most of the Members of parliament have spoiled their relationships with voters due to service delivery gaps.

“we’re sure out of these MPs 30% of these MPs are heading to parliament, this is obvious even the current ones will not make it because the promises they made to people are not fulfilled, they were promising things which were not real, they were promising things which were not within their mandate,” Feni said.

Currently Uganda’s 11^th parliament has 556 Members comprising of 353 directly elected Constituency Representatives, 146 Women Representatives, 10 representatives of the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces’, 27 Ex Officio Members and 5 representatives from the Youth, Persons with Disabilities’, Workers’, and Older Persons’.

Yovan Adriko the Member of Parliament Vurra County explains that the number of MPs is overwhelming and this affects representation of the citizens, arguing that incumbents have upper hand in winning elections.

“To get opportunity to speak there (in parliament) is really a tug of war, if I get opportunity, then to express myself I will be happy, an am not say am not do well no…. am do well, it means we’re too many then opportunity there is just rare and also am not scared, I know if many people compete with you automatically incumbent has opportunity to win in big number,” Adriko explained.

A publication by a UK based Stanford University on attrition rate conducted across 627 constituencies in five countries of Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in 2022 indicate that on average, 72% of citizens can correctly name their MPs and 13% report personally contacting them in the year prior to enumeration whereas politics of lies dominates establishment of governments at 90%.

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