The abrupt withdrawal of Anita Among from the race for Speaker of Uganda’s 12th Parliament has triggered a wider debate on power, accountability, and political survival within the ruling establishment.
Reports from Kampala indicate that Among stepped aside shortly before midnight on Sunday after consultations within the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
Her decision followed heightened political pressure, internal party realignments, and a series of security-linked developments that included searches at her residences in Nakasero and Kigo over ongoing investigations.
She has since pledged cooperation with authorities and said she will remain available for duties assigned by the party leadership and President Yoweri Museveni.
The withdrawal effectively reshapes the race for one of Uganda’s most powerful constitutional offices, with Defence Minister Jacob Marksons Oboth-Oboth now emerging as a leading contender in some reports, though the final position within the NRM hierarchy remains fluid.
But beyond the procedural politics, veteran journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo frames the moment as part of a longer arc of political irony in Uganda’s governance system.
He draws parallels between the state’s current tactics and those previously associated with the consolidation of parliamentary power.
“It would not be surprising if some of the ‘drones’ that carried security officers to besiege and search former hardline Parliament Speaker Anita Among’s homes also took them to raid Opposition leader Bobi Wine’s home in Magere, ferried NUP supporters to detention centres, and gave Dr Kizza Besigye a few rides - all events that Among cheered on or enabled with her zealous push for repressive legislation. Who knows, they might well give her a lift to Luzira if things take a turn for the worst,” he said.
His remarks place Among’s political trajectory within a broader pattern of state enforcement tools being used across the political divide, often with shifting targets depending on prevailing power dynamics.
Onyango-Obbo further suggests that the same political machinery that once enabled consolidation of influence within Parliament has now turned inward, reshaping alliances and ambitions within the ruling elite.
“The same extreme methods she used to secure the NRM nomination last year, and to run all candidates from other parties out of the Bukedea parliamentary seat, leaving her ‘unopposed’, have been used (albeit with more guns and truckloads of soldiers/police) to force her to publicly declare that she was abandoning her quest for re-election as Speaker, potentially leaving new favourite Oboth-Oboth ‘unopposed’,” he noted.
The comparison underscores a recurring theme in Ugandan politics: the use of state power as both shield and instrument, depending on political necessity.
The commentary concludes with a literary reflection on political reversals, drawing from Shakespeare’s well-known imagery of unintended consequences.
“As Shakespeare might have observed in a different context, ‘the engineer [is] hoist with [her] own petard.’ Our father, a man who took an unflinchingly dry-eyed view of the world, used to tell us that times like these always came along. We just had to keep an eye on the calendar,” he added.