Igara West Member of Parliament, Louis Gaffa Mbwatekamwa Rukamba, has been disqualified from contesting in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party primaries for Mbarara City Mayor, with the party citing serious concerns over residency and alleged fraud.
According to Enoch Barata, Head of the NRM Legal Department, the decision was not based on Mbwatekamwa’s claims about lacking a land title in Mbarara but rather on irregularities in his party registration details.
While acknowledging Mbwatekamwa’s history of shifting constituencies—from Kasambya in Mubende, to Igara West, and now to Mbarara—Barata clarified that geographical movement alone does not disqualify a candidate. The essential requirement, he stressed, is being validly registered in the NRM register of the area one intends to contest in.
Investigations by the party revealed that as of the March 2024 update of the NRM register, Mbwatekamwa was officially listed as a resident of Gongo Village, Kyamuhunga Sub-county, Bushenyi District. This status was confirmed when he picked up a nomination form on June 10, 2025, and was issued a voter identification slip confirming his Bushenyi residency.
However, later that same day, he allegedly bribed a data entry official to fraudulently alter his party registration records, making it appear as though he had transferred his registration to Mbarara City. The case of alleged bribery is currently under internal review by the party.
Barata also cited Section 129 of the Local Government Act, which mandates that a candidate for district or city chairperson must be “ordinarily resident” in the area they wish to represent—a standard that is stricter than that for parliamentary elections.
A red flag was raised when Mbwatekamwa submitted his nomination documents, prompting a deeper probe by the NRM secretariat. Findings showed that the party’s internal systems had a cut-off date of January 2025 for registration updates, by which time Mbwatekamwa was still listed under Igara West.
Additionally, during the NRM village-level elections held on May 6, 2025, he neither participated in the Mbarara process nor raised any objections during the auditing of registers used to verify residency. Hard-copy registers from both Bushenyi and Mbarara confirmed his continued registration in Gongo Village, with no corresponding entry in Mbarara.
Most damning was evidence from the NRM digital systems, showing that his name was “irregularly and fraudulently inserted” into the Mbarara register just after midday on June 10, 2025—the same day he collected nomination forms.
“Mbwatekamwa knows the law very well,” Barata stated, dismissing claims that the disqualification was due to a lack of property ownership in Mbarara. “The disqualification was based on our investigations and the applicable laws.”
With Mbwatekamwa now deemed ineligible to contest under the NRM ticket, the Mbarara City mayoral primaries—scheduled for July 16, 2025—will proceed with the remaining candidates, including incumbent Mayor Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi and businessman Seth Murari.
This clarification from the NRM comes just days before the nomination deadline of June 30, 2025, for both mayoral and parliamentary candidates.
