Bugweri MP Abdu Katuntu’s long march to the NRM started in 2010. It had to do with the internal politics of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), a party he had helped found and of which he had been an active member.
As FDC prepared for the delegates’ conference, Katuntu expressed interest in standing for the national chairmanship of the party.
Dr Suleiman Kiggundu, the party’s national chairman, had died in 2008, leaving a vacuum that was temporarily filled by John Butiime, a brother of NRM’s Col Tom Butiime. The party had chosen Butiime to act in the role until 2010, when a substantive replacement would be elected.
So Katuntu, feeling he had come of age politically, formally indicated he would stand for the position. And he looked destined to win it on a silver platter, given that no other party member had expressed interest in the position with four days left to close the process.
In swung Dr Kizza Besigye, the then party president, who felt that Katuntu should not be allowed to go it alone.
Sources in FDC told us that Besigye then reached out to Sam Kalega Njuba, one of the party’s veterans and a close confidant, and asked him to challenge Katuntu.
At first, Njuba told Besigye that he was “tired” of politics, which is why he had made a decision not to contest again in Kyadondo East in 2011.
But Besigye persisted and assured Njuba of his support. Sources said that Besigye told Njuba that such a position could not be occupied by Katuntu, whose allegiance to the party was starting to be questioned.
Njuba eventually gave in to Besigye’s demands and defeated Katuntu at the delegates’ conference.
This point, sources said, marked the beginning of Katuntu’s exit from FDC. Angry about Besigye’s machinations, Katuntu started keeping a distance from Najjanankumbi. He even became critical of the party’s inner workings.
Katuntu later joined Gen Mugisha Muntu’s camp and actively campaigned for the former army commander when he contested with Nandala Mafabi for the party presidency in 2012. Muntu won, and Katuntu returned to the FDC fold.
In 2016, Katuntu, under the banner of FDC, defeated NRM’s Daniel Ibaale in Bugweri with a margin of only 401 votes (Katuntu got 23,596 and Ibaale 23,195).
That was a warning sign that his popularity was on the wane. Katuntu had to do something. And he did. He started fraternizing with the NRM and dealing closely with President Museveni, to try to salvage his political fortunes.
Starting in 2016, Katuntu became an “objective legislator” (which in Ugandan speak means that he became less critical of the NRM).
When Muntu and other senior FDC officials broke away to form the Alliance for National Transformation (ANT) in March 2019, Katuntu hesitated to identify with the party, shocking many people who had believed that he was close to Muntu. Remember, Katuntu had announced earlier that he would not seek re-election in Bugweri in 2021.
The death of Kirunda Kivenjinja, his long-time nemesis, in 2020, changed the dynamics, and Katuntu, at his burial, said he could not leave Bugweri to be represented by inexperienced politicians.
He bounced back as an independent candidate and won comfortably in the 2021 election.
Since 2021, it has been an open secret that Katuntu is working with the NRM. Therefore, his public declaration of his support for the NRM at a rally in Bugweri presided over by Speaker Anita Among at the weekend is not shocking.
Katuntu used the Bugweri rally to blast the opposition for stifling development and Robert Kyagulanyi’s supposed urging of voters to reject him in 2026
This marked a defiant exit from his past political allies. For Katuntu, the rally also marked the official beginning of Katuntu’s public embrace of President Museveni, whom he had been secretly working for years.
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