In January, Ugandans will head to the polls—formally to elect their president however in actuality to substantiate the inevitable. Yoweri Museveni, who has dominated since 1986, will win once more. This may mark his ninth time period in energy.
The election, in different phrases, is merely a backdrop. The true query now just isn’t whether or not Museveni will win however what comes after the 81-year-old dictator exits the stage. Together with his son consolidating energy, inside maneuvering inside the ruling celebration will finally decide who succeeds Museveni. However no matter kind that transition takes, it stays to be seen whether or not the regime can comprise the social forces it has lengthy tried to handle by way of repression and patronage.
Reminiscences of the run-up to Uganda’s 2021 elections stay recent. In November 2020, at the very least 54 individuals have been killed throughout protests following the arrest of opposition chief Robert Kyagulanyi, higher often known as Bobi Wine. The federal government itself acknowledged detaining greater than 1,300 individuals in reference to the elections. Unbiased investigations documented what number of have been kidnapped and tortured, most easily for being related to the opposition Nationwide Unity Platform (NUP). The message of all this was clear: Dissent carries insufferable prices.
Early indicators pointed to the identical trajectory once more this yr. In March, a by-election in Kampala’s Kawempe North constituency turned violent, with masked safety assaulting journalists and voters. Across the similar time, safety companies raided the NUP headquarters in Kampala a variety of occasions. The message once more appeared clear—elections have been going to be handled as a army train.
Then, to the shock of many, the violence didn’t develop. This was not an ethical awakening however a strategic adjustment. Within the Kawempe election, the ruling Nationwide Resistance Motion (NRM) candidate, Nambi Faridah, misplaced badly. She blamed her loss on the heavy-handed safety response, claiming that it had handed the opposition a “sympathy vote.” Quite a lot of reviews counsel that this prompted a quiet choice to keep away from the identical spectacle nationally.
However this restraint by no means meant that violence had vanished. If something, the risk remained omnipresent. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Museveni’s son and the pinnacle of the military, has this yr gone on a variety of X storms, threatening to behead opposition leaders and rework the military right into a “Killing Machine.”
And since the sooner quiet was tactical, it eroded shortly as soon as the marketing campaign heated up. In late October, arrests resumed on the marketing campaign path in northern Uganda. Ten NUP members have been detained and brought to court docket, whereas two senior NUP leaders fled the nation, citing threats to their lives. In early November, NUP groups arriving in two districts have been confronted by teams in yellow NRM T-shirts armed with sticks, resulting in clashes and arrests. No less than 95 NUP members have been subsequently charged with minor offenses reminiscent of visitors violations or obstruction of police. Since then, the crackdown has continued with additional arrests on the marketing campaign path.
These developments signaled a full return to acquainted ways. Two Kenyan activists disappeared for 38 days earlier than resurfacing; Museveni later argued that he had put them within the “fridge.” Days earlier, he warned that any try and protest—just like the lethal November 2020 demonstrations—would “find yourself badly.” And following a well-worn script, he cautioned overseas powers towards meddling in Ugandan affairs, singling out Europeans.
Behind this sample of repression lies concern over Uganda’s “ghetto youth”—a constituency the regime views as each a significant risk and an essential political prize. This time period has been used to explain the nation’s huge city underclass of boda boda riders, market distributors, and casual staff. Bobi Wine himself emerged from these neighborhoods and got here to personify their frustrations, turning his background right into a political platform that the ruling elite discovered deeply threatening. His attraction tapped right into a broader generational actuality: For these born beneath Museveni, the previous “liberation narrative”—the declare that he introduced peace, stability, and nationwide rebirth after years of civil warfare—carries little resonance. With a median age of 16, most Ugandans decide the regime not by its Nineteen Eighties legacy however by at the moment’s hardships: unemployment, corruption, poor public providers.
Bobi Wine’s 2021 marketing campaign remodeled these frustrations right into a political drive. The state responded with mass arrests, abductions, and surveillance. Since then, repression has been blended with co-optation: In 2024, in a significant corruption scandal, Mathias Mpuuga, the previous chief of the opposition in Uganda’s Parliament, admitted to accepting vital payouts. Though this transaction was technically sanctioned, it was extensively seen as a part of a broader sample of institutionalised, monetised corruption. On this context, a number of NUP MPs have defected to the ruling celebration. The federal government has additionally launched Financial savings and Credit score Cooperatives to supply small loans to constituencies such because the ghetto youth, who can obtain micro-credit schemes in Kampala and different cities. These schemes purchase loyalty, collect intelligence, and deter dissent. Accepting a authorities mortgage creates dependency; protesting dangers shedding it.
