Outlook for 2011-12

• Presidential and parliamentary elections on February 18th could provide the greatest challenge yet to the president, Yoweri Museveni, and his National Resistance Movement (NRM), who have ruled Uganda since 1986.
• The popularity of Mr Museveni, along with the advantages of incumbency, should ensure that he wins more votes than his main rival, Kizza Besigye.
• There will be outbreaks of violence around election day, but Mr Museveni has total control of the Ugandan army and has strengthened his grip on the police force, which makes wider political instability unlikely.
• The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that real GDP growth will quicken to 6.3% in 2011 and 7% in 2012, owing to a pick-up in investment and external demand, but poor transport and energy infrastructure will limit expansion.
• Inflation is forecast to accelerate in 2011, owing to higher global food and fuel prices, and to remain high in 2012 because of looser fiscal policy.
• The fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP is forecast to narrow to 2.1% in 2010/11, owing to a one-off capital gains tax haul, before widening to 3.2% in 2011/12 as a result of weak domestic revenue growth.
• External imbalances will widen as import growth picks up, and we forecast a current-account deficit of 4.4% of GDP in 2011 and 6.2% of GDP in 2012.

Monthly review

• The NRM has been buoyed by the findings of three national opinion polls on voter intentions, all of which predicted wins for the president and his party, with the level of support for Mr Museveni measured at 65-67%.
• Around 300 independents have announced that they will stand in the parliamentary election. Most of these are affiliated to the NRM, which raises the risk that they will split the party vote and lose seats.
• An Afrobarometer poll has found that more than 70% of respondents expect there to be violence after the elections, and the US government has already warned its citizens against travelling in Uganda in the election period.
• The East African Community has started negotiations to establish a monetary union, but the current degree of macroeconomic convergence is insufficient for this to be sustainable and the target of 2012 is completely unrealistic.
• The government announced plans to release USh7.1bn (US$3.1m) in February as part of the second phase of the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund.
• The Uganda shilling fell to an all-time low of USh2,400:US$1 in mid-January. Political uncertainty, low export earnings and strong demand for US dollars in the energy sector contributed to this.

The president, Yoweri Museveni, and his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party will face serious challenges to their grip on authority, particularly around the time of the elections in February. Buganda, an area with a constitutional monarchy and a local parliament, which was previously a stronghold of NRM support, will feature prominently. Mr Museveni has tried to placate local sentiment by promising to devolve some powers to the regional level while maintaining control of the most important matters at the central government level. Whether this will be sufficient to mollify Buganda is questionable, especially as such promises fall far short of its aim of federo (an independent Buganda within a federal Uganda). There are strong regional concerns about obtaining a voice in government, and even within the NRM Mr Museveni faces criticism about the western bias in government.

However, the president and the ruling party are expected to maintain a reasonable degree of political stability, helped by improved economic circumstances. Inflation has fallen sharply over the past year, improving the purchasing power of households, and economic growth looks set to remain robust. Mr Museveni remains personally popular, particular in rural areas, and the NRM has a large financial advantage over opposition parties. Reforms in local government will appease some of those looking for the devolution of power. There will be outbreaks of violence around election day, but Mr Museveni has total control of the Ugandan army and has strengthened his grip on the police force, which makes wider political instability unlikely.

Presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for February 18th could provide the greatest challenge yet to the hegemony of Mr Museveni and the NRM, who have ruled since coming to power in 1986. Mr Museveni has dominated the Ugandan political scene for over two decades, yet the strongest opposition contender, Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change, could oust him at the polls if a number of factors fall into place. Regional pressures, particularly in Buganda, will deprive Mr Museveni of some support, and this will be compounded by a youthful population with poor job opportunities and little loyalty to the NRM. Moreover, a field of eight presidential candidates, some with a significant following, could prevent Mr Museveni from winning 51% of the vote, forcing a run-off against Mr Besigye, who could then unite the opposition behind him in an anti-Museveni vote.

