By Aggrey BabaFor a political party that gathered its MPs, councillors, senior leaders and grassroots foot soldiers at its Kavule headquarters on Wednesday to celebrate the return of one of its most senior officials from months of detention, the National Unity Platform’s (NUP) failure to directly confront Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba was one of the most striking features of the gathering.The occasion was supposed to be about welcoming NUP Deputy President for Buganda Muwanga Kivumbi, who walked back into the political arena after months in custody, alongside other recently released NUP supporters including Anthony Agaba alias Bobi Young and Sauda Madada.Yet beneath the celebrations, speeches and familiar calls for democracy, rule of law and political freedom, there was another question hanging over the gathering, of ‘how would NUP respond to the rapidly growing political project around Muhoozi, who has openly declared his intention to contest for President in 2031?’Muhoozi announced last month that he would seek Uganda’s presidency in 2031, while Kasambya County MP David Kabanda subsequently announced that his (Muhozi) father had sanctioned his son’s bid. The claim about Museveni’s backing was made publicly by Kabanda and has since been followed by a widening endorsement campaign involving NRM and PLU members.That political development would ordinarily have been difficult to ignore at a gathering of NUP leaders who have spent years positioning themselves as the principal opposition to the Museveni establishment.But on Wednesday, speaker after speaker picked the microphone and concentrated on other battles.Ssenyonyi spoke about the “spirit of fear”, insisting that Uganda must reach a point where holding a different political opinion is not treated as a crime, further challenging those who describe themselves as freedom fighters to explain why they should fear criticism or political opposition, arguing that NUP would continue performing its role of checking government whenever it believed those in power were doing wrong.His remarks were hard-hitting, but even there, Muhoozi’s name did not feature.Nambeshe, the NUP Acting President and Manjiya MP, went down another road, telling the gathering that the imprisonment of NUP supporters had failed to destroy their spirit.“You can imprison a human body, but not a human spirit,” he said, arguing that the idea of change could not be locked away with the people who carry it.He later turned his attention to NUP MPs and candidates still fighting election petitions in court, urging them to remain focused and confident that justice would eventually prevail. Again, no direct Muhoozi confrontation.Then came Kivumbi himself.Fresh from Kitalya and back before the NUP faithful, the man whose release had brought the gathering together delivered perhaps the most philosophical speech of the afternoon.He reminded the audience that political opponents are not enemies, insisting that NUP simply has a different vision for Uganda. Muwanga called for political competition based on persuasion rather than imposition and compared democracy to a garden of roses in which every rose should be given the opportunity to germinate, grow, blossom and flower.He also called for constitutionalism, fairness and good governance, saying that NUP was not merely fighting corruption but what he described as bad governance in its broader sense.But even as he spoke about political competition and constitutional government, he did not directly name Muhoozi.The most revealing moment perhaps came from NUP Deputy President for Western Uganda, Jolly Jacklyn Tukamushaba, who, rather than naming Muhoozi, warned NUP MPs to caution their colleagues in the NRM against what she described as “bleaching” the Constitution they had sworn to uphold.She particularly took issue with politicians signing books to endorse an individual for the presidency when, in her argument, that person was not yet eligible to contest.The reference was not difficult to decode.At a time when endorsement books are being circulated across the country in support of Muhoozi’s 2031 presidential ambitions, Tukamushaba’s warning about endorsing an allegedly ineligible presidential aspirant amounted to the closest any of the NUP speakers came to addressing the Muhoozi question.But even she stopped short of putting the General’s name into the record. That silence is difficult to separate from the changing political environment around the first son.The PLU and sections of the NRM have been openly mobilizing support for his 2031 ambitions. NRM MPs in Buganda have endorsed him, PLU structures in different regions have launched endorsement drives, and even senior figures outside the immediate PLU structure have publicly backed his potential candidacy, making the political message coming from that side increasingly explicit. At Kavule, however, the response remained largely indirect.This is what made Wednesday’s gathering particularly interesting.NUP leaders were not short of words. They talked about political persecution, detention, freedom of expression, constitutionalism, the rule of law, democracy, corruption and the judiciary.Nkunyingi, who arrived late as Kivumbi was delivering his final address, subsequently went further in speaking to journalists, alleging that some released NUP supporters had been coerced, through duress or prolonged detention, into accepting or conceding to crimes they did not commit. He also challenged the judiciary over pending constitutional and human-rights cases, arguing that Ugandans must be free to speak against injustice.His intervention widened the discussion from individual detainees to the broader question of Uganda’s constitutional order.Yet even after all these interventions, the name that many would have expected to hear remained largely absent. That is where Wednesday’s gathering leaves an intriguing political picture.NUP clearly sees the wider questions of constitutionalism, political competition and the right to dissent as central to its struggle. Kivumbi spoke about fair competition. Ssenyonyi spoke about opposition and criticism. Nambeshe spoke about the spirit of change. Nkunyingi spoke about constitutional rights, and Tukamushaba warned NRM MPs against undermining the Constitution.But when it came to the man whose political ambitions have suddenly become one of the biggest succession stories in Uganda, the party’s leaders appeared to speak around the subject rather than directly at it.Tukamushaba’s intervention was therefore significant precisely because of what she did not say. Her warning about MPs endorsing an allegedly ineligible presidential aspirant was, in context, a clear constitutional argument against the emerging endorsement campaign without directly naming the person at the centre of it.That leaves the impression of a party willing to attack the principle, but still cautious about confronting the individual. And perhaps that was the real story at Kavule on Wednesday.Muwanga Kivumbi had returned from detention to a crowd determined to demonstrate that incarceration had not killed its political spirit.NUP leaders were bold in talking about fear, dissent, political competition, constitutionalism and freedom.But when the conversation moved close to the rapidly rising Muhoozi project, the language suddenly became more careful. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).