Authoritarian micro-politics: village chairpersons in NRM Uganda and the lessons of their 2018 re-election

In July 2018, the office of village chairperson (Local Council 1/LC1) was contested throughout Uganda in open elections for the first time in almost two decades. These offices, central to the National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) famed decentralisation project in its early years in power, continue to have immense significance in the daily lives of most Ugandans. While their long-awaited re-election provides a worthy focus of study in its own right, this article uses the occasion to test a broader set of claims about the evolution of village chairpersons under the NRM, and how variations in their exposure to competitive politics fits into a broader strategy of regime consolidation since 1986. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2015 and 2017, the article will argue that LC1s should not necessarily be considered ‘illegitimate’ in the eyes of most citizens due to their long period without election before 2018, and that in many important respects they differ significantly from higher levels of local political office. Instead, it configures their place in the broader dominant party system, their main role in the maintenance of which is as symbolic as it is structural.