Yvonne Mpambara

Yvonne Mpambara (born ) is a Ugandan lawyer and activist. In 2025, she announced her candidacy as an independent candidate in the 2026 presidential election, though she did not make the final ballot.

Early life and education Mpambara was born in Kanungu, a town in the Western Region of Uganda; she was raised in Kabale. Mpambara's father died when she was a child.

Mpambara attended Makerere University in Kampala, graduating with an LLB in law; she went on to obtain her postgraduate LLM from the University of East London in the United Kingdom. The Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 2 2017 was ultimately signed into law on 27 December 2017.

Presidential campaign On 26 August 2025, Mpambara announced her intention to run as an independent presidential candidate for the 2026 general election. Only three women had previously successfully ran as candidates for president, with none of them being elected. Of 15 women who signed an official expression of interest in running, only three, including Mpambara, gained enough signatures from voters to be considered as potential candidates for the official ballot published by the Electoral Commission of Uganda.

Mpambara's campaign advocated for inclusive governance, service delivery and legal reform, and stressed Uganda's status as a regional leader in East Africa. Mpambara criticised the government's use of resources and its laws impacting disadvantaged communities, including boda boda riders, women, young people, the disabled, veterans, farmers, artists, sex workers, gig economy workers and frontline medics. She cited laws restricting access to sexual and reproductive health services as leading to an increase in the number of teenage pregnancies. Mpambara used the hashtag "#ShiftThePower" to promote her campaign. Mpambara subsequently filed a complaint with the commission, describing the criteria for receiving approval as a candidate as being "unclear" and accusing security forces of sabotaging her attempts to gain signatures from a majority of Ugandan districts, a prerequisite for confirmation as an official candidate, which she stated caused her to lose "thousands" of signatures. The Electoral Commission did not uphold Mpambara's complaint, nor the complaints of other female candidates.

Following the end of her campaign, Mpambara wrote an article for the British newspaper The Guardian in which she reported that she had received harassment from men throughout her campaign, including being propositioned for sex, in addition to being smeared as a "Rwandan spy" and accused of having sex with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. She described the campaign as being "one of the most disrespectful periods of [her] life". Mpambara additionally criticised the Electoral Commission for only endorsing candidates from long-established political parties, stating that such parties did not give positions of power or authority to women, preventing them from running as official party candidates for the presidency.

Subsequent activism Following the culmination of her campaign, Mpambara created the Foundation for Female Presidential Aspirants, which aimed to support future female leaders in Uganda. She also expressed her intention to establish an all-female political party, the Women Freedom Fighters.