When I Cast My Vote, I Did So With a Quiet But Stubborn Hope of Freedom: Freedom From Homophobic Leaders!
Everything with a beginning comes to an end; even the strongest thunderstorms eventually settle. The year has barely begun, yet chaos already hangs over it. Another long ride? Maybe. But this too shall end.
On 15 January 2026, Uganda entered yet another electoral cycle. Citizens cast their votes for legislators and a president, leaders entrusted with steering the country for the next five years.
In Uganda, elections are meant to matter; they are moments when voters are given the chance to choose people who will amplify their voices at the national level. Too often, however, those very voices are trimmed down by the representatives elected to protect them.
On paper, this process is referred to as democracy, but in practice, it carries a deep contradiction. Leaders may be voted in and out, but the ideas rarely change. What voters are offered is not transformation, but recycling. Policies remain familiar, and so do homophobia and transphobia. The desire for fundamental change is reduced to routine.
During campaigns, peace, inclusivity, and human rights are loudly proclaimed. Candidates speak of rights in their totality, not just convenient ones, to appeal to everyone, including minorities. Yet this performance collapses the moment power is secured. The question of who voted and why quickly disappears. What takes precedence is party interest, ideology, and the soothing of egos. How tragic.
Human rights then become negotiable. People are whisked away, and silence follows. Corruption flourishes under the watch of those mandated to uproot it. The Constitution is bent, defiled, and weaponised against citizens, or against selected citizens. Democracy steadily loses its meaning, and voters are left waiting for the next election. What follows is a familiar circus: vote rigging, electoral violence, and scandal after scandal, a political farce by any honest name.
In a country where voting alone does not guarantee fair and depoliticised service delivery, one would expect human rights to remain untouchable. Instead, periods of political turmoil come with censorship and the erosion of individual freedoms. Parliamentary debates that should protect the rule of law now focus on punishing specific groups with draconian legislation, laws that neither improve governance nor advance public welfare.
The 1995 Constitution of Uganda states clearly that fundamental rights and freedoms are inherent, not gifts from the State. It is therefore disturbing that the same State, which relies on citizens’ votes, routinely ignores this truth and chooses instead to criminalise LGBTQ+ individuals. Our oppression is disguised as morality, a morality that rings hollow in a country where religion and politics thrive on hate and extortion, where corruption is the national anthem, and where the homes of politicians and religious leaders gleam brighter than public hospitals and schools.
In Uganda today, there is no crime more heavily punished than simply being LGBTQ+. Advocates, partners, sisters, brothers, and friends have been arrested, brutalised, and killed for who they are. Meanwhile, those who steal public funds are shielded by the same institutions that hunt queer bodies. The tragedy deepens under the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023, even as LGBTQ+ people continue contributing to the building of this country.
As a queer Ugandan voter, living amid engineered hatred from political and religious groups that preach love while nurturing contempt for minorities, elections are never just ceremonial. They are existential. They concern a voice upon which my life depends, my right to exist without prejudice, to be protected by the law without threats, and to experience equity without interrogation of my sexuality. When I cast my vote, I do so with a quiet but stubborn hope of freedom: freedom from homophobic leaders and violent laws.
It is fair to ask how we arrived here and why election outcomes matter so deeply to the LGBTQ+ community. Politics shapes policy, and policy shapes lives, even for those who claim to be apolitical. In the recently concluded elections, the LGBTQ+ community both won and lost. We lost legislators who stood firmly with us. But we also witnessed the defeat of several architects of our criminalisation.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was first introduced in 2009 by David Bahati, the then Member of Parliament for Ndorwa County West and now outgoing Minister of State for Trade. Bahati framed the LGBTQ+ community as a cultural threat, birthing a narrative that blamed “Western influence” for homosexuality. Yet historical accounts documented in the Anthropology of Contemporary Issues reveal that same-sex relations and alternative gender roles have existed across African societies for centuries. The claim that queerness is foreign rests not on truth, but on selective ignorance.
Despite legal challenges from human rights lawyers and condemnation from the international community, Bahati persisted. That he lost his parliamentary seat in this election brings a quiet sense of vindication for many queer Ugandans, even as the law he championed remains in force.
The elections also removed Sarah Achieng Opendi, the former Woman MP for Tororo District, who lost to Angela Akoth. While debating the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2023, Achieng infamously suggested that “homosexuals” should be castrated. Her remarks were driven not by logic or ethics, but by cruelty. Inclusivity, an essential duty of any legislator, was absent from her politics. Her exit from the 12th Parliament feels like a narrow escape from even harsher legislation.
Another notable loser is that of Asuman Basalirwa. It was Basalirwa who moved the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, arguing that homosexuality constituted a “human wrong.” With the backing of Speaker Annet Anita Among, the bill passed, further criminalising same-sex relations that were already outlawed under colonial-era penal codes.
These losses echo the political disappearance of Fr. Simon Lokodo who served as Minister for Ethics and Integrity as well as his predecessor James Nsaba Buturo. Lokodo relentlessly targeted LGBTQ+ communities, most notably in 2012 when he led a police raid on a gay activists’ workshop. He once declared, “We do not accept homosexuality in Uganda.” Lokodo lost his parliamentary seat in 2021 and Buturo in 2011.
Yet the elections also delivered painful losses to us as well. We lost one of the rare allies in Parliament, Honourable Fox Odoi Oywelowo of West Budama North-east. Fox was one of only two MPs who voted against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023,signed the minority report opposing it and went on to contest its legality in court.
For his courage, Fox was mocked and accused of promoting “Western immorality.” In an interview with OpenDemocracy, he explained his stance simply: “You cannot claim to be a human being if you do not respect human rights.” Throughout his career, Fox consistently challenged unjust laws, including advocating for the abolition of the death penalty in both Parliament and the Constitutional Court.
Everything with a beginning comes to an end. Storms pass, even when they linger. Elections may recycle power and reproduce harm, but they also expose fractures in systems built on hate. As queer Ugandans, we continue to vote, to exist, and to insist on our dignity. Another long ride? Perhaps. But this too shall end.
