The National Unity Platform (NUP), Uganda’s leading opposition party, has formally applied to join the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD), marking a major reversal from its longstanding position against the forum.

For years, NUP maintained it would never join IPOD, arguing that the platform had been turned into a tool for legitimising the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and President Yoweri Museveni’s four-decade rule.

However, the party softened its stance last year following amendments to the Political Parties and Organisations Act, which made membership of IPOD a prerequisite for political parties to receive government funding. As a result, NUP lost the approximately Shs 5 billion it had been receiving annually through the Electoral Commission.

Public funding for political parties is allocated according to their representation in Parliament, with the NRM historically receiving the largest share because of its parliamentary majority.

In a letter dated June 18, NUP secretary general David Lewis Rubongoya formally expressed the party’s intention to join IPOD, saying it was ready to sign the organisation’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) despite the absence of party president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.

Rubongoya requested the IPOD secretariat to allow acting party president Dr Lina Zedriga Waru to sign the admission documents on behalf of the party.

Kyagulanyi has been in the United States since shortly after the January 2026 general election, citing threats to his life. Rubongoya attached a letter in which Kyagulanyi extended Zedriga’s mandate as acting party president for another month.

“I write to formally express the National Unity Platform’s interest in joining the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue and signing the Memorandum of Understanding thereof. As stated in our previous correspondence, the party is committed to the principles, objectives, and obligations of IPOD as contained in the MOU,” Rubongoya wrote.

Rubongoya’s letter follows correspondence sent last week by IPOD executive director Dr Lawrence Sserwambala Kabagabe informing NUP that the Council of Secretaries General had accepted the party’s request to join the organisation.

Sserwambala, however, noted that although NUP had publicly expressed interest in joining IPOD, the secretariat had not received a formal written application.

“During its deliberations, the Council noted that, whereas the party has publicly expressed interest in joining IPOD, the secretariat has not received any explicit and formal written expression of interest but a writing that subtly conjectures the same from the party,” Sserwambala wrote.

He said that once the formal expression of interest had been received, NUP would be admitted at the next IPOD summit. However, Sserwambala said the IPOD Memorandum of Understanding requires the party president, in the presence of the secretary general, to personally sign the admission instruments.

“In accordance with the IPOD Memorandum of Understanding, the Council expects that the president of the party, in the presence of the secretary general, and not any delegated representative, shall personally execute the admission instruments and commit the party to the principles, objectives and obligations of IPOD during the signing ceremony.”

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