The year is closing and, in a few days, the campaign season will end as well. On January 15, 2026, Ugandans will vote for their next President and Members of Parliament. Having read through the manifestos I could get hold of, one thing stands out. None offers a bold or fundamentally different vision of Uganda’s future. President Yoweri Museveni promises to “Protect the Gains”, which is code for continuity and safeguarding achievements from his long rule. Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, offers a “New Uganda Now”. His manifesto materials speak of systemic change and a “reset”, painting Bobi Wine as the candidate for transformative “renewal”. Renewal and reset are partly about reverting to factory settings.
They might be at each other’s throats, but Museveni and Bobi Wine are possibly 55 percent in agreement, as neither is truly disruptive. They argue about who should drive the bus, not about where power should sit. That is why it might be helpful to revive an old idea and look at it afresh. Whoever wins should revisit “federo”, not the political federalism that triggers Ugandan republicans and unitarists who read it as Buganda exceptionalism, but federo as economic decentralisation. People who are many times cleverer than your columnist call it “market-preserving federalism” or “authoritarian decentralisation”. The essence is simple. Local units enjoy wide economic freedom, while the centre keeps firm political control.
Under such an arrangement, Museveni or Bobi Wine would retain the army, the flag, and the authority to appoint, promote, or dismiss officials. But regional and district leaders would operate like CEOs of competing regional firms, measured relentlessly by how fast and sustainably they grow their local economies. This idea is stolen from the Chinese book. Beijing appoints officials and tolerates little political dissent, yet provinces and cities operate under “hard budget” constraints. They must primarily fund themselves. They are allowed to experiment with market reforms, set local regulations and compete for investment. Provincial leaders were told that strong growth meant promotion, while stagnation meant dismissal.
The result was fierce competition. Local leaders built roads, cut red tape, and aggressively courted investors. That mix turned China from a mess of poor provinces with Beijing at the top, micro-managing every village, into a global economic power. Uganda does the opposite. We reward local leaders for delivering votes or displaying loyalty, not for opening factories in Gulu or improving health centres in Mbarara. Okay, China is far away in Asia, but here are some examples closer to home. Rwanda’s “Imihigo” system requires mayors to sign annual public performance contracts with the President. Promise 5,000 water connections and deliver 500, and your job is gone. Then there is Vietnam, which publishes a Provincial Competitiveness Index that ranks the ease of doing business in each province.
When investors follow the rankings, leaders in poorly ranked areas feel immediate pressure. Big men are forced to reform or risk the boot. Think of this as a “second-engine” strategy. If the national bus is stuck in a Kampala pothole because the driver is asleep at the wheel or the engine has failed, regions or districts should not sit helplessly at the back. They should have their own engines. Districts would retain a larger share of the taxes they generate. If Mbarara attracts a juice factory and earns an extra Shs1 billion, it should keep Shs500 million to fix roads or extend water systems, without waiting for approvals from the Treasury in Kampala. Northern Uganda has enough sun to power a small country, so Gulu province could invite a private Brazilian company to build a solar farm.
Since the power doesn’t have to travel from 500 kilometres away, there are no transmission losses. Because Gulu doesn’t have to pay for the national debt of a failing national electricity provider, the rates could be 40 percent lower, making it the cheapest place in East Africa to run a factory. Things would get very interesting in Gulu when the local government, sensing a good return on its investment, builds a bypass to speed up delivery times. The land next to the bypass becomes 10 times more expensive; Gulu could capture that windfall.
It would charge a “betterment levy” on the surrounding land, taking back a piece of the value the investment created rather than imposing levies on the sweat of ordinary people or their shops’ profits. Without this economic federo, Uganda will remain stuck in the Kampala mud. The country’s future lies in multiple competing hubs, each trying to outbuild and out-hustle the others. If I were a candidate, I would call it the “Competitive Pearl Strategy”. Then I would bring the “governor” of Gulu and appoint him Vice President, and the one from Mbarara, CEO of Uganda Airlines. I would sign a contract with her to break even in two years, or else…