KISORO — The hills of Kisoro have long carried the memory of gunfire, border tension, and families fleeing danger in the dead of night. On this evening, they carried something else: a political resurrection wrapped in a plea for loyalty. Gen. Kale Kayihura, once Uganda’s most powerful police officer, later a fallen figure, now re-emerging on the national stage, returned to his hometown to rally support for President Yoweri Museveni. His message was stark and emotional: in a district shaped by the fear of conflict, stability is not just a campaign promise, it is survival.
Before thousands packed into the Mayor’s Gardens, Kayihura invoked Kisoro’s past to justify its political future. Museveni, he argued, pulled Uganda back from the brink of collapse, stitched the state together, and delivered the calm that border communities once prayed for. And as Uganda edges toward a new election season, its politics simmering with generational demands, economic anxiety, and quiet discontent, Kisoro remains one of the few places where the old story still holds power.
Kisoro, a district shaped by its borders with Rwanda and DR Congo, has long lived with the anxiety of spillover conflict. Kayihura used that history to argue that stability, above all, is what Museveni delivered, and what the region must protect in 2026.
“We are very excited to see His Excellency the President with his campaign across the country,” he told the crowd, pausing as chants of “Mzee! Mzee!” drowned him out. “For us, it is a celebration, and it should be a celebration for all of Uganda because we honor him for what he has done for our country.”
Kayihura’s voice softened as he reached back four decades. “In 1985, Uganda was in a dire state. It was like Congo,” he said. “Thanks to his leadership, the country was rebuilt, and the state became unified.”
To him, Kisoro’s support for Museveni isn’t simply political, it’s existential. He reminded listeners that this border district once absorbed refugees fleeing conflict and listened to rebel gunfire echoing across the hills. “He shouldn’t even need to come to ask for votes,” he said. “It should be automatic. We are blessed by God to have this President.”
When Museveni finally took the stage, he picked up where Kayihura left off, weaving the past into his pitch for the future. He framed the NRM’s legacy as a simple three-part blueprint: peace, development, and wealth.
“Now I have given you three cores,” he said. “The first is peace, the second is development, and now I have added the third, which is wealth. NRM has come showing you this wealth.”
He spoke of farmers earning more, cooperatives thriving, and some local groups making as much as Shs 600 million per month, figures that drew whistles and applause, even as some in the crowd exchanged skeptical glances. “We have to protect our people,” Museveni told them. “Jobs must focus on production so households can create wealth.”
Then came the familiar contrast: the Kisoro of decades past versus today. “We found no sugar, no beer, no clothes in this place,” he said. “But we now have them because of the NRM. I am giving you reasons to support the NRM. Support us so we can continue and strengthen our work.”
That message fell on receptive ground. Kisoro has long been one of Museveni’s most reliable electoral bases, with 150,000 registered voters in the last general election, with an astonishing 120,000 turning up at the polls. With a population now estimated at 403,000 and political activity woven deeply into daily life, the district remains a bellwether of loyalty in the Kigezi sub-region.
But beneath the drums, yellow flags, and the orchestrated jubilation, the rally also revealed the quiet tension shaping this election season. Uganda is changing, socially, economically, and generationally. Many young voters are entering adulthood with no memory of the instability that defines Museveni’s original story. Others weigh peace against unemployment, rising costs, and growing political fatigue.
In Kisoro, however, the story remains stitched into family histories and borderland anxieties. For many, the promise of stability is not an abstract campaign slogan, it is a lived memory of what happens when things fall apart. And on this night, with Kayihura’s return adding symbolism to spectacle, that message carried easily through the crowd.
As the rally dispersed and the hilltop town settled back into its evening calm, one thing was clear: in Kisoro, the past still shapes the political present. Whether that holds in 2026 is a question the rest of the country—and the President himself—will be watching closely.
