Recently, the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) party president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu popularly known as Bobi Wine made a public pronouncement that his led political party would not be part of the future arrangement regarding the Inter Party Organization for Dialogue (IPOD), insisting that it had been turned into a platform that simply legitimizes the incumbent president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s four-decade regime that is tainted with gross mismanagement and abuse of power.
Bobi Wine’s public pronouncement followed the May 2025 amendment into the Political Parties and Organization Act of 2005, restricting the annual government funding to only active political parties under the IPOD framework.
The amended law that bars un active IPOD political party members from accessing government funding was a private members Bill that was moved by the Napak district woman MP Faith Loru Nakut. Under this legislation, all IPOD party members would be required to apply and express interest to join as well as signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with its secretariat.
IPOD whose membership is composed of the political parties with representation in parliament is aimed at fostering among other principles multiparty democracy and political party growth through dialogue.
Currently six political parties are members of the IPOD including; the ruling National Resistance Party (NRM), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Democratic Party (DP), Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), JEEMA and Peoples Progressive Party (PPP).
Bobi Wine on declaring that NUP would not involve in further IPOD activities aimed at preventing Museveni from taking advantage over them by portraying to the international community that he engages with his opponents through photo posing, which in his view was not correct to the contrary.
He chided Museveni for always longing to see such moments happen, vowing never to give it any chance. “I am not your comrade Museveni to sit down with you under the IPOD, therefore leave me alone”, the visibly angry Wine said in his address to the cheering party members at the party headquarters at Makerere Kavule-Kampala.
It is against that backdrop that the main opposition party launched a fundraising drive aiming at mobilizing resources to support it through 2026 elections in the wake of the prevailing financial hardships.
However, in the blink of an eye, the party administration has made a u -turn changing their mind to return to the castigated IPOD, which some political observers say shows double standards.
NUP Leadership Eat their Word Over IPOD.
Reliable sources told Blazer News Times that the NUP party leadership had to make a very hard decision of returning the party to the IPOD framework since the financial handouts from its supporters and well-wishers was not sustainable to support the party activities.
Another source said that time had come for the party leadership to face the political reality like other opposition political parties under the same arrangement.
In his leaked October 7th 2025 letter to the IPOD secretary to the council, the NUP secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya insisted that their party has been and remains an active member of the national consultative forum. “Although NUP is currently challenging the referenced amendment before the Constitutional Court, we are cognizant that it is the current and binding law”, Rubongoya’s letter reads in part.
The NUP’s change of mind to rejoin the IPOD has since sparked the public mixed reactions with some accusing the party leadership of acting with double standards and trading in the politics of deception and extremism, while others supporting the party’s stance.
IPOD Political Party Members Given 7.5 Billion Each this Year.
Government allocated 45 billion shillings this financial year (2025/2026) to support the activities of political parties including mobilization and political party growth.
The new criteria of distributing the funds is that, a political party has to be an active member of IPOD and the party’s numeric strength in parliament, that is why member parties have to fast track an MOU signing process with the secretariat. Previously the distribution was only based on the number of MPS a party has in parliament.
Records at the National Electoral Commission (EC) a government body that distributes the funds to the political parties shows that, the NRM has the largest number of MPS; 342, NUP 57, FDC 32, UPC 11, DP 9, JEEMA 1 and PPP 1.
According to the 2021-2024 Auditor General’s report, NRM took the largest share with 34 billion followed by the NUP; 5.7 billion, FDC, 3 billion, DP 908 million, UPC 908 million, JEEMA and PPP 100 million each.
On Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th July 2025, secretary generals of political parties under the IPOD met under the chairmanship of Gen. Museveni before he handed over its evolving chairmanship to DP’s Nobert Mao, and resolved that this year’s funding be distributed equally. It was also resolved that the government would allocate separate funds to enable the parties facilitate their daily operations.
The IPOD executive director Lawrence Serwambala confirms that the funds disbursement is in line with section 14(a) clause b of the Political Parties and Organization Act which provides for an equal funding during an election year, and the member’s resolution.
This implies that each IPOD member party will receive 7.5 billion shillings into its coffers this financial year. The temporary stay away of the NUP means that the party would forfeit the 7.5 billion for the whole financial year, about 1.5 billion after every three months(quarterly) and about 500 million every month.
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