However, even if Mr Besigye were able to increase his share of the vote from the 37% that he won in 2006, he would require free and fair elections to defeat Mr Museveni, and the playing field will not be level. Opposition parties, and even some donors, have complained about the preparedness of the Electoral Commission, and there have been "irregularities" in previous elections. Moreover, the descent into chaos of the NRM primary elections in August 2010, with widespread vote-rigging, ballot-stuffing and violence, suggests that voter intimidation will be rife in February. The opposition has also dealt itself a blow with the fragmentation of the Inter-Party Co-operation coalition as a result of the presidential ambitions of the party leaders. There is still an outside chance that one or more of the opposition parties could withdraw from the elections if they feel the electoral environment is too biased towards the NRM.

Mr Museveni is an astute political operator who has been winning power struggles with the opposition and within the NRM for more than 20 years, and the Economist Intelligence Unit expects him to win re-election in February. The NRM has had a growing problem in recent years with members who were defeated in primary elections running as independents, and we expect disaffected members running as independents to split the NRM vote, costing the party some seats to opposition candidates. However, we still expect the NRM to retain a majority in parliament.

The Ugandan government has sought to respond aggressively to the bomb attacks launched against the capital, Kampala, in July 2010 by al-Shabab, an Islamist insurgent group that opposes the UN-backed transitional government in Somalia. It has offered to supply troops to increase the African Union Mission in Somalia from current levels of around 8,000 to 20,000 personnel, but only if funding can be found. The most likely source is the US, but any increase is likely to bring troop levels only to around 12,000, far short of the numbers Mr Museveni would like to send. Uganda's porous borders and weak law enforcement are a cause for further concern, meaning that more bomb attacks are possible.

Relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan could worsen owing to the valuable natural resources in disputed border areas. Relations with the DRC have warmed but could deteriorate quickly, as they are vulnerable to changes in the Congolese political mood and disputes over oil resources in Lake Albert. Links with Sudan could come under strain given the recent volatile political environment, but the overwhelming vote in January in favour of secession in Southern Sudan could lead to a period of greater political stability.

Growing interdependence with the other four members of the East African Community (EAC)-Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda-will reduce the likelihood of animosity leading to outright diplomatic disputes. A common market came into operation in July 2010, but trade issues could cause occasional flare-ups. Meanwhile, relations with donors will be uneasy owing to concerns over corruption. However, donors will remain key contributors to the national budget, despite reducing by 15% the amount that they had planned to give through budget support in the current financial year.

Uganda has maintained a high level of macroeconomic stability and economic growth during the past 20 years, but it needs to tackle bottlenecks in transport and energy infrastructure to boost employment and poverty reduction significantly. The government recognises this; a National Development Plan, covering the period from 2010 to 2015, projects a large increase in infrastructure spending. It focuses on the energy sector, where plans include the building of an oil refinery, an oil distribution network and hydroelectric power projects that would increase energy production by 3,500 mw.

The advent of oil revenue will transform economic policymaking, posing challenges for the maintenance of macroeconomic stability and improved transparency in government spending, while placing greater pressure on poor public financial management systems. The full impact of this will not be felt until large-scale oil production begins (unlikely before 2012), although the government has already started to assert its economic independence with an increasingly belligerent stance on donor demands. Government rhetoric about boosting agricultural productivity will continue but progress will be slow. In better news, the introduction of an EAC common market in mid-2010 will reduce barriers to trade, labour and investment, and recent land reforms will improve security of tenure, increasing the scope for investment, though a proposed EAC monetary union will prove too ambitious.

