President Yoweri Museveni has launched the National Resistance Movement (NRM) campaign in the Buganda Sub-region, urging supporters to remain vigilant and make full use of strengthened electoral safeguards, including biometric systems, to protect their votes.

Speaking at Kasambya Town Council in Mubende District amid heavy rain on Monday, Museveni reflected on the NRM’s performance in the previous election, noting that the party lost an estimated 2.7 million votes in Buganda. He attributed much of that loss to failures in adequately protecting the vote.

The President reminded supporters that electoral malpractice has been a persistent challenge in Uganda’s politics since independence in 1962, warning that complacency has often allowed vote theft to undermine the people’s will.

“This time, the process has been strengthened through biometric systems to prevent manipulation,” Museveni said, referring to voter verification technologies designed to reduce multiple voting and other forms of fraud. He described the use of biometrics as a critical step in securing the integrity of the electoral process.

In simple terms, a biometric voting system works by using unique physical features of each voter—mainly fingerprints (and sometimes facial data)—to verify identity and prevent fraud during elections.

However, Museveni cautioned that technology alone is not enough. He called on NRM supporters to turn out in large numbers, cast their ballots, and actively protect the vote at polling stations to ensure that results reflect the genuine choice of the electorate.

“The lesson is vigilance,” he said, stressing that every supporter has a responsibility to participate and guard against any interference with the democratic process.

The Buganda Sub-region has traditionally been a key battleground in Ugandan elections, making the NRM’s renewed focus on voter mobilisation and vote protection central to its broader campaign strategy.