With Gen Z-led protests sweeping throughout Africa, the regime is doubling down on its mixture of carrots and sticks to regulate the ghetto youth. By means of these efforts, it has quickly blunted the potential for city unrest, but it surely has not resolved the underlying anger.
Time, nevertheless, can’t be co-opted or kidnapped. Museveni has at all times prided himself on his relentless power—touring rural areas on lengthy marketing campaign trails, lecturing voters for hours beneath the solar. This time, his slowing tempo betrays the load of his 81 years.
In early October, Museveni abruptly canceled a number of rallies, formally citing “state duties.” The euphemism fooled nobody. Additionally, later breaks from the marketing campaign have been interpreted as indicators of fatigue and declining well being. Throughout his endorsement ceremony in August, he theatrically jogged down a purple carpet to show vitality—a gesture that solely underscored the priority. For the primary time, different celebration actors—each bigwigs and youth teams—are instantly campaigning for Museveni, taking on his bodily demanding marketing campaign rallies.
In a system constructed nearly completely round one man, even minor indicators of frailty set off deep political tremors. Ministers, military officers, and celebration loyalists are positioning themselves for what comes subsequent.
Formally, Uganda’s establishments stay intact: a parliament, a cupboard, a ruling celebration. In observe, decision-making has lengthy shifted elsewhere. Museveni himself dismissed his ministers in 2021 as “fishermen,” a revealing metaphor that captured the hollowing out of governance. Actual authority now resides inside a good internet of relations and army loyalists.
On the middle of that internet stands Muhoozi. His rise has been rigorously managed—half dynastic mission, half insurance coverage coverage. The so-called “Muhoozi Challenge,” a long-debated plan to arrange him for succession, has moved in suits and begins.
Muhoozi’s public persona complicates the story. He’s identified for intense social media outbursts and provocative foreign-policy concepts reminiscent of conquering the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. But, in current months, he has gone conspicuously silent. Many interpret this as tactical self-discipline, an effort to keep away from difficult his father through the marketing campaign.
Behind the scenes, nevertheless, Muhoozi’s affect is rising. His loyalists have been promoted throughout the army hierarchy, whereas older “historicals” from the unique Nineteen Eighties guerrilla motion have been sidelined. Every reshuffle is learn as a sign: The transition is being choreographed quietly inside the barracks, not debated in Parliament.
However the army is just one area the place the succession is taking form. One other, much less seen however equally consequential, is contained in the ruling celebration itself. Whereas the presidential vote is a foregone conclusion, elections to the Central Government Committee (CEC), the NRM’s highest decision-making physique, supply a glimpse into how energy in Uganda really works. Seats on the committee carry proximity to Museveni himself and by extension to the contracts, appointments, and favors that maintain the regime—in addition to a stake in shaping no matter transition comes subsequent.
In consequence, this yr’s CEC elections have been significantly essential. Bribes reportedly ranged from $260 to $1,300 per delegate, whereas candidates provided jobs for family members, enterprise alternatives, and even overseas journeys in trade for assist. In one of the vital contested votes, delegates have been ferried to accommodations in Kampala and neighboring nations, each to safe their loyalty and to maintain them out of attain of competing bidders.
The CEC elections laid naked the true dynamics of succession politics. Although formally an inside celebration train, these contests decide who can be finest positioned in a post-Museveni order.
Museveni’s regime, like many long-standing autocracies, not competes with outsiders; it competes with itself. Its elections are usually not about legitimacy however about calibration—deciding tips on how to distribute spoils with out destabilizing the pyramid.
That pyramid, nevertheless, is wobbling. The president’s age, the rising assertiveness of his son, and the deepening financial grievances of the younger majority make for a risky combine. The regime’s stability rests on its capability to handle a transition with out shedding management, to go energy with out unleashing the very forces it has spent a long time suppressing.
For Museveni, grooming his son for the position provides a solution to protect household energy whereas reassuring the military of continuity. However it’s a dangerous guess: Hereditary succession may fracture the fragile coalition that has sustained his rule. Many Ugandans, together with inside the NRM, see it as dynastic overreach.
What occurs after the 2026 election will due to this fact outline the way forward for Uganda’s political order. If Muhoozi’s allies dominate the subsequent cupboard or the celebration’s key committees, the handover might have begun. If not, the regime might limp on, awaiting a disaster to drive its reckoning.
For now, the president’s marketing campaign focuses on acquainted guarantees—“wealth creation,” “peace,” “stability.” The city poor obtain token loans; the military receives new tools; and the elite scrambles for entry to the internal circle. Ugandans know this election won’t change something. The result’s sure; the succession just isn’t. That uncertainty—who governs after Museveni and on what phrases—hangs over the nation like humidity earlier than a storm.