Uganda's fiscal situation will receive a large fillip in fiscal year 2010/11 (July-June) from the capital gains tax accrued from the sale of stakes in two oil exploration blocks. This one-off payment will disguise an underlying deterioration in the fiscal balance resulting from otherwise slow domestic revenue growth and falling aid. Sluggish global growth will limit the increase in the value of trade, resulting in small rises in revenue from import tariffs, sales taxes and personal and corporation tax. In addition, donors have announced a 15% reduction in planned budget support in 2010/11 owing to government inaction on high-level corruption and concerns over governance. The deficit will be kept in check, as the government continues to spend less than it budgets owing to capacity constraints and delays on infrastructure projects. The deficit is forecast to fall from an estimated 3% of GDP in 2009/10 to 2.1% of GDP in 2010/11, owing to the one-off capital gains tax haul, before widening to 3.2% of GDP in 2011/12 as revenue growth remains weak. The government will increasingly use less concessional forms of finance to cover the deficit. It will draw further on domestic financing and may switch some of the fiscal burden to public-private partnerships and a domestic infrastructure bond.

We expect monetary policy to be fairly loose in 2011 as the Bank of Uganda (BoU, the central bank) continues to pursue policies that are conducive to economic growth. The interesting question will be how the BoU aims to loosen policy, as its recent attempts have been unsuccessful in reducing the stubbornly high interest rates charged by commercial banks. We believe that it will take a two-pronged approach. First, it will use the exchange rate to support economic growth, intervening to limit appreciation with the aim of maintaining the competitiveness of Ugandan exports. Second, we expect regulatory improvements to enhance the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. The long-term goal of reducing the spreads between interest rates will be helped by the planned development of the secondary market, which will bring greater competition. We expect monetary policy to be tightened in 2012 as worries over inflation rise and economic growth picks up.

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The economy will continue to expand at a reasonable rate, relying on the industrial and services sectors. We forecast a slight pick-up in real GDP growth from an estimated 6.1% in 2010 to 6.3% in 2011, before it accelerates to 7% in 2012 as foreign investment and regional demand rise. The performance of the agricultural sector, which accounts for a declining proportion of GDP but employs more than 70% of the labour force, will largely depend on weather conditions. Construction activity will be strong, driven by donor-funded and privately financed building projects. The energy sector will attract unprecedented amounts of investment, and construction work on an oil refinery and pipeline to the Kenyan coast is likely to begin during the forecast period. However, it will be several years before oil production in the country reaches targeted levels of around 150,000 barrels/day. Electricity shortages will be less frequent as expensive temporary thermal power is used to cover shortfalls, and 50 mw of the 259-mw Bujagali hydroelectric dam is scheduled to come on stream in October 2011, with full production scheduled for April 2012.

Uganda had a year of extremely low inflationary pressures in 2010, but the inflation rate is expected to pick up in 2011 and remain high into 2012. After falling for 13 consecutive months, inflation started to rise in November and accelerated to 3.1% year-on-year in December. Inflationary pressures will persist in 2011. Global food and oil prices are forecast to increase and this will have a large impact; food accounts for 27.2% of the consumer price index and any fuel price increase hits landlocked Uganda hard in terms of transport costs. The recent currency depreciation will also add to import costs. Given the low base rate in 2010 and the poor prospects for a repeat of that year's good weather, we forecast that inflation will rise to 9.5% in 2011. Growing demand from higher economic growth and a potential loosening of fiscal policy will see inflation remain high at 8.5% in 2012. There is a risk of higher inflation if food production is adversely affected by the unpredictable weather pattern.

We forecast that the Uganda shilling will continue to depreciate steadily in 2011-12, although it will fluctuate in line with seasonal trends and global financial market volatility. The shilling lost value in 2010 in a depreciation partly engineered by the central bank to improve the competitiveness of exports. We expect this to continue in 2011-12 despite some pressures to appreciate. Faster economic growth and strong inflows of foreign exchange from remittances and investment (boosted by interest in the oil sector) will support the currency, but they will be negated by loose fiscal and monetary policies. After a particularly steep fall in January, we expect the rate of depreciation to moderate when the political environment becomes more stable after the February elections. We forecast an exchange rate of USh2,303:US$1 in 2011, stabilising at around USh2,336:US$1 in 2012 as higher foreign investment and a tighter monetary policy boost confidence in the currency. A significant devaluation could occur if relations with donors were to worsen dramatically, if further bomb attacks were to damage the tourism industry or if there were large-scale violence around the time of the elections.

