The National Female Member of Parliament for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), Laura Kanushu has advised voters in Uganda to enjoy handouts in form of money they receive from contestants but vote for leaders who will represent their views in Parliament.
“Money from different contestants is in circulation but eat it because you haven’t stolen it. When they come to you, listen to them and hear what they have to say. Have honest conversations within your hearts and vote wisely because the power is within you,’ Ms Kanushu said during a community dialogue on participation of persons with disabilities in electoral processes at Mestil Hotel in Kampala on December 18, 2025.
According to her, the quality of debate on the floor of parliament had deteriorated because it is flooded by politicians who bribed their way to the House.
‘I hear most of you complaining about your councilors, MPs and other leaders yet it is you who elect them. In Parliament, I don’t need money to speak. I need my mouth and brain. I normally tell voters that if you think I’m going to give you money to vote for me, you would be deceiving yourselves, expecting me to come back to get your views. The reason is that people will then know that you go to Parliament because of money. When you don’t see them coming back to your constituencies, they are collecting money to give you for the next five years,’ Ms Kanushu added.
Organised by the National Secretariat of special interest groups under the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), the meeting aimed at equipping persons with disability representatives with conflict analysis and mediation skills to manage local-level electoral disputes and strengthening participants’ ability to identify, monitor, and respond to hate speech and disinformation targeting PWDs, among other objectives.
The executive secretary of National Secretariat of special interest groups, Mr Osborn Turyasingura, said conversations affecting PWDs should have started earlier because of concerns that need to be addressed by the electoral commission and government.
‘Issues such physical access to polling stations are repetitive with every election cycle. There’s generalised information for the general public and little meant to communicate to PWDs such as sign language interpreters. Most electoral commission officials are not trained about handling PWDs and this infringes on their constitutional mandate and right to vote,’ Turyasingura said.
According to schedule three of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2020, categories of disabilities include physical disability caused by cerebral palsy, amputation of a limb, paralysis or deformity, hearing disability including deafness and hard of hearing disability, visual disability including blindness and low vision disability, deaf and blind disability, mental disability including psychiatric disability and learning disability, little people, albinism and multiple disability.
While making his keynote address about overcoming barriers to political participation of PWDs in the 2026 elections, Jeremain Keeya Mwanje, a Councillor at Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) advised the electoral commission to provide disability-friendly voter education facilities and materials but also carry out massive and timely mobilisation of persons with disabilities to participate in voter education, prior to elections.
‘Until we embrace information technology in voting processes, we cannot have a person with disability find out that the vote they cast is what was their choice. Involve institutions of persons with disabilities in voter education and make sure the education is taken closer to the homes of persons with disabilities,’ Mr Mwanje said.