Uganda's external imbalances will widen in 2011-12 as import growth picks up. Export growth will be supported by regional trade; this accounts for more than one-half of total exports, and re-exports to Southern Sudan are increasingly important. Coffee export earnings should improve as the country increases production of the higher-quality arabica bean, which attracts a better price on world markets than robusta. The pace of import growth will quicken owing to growing capital imports for infrastructure projects (particularly in the oil sector). Import costs will outpace the growth in exports, and the nominal trade deficit will therefore widen in both years. Net current transfers will post a large surplus as donors remain engaged despite their many reservations. We forecast a current-account deficit of 4.4% of GDP in 2011 and 6.2% of GDP in 2012. This will be financed comfortably by a surplus on the financial account, particularly as foreign direct investment in the oil sector picks up.

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As the campaigns for the presidential and parliamentary elections reach a climax, the signs are that the president, Yoweri Museveni, and his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party are both heading for victory on polling day, February 18th. The NRM's candidates will have been buoyed by the findings of three national opinion polls on voter intentions, all of which predicted wins for the president and his party. While it would be foolish to give too much weight to any opinion poll in Uganda, a country where such surveys can be unreliable, all three polls carried out in November and December made similar predictions, lending them credence. In the presidential race, the polls put the level of support for Mr Museveni at 65-67%, with Mr Besigye the best of the rest at 12-19%. There is little evidence of much support, if any, for the other candidates.

Of the three polls, one carried out by Afrobarometer, an organisation that monitors public attitudes in Africa, with backing from several non-African government agencies, carries the most weight and provides the most interesting insights. The poll gave a regional breakdown of support levels, showing Mr Museveni well ahead in all areas of the country. The high level of support in the west (85%) was to be expected, as it is the president's home region, but he also scored 64% in the east, 49% in the centre, where Buganda opposition is greatest, and a remarkable 62% in the north, a region usually written off as totally alienated from the president and his party. If support for Mr Museveni is close to the level indicated by the polls, he will romp home to another term as president. However, there has been some controversy over one of the polls carried out by a research organisation called Synovate, the findings of which were published by the state-run newspaper, New Vision. The paper reported that the poll had been commissioned by the opposition but then suppressed when the results proved so disappointing. Both Synovate and the opposition parties have denied the existence of the poll, so it is unclear if the poll was merely NRM propaganda or another indication of an ailing opposition.

The predictions of these opinion polls chime with reports of growing confidence in the NRM camp and dissention within the ranks of the opposition parties, marked by desertions to the ruling party. In an important development, the NRM leadership has softened its stance on the issue of independent party candidates, who are normally in alliance with the NRM, standing against official party candidates. There are around 300 independents standing in the parliamentary election and most of these are affiliated to the NRM, which raises the risk that they will split the party vote and lose seats. The party's election task-force has reportedly received instructions from the leadership to work with the independents, as far as possible, in order to keep the opposition out. Part of the reasoning for this softening stance is that many of the independents have legitimate complaints about the lack of fairness in the primaries (October 2010, The political scene). However, despite the conciliatory noises from the party's hierarchy and press reports of several independents withdrawing from the elections, it seems likely that a number of official NRM candidates will lose, and that there will be cases where opposition candidates will benefit from a split NRM vote.

Meanwhile the influence of the Inter-Party Co-operation (IPC) coalition has been weakened by the decision of the second- and third-largest opposition parties, the Uganda People's Congress and the Democratic Party (DP), to remain outside the alliance and campaign independently. The IPC thus only consists of the Freedom for Democratic Change party and three smaller parties-the Conservative Party, the Justice Forum (JEEMA) and a southern DP faction opposed to Norbert Mao's leadership of the party. The IPC has been dealt a further blow over the crucial issue of federo-the mainly Buganda-supported desire for regional autonomy within a federal structure. Federo is being pushed as an election issue by a Buganda political group known initially as Ssubi 2011 but now calling itself IPC Buganda, which is unhappy about the lukewarm support given to its aims by the IPC presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye. Mr Besigye knows that federo is not popular outside Buganda and has toned down his campaign speeches accordingly, to the chagrin of those in IPC Buganda.

While it appears increasingly likely that Mr Museveni and the NRM will retain their political stranglehold in the next parliament, it is far less certain that the election will pass off peacefully. One of the more sobering findings of Afrobarometer's poll was that more than 70% of respondents expect there to be violence after the elections; the US government has already warned its citizens against travelling in Uganda in the election period. The risk is that the opposition parties refuse to accept the results and resort to violence, perhaps encouraged by the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The signs are ominous: in the past Mr Besigye has intimated that he would be prepared to lead a bush war against Mr Museveni, and he has stated that he will make his own declaration of the result of the presidential election ahead of the official announcement from the Electoral Commission (EC). He claims, not without grounds, that the EC is biased towards the president and that it cheated him out of victory in 2006. If the EC version of the 2011 result turns out to be less generous to Mr Besigye than his own version, violence could ensue.

Another possible source of violence comes from extreme Buganda nationalists, who will see their dream of an independent Buganda disappear for at least another five years if Mr Museveni triumphs. They have already been enraged by the passing in 2009 of a land law that gave more rights to tenants but which some in Buganda see as encroaching on the king of Buganda's territory, as well as by the authorities' refusal to allow the king to attend a cultural ceremony in Kuyunga in 2009 (November 2009, The political scene). They were recently given further cause for complaint with the parliamentary passage of the Institution of Traditional and Cultural Leaders Bill. This bill was intended to flesh out provisions relating to cultural leaders in article 246 of the constitution, but some in Buganda claim that it is a further attempt by the government to undermine the position of their king. The importance of the Buganda vote can be gauged by Mr Museveni's decision to end his campaigning there in a mass rally two days before polling day. While there is a high chance of post-election violence, the Economist Intelligence Unit expects that Mr Museveni's strong grip on the police and army will result in a tough crackdown, ensuring that such protests will be brief, if bloody.

The East African Community (EAC) announced the start of negotiations on January 14th that could eventually create a protocol to establish an East African Monetary Union. The announcement follows the publication of a report last year, prepared by both the EAC and the European Central Bank (ECB), which looked at the ability of the three largest EAC countries-Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania-to move towards a monetary union. This argued that while the EAC member governments have shown a strong degree of political resolve to form a monetary union, the reality is that they are not ready in purely economic terms. In particular, the degree of macroeconomic convergence required was insufficient for a sustainable monetary union. As such the report argued that the target of achieving a monetary union by 2012 is completely unrealistic.

In the interim, the three governments have signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow the official use of any of the three shillings in any other member country. The extent to which this takes off will be keenly watched by policymakers, but at the start it is likely to be very limited in use outside the border areas, where the reality is that shops already take currencies from both sides of the border. In major urban areas, the key to any take-up will be the number of shops and businesses prepared to accept multiple currencies and the exchange rates used to convert existing prices. If many shops and businesses do not participate, or offer poor exchange rates in an effort to recoup the higher costs of dealing in multiple currencies, the move will have little impact.

While the ECB report highlighted that the economic convergence between the three countries is currently insufficient to be promising for a currency union, it noted that the political commitment is strong. However, although the governments of landlocked, open economies such as Uganda and Rwanda may see the advantages of a common currency and its role in boosting trade, we are less convinced of the Tanzanian government's commitment to relinquishing sovereignty over its currency, as required for a full monetary union. While steps such as accepting other East African currencies as payment and requesting studies on the way forward are simple, it will be a much more difficult challenge to get all five members to sign up to a monetary union.

Meanwhile, the five EAC member states have been rushing to meet a revised deadline for harmonising domestic commercial laws with those of the common market introduced in mid-2010. The original deadline for supporting legislation to be in place was put back from August 31st to December 31st. The chairperson of the EAC's council of ministers, Hafsa Mossi, said that the deadline had been missed "on account of unforeseen logistical problems". However, the truth is that Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and-to a lesser extent-Rwanda have been reluctant to remove administrative barriers because of fears that domestic producers would be unable to compete with cheaper goods from Kenya. The East African Business Council, a business lobby group, recently reported a surge in illegally traded or counterfeit goods following the reduction of cross-border barriers, and has expressed concern that without strong control mechanisms in place this will escalate further in the common market. According to Ms Mossi, the identification of relevant domestic laws was completed last July, technocrats are drafting the necessary bills and she is optimistic that common ground will soon be reached despite the first two deadlines being missed.

In a move whose timing is not unrelated to the imminence of the presidential and parliamentary elections, the government plans to release USh7.1bn (US$3.1m) in February as part of the second phase of the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund. The fund forms part of the broader Peace, Recovery and Development Plan to promote the rehabilitation of northern Uganda, which was terrorised by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army for 20 years. The scheme directs funds to sub-counties in 30 districts, and gives community leaders the authority to identify suitable local projects to qualify for financing. It aims to support more than 10,000 projects by 2014. However, the scheme has been dogged by allegations of corruption: the second phase was launched in February 2010 amid accusations that some of the US$100m provided during the first phase had gone missing (March 2010, Economic policy). The World Bank announced plans to set up an office in the region to monitor the second phase of the programme, and disbursement of funds will be suspended to any district where corruption is discovered unless sufficient action is taken.

The weakness of the Ugandan shilling has become a matter of growing concern in recent weeks, and in January the Bank of Uganda (BoU, The central bank) started to sell foreign exchange aggressively in an attempt to stabilise the currency. The shilling depreciated by 15% during 2010, and though most of the losses came during the first half of the year, the downward trend quickened at the start of 2011 and the currency fell to an all-time low of USh2,400:US$1 in mid-January. The BoU has since adopted a more hardline policy stance; officials insisted in November that the bank was more concerned with currency volatility than with protecting any particular exchange rate. However, it made large interventions in the foreign-exchange markets in January, and officials now say that they would be happy with a rate below USh2,300:US$1.

Economic conditions have played a large role in the currency's weakness, but political uncertainty-with elections approaching on February 18th-has also been a large factor. According to the bank, the causes of the shilling's difficulties lie in a combination of uncertainty in global financial markets, low export earnings and strong demand for US dollars in the energy sector. The euro area's weakness has certainly had an impact on the shilling; the euro zone traditionally buys around one-quarter of the country's exports, and low demand there means that Uganda is earning less foreign exchange, adding to depreciation pressures. This has been exacerbated by slowing demand growth in Southern Sudan, a major destination of exports. In addition, donors have postponed aid disbursements, nervous that funds could be siphoned off for electioneering as voting approaches.

The stability of the currency over the next couple of years will be largely dependent on the oil industry and the manner in which the elections are held. Currency stability can only be achieved with a stronger balance-of-payments position-either through higher exports and inward transfers or lower import costs. This could be the trend in the medium term. Most significantly, the successful resolution of the tax dispute between the government and a UK-listed company, Tullow Oil, could enable intense investment in the energy sector, drawing in substantial foreign direct investment (FDI) and eventually providing a huge fillip to exports. Furthermore, aid and FDI inflows will increase if the elections pass off relatively peacefully; the political turmoil in Tunisia, which has spread to other countries in the Middle East and Africa, has certainly spooked some investors into investing in less risky assets elsewhere. Likewise, the secession of Southern Sudan could remove political uncertainty, adding to the perceived stability of the region and boosting cross-border trade.

While a stronger currency drives up import costs and causes inflation, it may be a necessary by-product of Uganda's current phase of development. Despite the optimistic export and foreign investment outlook, import costs will continue to grow, taking much of the foreign currency back out of the country and adding to pressure to depreciate. Uganda has been running a structural trade deficit for years; import costs have consistently outweighed export earnings and the difference has generally been covered by aid and investment. This scenario is not uncommon in developing countries that rely on external support, and could even be beneficial if the imports are being used to expand the economy's productive capacity. A good example of this is the high cost of imports needed to build the infrastructure necessary to extract the oil reserves in the Lake Albert region. In the short term this will worsen the trade balance, but over time imports will fall and exports will grow as the oil is extracted. This is an important lesson for the government to bear in mind, as the largest bottleneck preventing faster economic growth is the poor transport and energy infrastructure. Improving this would drive up import costs, which could weaken the exchange rate in the short run but would be to the long-term benefit of the economy.

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Please see graphic below

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Land area

197,000 sq km

Population

33.8m (2010, IMF mid-year estimate)

Main towns

Population in '000 (2010 estimates, World Gazetteer)

Kampala (capital): 1,514 Kasese: 93

Gulu: 216 Mbarara: 92

Lira: 182 Kitgum: 87

Jinja: 97 Mbale: 81

Climate

Tropical

Weather in Kampala (altitude 1,312 metres)

Hottest month, January, 18-28°C (average daily minimum and maximum); coldest month, July, 17-25°C; driest month, July, 46 mm average rainfall; wettest month, April, 175 mm average rainfall

Languages

English, Swahili, Luganda and other local languages

Measures

Metric system

Currency

Uganda shilling (USh)

Time

3 hours ahead of GMT

Fiscal year

July 1st-June 30th

Public holidays

January 1st; January 26th (National Resistance Movement Victory Day); March 8th (Women's Day); Good Friday; Easter Monday; Id al-Fitr; May 1st (Labour Day); June 3rd (Martyrs' Day); June 9th (Heroes' Day); Id Adhuda; October 9th (Independence Day); December 25th; December 26th

Official name

Republic of Uganda

Form of state

Unitary republic

Legal system

Based on English common law and the 1995 constitution

National legislature

Parliament of Uganda; 319 members: 215 are elected by universal suffrage; the remainder represent special interest groups, including the army, women, workers, youth and the disabled; all serve five years

National elections

February 2006 (presidential and legislative); next elections are scheduled to take place on February 18th 2011

Head of state

President, elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term

National government

The president and his appointed cabinet; a new government was announced in May 2006, following the February elections; last reshuffle February 2009

Main political parties

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) dominates the political scene and has a large parliamentary majority; the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) emerged from within the NRM and is now the largest opposition party; the main traditional political parties, the Democratic Party (DP) and the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), have declined in popularity

President & commander-in-chief: Yoweri Museveni

Vice-president: Gilbert Bukenya

Prime minister: Apollo Nsibambi

First deputy prime minister & minister for East African affairs: Eriya Kategaya

Second deputy prime minister & minister of public service: Henry Kajura

Third deputy prime minister & minister of internal affairs: Kirunda Kivejinja

Key ministers

Agriculture, animal industries & fisheries: Hope Mwesigye

Defence: Crispus Kiyonga

Education & sports: Geraldine Bitamazire

Energy & minerals development: Hilary Onek

Finance, planning & economic development: Syda Bbumba

Foreign affairs: Sam Kutesa

Gender, labour & social development: Gabriel Opio

Health: Stephen Mallinga

Information & national guidance: Matsiko Kabakumba

Justice & attorney-general: Khiddu Makubya

Local government: Adolf Mwesigye

Security: Amama Mbabazi

Trade, tourism & industry: Kahinda Otafiire

Water & environment: Maria Mutagamba

Without portfolio: Dorothy Hyuha

Works & transport: John Nasasira

Central bank governor

Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile