In January, Ugandans will head to the polls—officially to elect their president but in reality to confirm the inevitable. Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled since 1986, will win again. This will mark his ninth term in power.
The election, in other words, is merely a backdrop. The real question now is not whether Museveni will win but what comes after the 81-year-old dictator exits the stage. With his son consolidating power, internal maneuvering within the ruling party will ultimately determine who succeeds Museveni. But whatever form that transition takes, it remains to be seen whether the regime can contain the social forces it has long tried to manage through repression and patronage.
Memories of the run-up to Uganda’s 2021 elections remain fresh. In November 2020, at least 54 people were killed during protests following the arrest of opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine. The government itself acknowledged detaining more than 1,300 people in connection with the elections. Independent investigations documented how many were abducted and tortured, most simply for being associated with the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP). The message of all this was clear: Dissent carries unbearable costs.
Early indicators pointed to the same trajectory again this year. In March, a by-election in Kampala’s Kawempe North constituency turned violent, with masked security assaulting journalists and voters. Around the same time, security agencies raided the NUP headquarters in Kampala a number of times. The message again seemed clear—elections were going to be treated as a military exercise.
Then, to the surprise of many, the violence did not grow. This was not a moral awakening but a strategic adjustment. In the Kawempe election, the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate, Nambi Faridah, lost badly. She blamed her loss on the heavy-handed security response, claiming that it had handed the opposition a “sympathy vote.” A number of reports suggest that this prompted a quiet decision to avoid the same spectacle nationally.
But this restraint never meant that violence had vanished. If anything, the threat remained omnipresent. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Museveni’s son and the head of the army, has this year gone on a number of X storms, threatening to behead opposition leaders and transform the army into a “Killing Machine.”
And because the earlier quiet was tactical, it eroded quickly once the campaign heated up. In late October, arrests resumed on the campaign trail in northern Uganda. Ten NUP members were detained and taken to court, while two senior NUP leaders fled the country, citing threats to their lives. In early November, NUP teams arriving in two districts were confronted by groups in yellow NRM T-shirts armed with sticks, leading to clashes and arrests. At least 95 NUP members were subsequently charged with minor offenses such as traffic violations or obstruction of police. Since then, the crackdown has continued with further arrests on the campaign trail.
These developments signaled a full return to familiar tactics. Two Kenyan activists disappeared for 38 days before resurfacing; Museveni later argued that he had put them in the “fridge.” Days earlier, he warned that any attempt to protest—like the deadly November 2020 demonstrations—would “end up badly.” And following a well-worn script, he cautioned foreign powers against meddling in Ugandan affairs, singling out Europeans.
Behind this pattern of repression lies concern over Uganda’s “ghetto youth”—a constituency the regime views as both a major threat and an important political prize. This term has been used to describe the country’s vast urban underclass of boda boda riders, market vendors, and informal workers. Bobi Wine himself emerged from these neighborhoods and came to personify their frustrations, turning his background into a political platform that the ruling elite found deeply threatening. His appeal tapped into a broader generational reality: For those born under Museveni, the old “liberation narrative”—the claim that he brought peace, stability, and national rebirth after years of civil war—carries little resonance. With a median age of 16, most Ugandans judge the regime not by its 1980s legacy but by today’s hardships: unemployment, corruption, poor public services.
Bobi Wine’s 2021 campaign transformed these frustrations into a political force. The state responded with mass arrests, abductions, and surveillance. Since then, repression has been blended with co-optation: In 2024, in a major corruption scandal, Mathias Mpuuga, the former leader of the opposition in Uganda’s Parliament, admitted to accepting significant payouts. Although this transaction was technically sanctioned, it was widely seen as part of a broader pattern of institutionalised, monetised corruption. In this context, several NUP MPs have defected to the ruling party. The government has also launched Savings and Credit Cooperatives to offer small loans to constituencies such as the ghetto youth, who can receive micro-credit schemes in Kampala and other towns. These schemes buy loyalty, gather intelligence, and deter dissent. Accepting a government loan creates dependency; protesting risks losing it.
With Gen Z-led protests sweeping across Africa, the regime is doubling down on its mix of carrots and sticks to control the ghetto youth. Through these efforts, it has temporarily blunted the potential for urban unrest, but it has not resolved the underlying anger.
Time, however, cannot be co-opted or kidnapped. Museveni has always prided himself on his relentless energy—touring rural areas on long campaign trails, lecturing voters for hours under the sun. This time, his slowing pace betrays the weight of his 81 years.
In early October, Museveni abruptly canceled several rallies, officially citing “state duties.” The euphemism fooled no one. Also, later breaks from the campaign were interpreted as signs of fatigue and declining health. During his endorsement ceremony in August, he theatrically jogged down a red carpet to demonstrate vitality—a gesture that only underscored the concern. For the first time, other party actors—both bigwigs and youth groups—are directly campaigning for Museveni, taking over his physically demanding campaign rallies.
In a system built almost entirely around one man, even minor signs of frailty trigger deep political tremors. Ministers, army officers, and party loyalists are positioning themselves for what comes next.
Formally, Uganda’s institutions remain intact: a parliament, a cabinet, a ruling party. In practice, decision-making has long shifted elsewhere. Museveni himself dismissed his ministers in 2021 as “fishermen,” a revealing metaphor that captured the hollowing out of governance. Real authority now resides within a tight web of family members and military loyalists.
At the center of that web stands Muhoozi. His rise has been carefully managed—part dynastic project, part insurance policy. The so-called “Muhoozi Project,” a long-debated plan to prepare him for succession, has moved in fits and starts.
Muhoozi’s public persona complicates the story. He is known for intense social media outbursts and provocative foreign-policy ideas such as conquering the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Yet, in recent months, he has gone conspicuously silent. Many interpret this as tactical discipline, an effort to avoid challenging his father during the campaign.
Behind the scenes, however, Muhoozi’s influence is growing. His loyalists have been promoted across the military hierarchy, while older “historicals” from the original 1980s guerrilla movement have been sidelined. Each reshuffle is read as a signal: The transition is being choreographed quietly within the barracks, not debated in Parliament.
But the military is only one arena where the succession is taking shape. Another, less visible but equally consequential, is inside the ruling party itself. While the presidential vote is a foregone conclusion, elections to the Central Executive Committee (CEC), the NRM’s highest decision-making body, offer a glimpse into how power in Uganda truly works. Seats on the committee bring proximity to Museveni himself and by extension to the contracts, appointments, and favors that sustain the regime—as well as a stake in shaping whatever transition comes next.
As a result, this year’s CEC elections were particularly important. Bribes reportedly ranged from $260 to $1,300 per delegate, while candidates offered jobs for relatives, business opportunities, and even foreign trips in exchange for support. In one of the most contested votes, delegates were ferried to hotels in Kampala and neighboring countries, both to secure their loyalty and to keep them out of reach of competing bidders.
The CEC elections laid bare the true dynamics of succession politics. Though officially an internal party exercise, these contests determine who will be best positioned in a post-Museveni order.
Museveni’s regime, like many long-standing autocracies, no longer competes with outsiders; it competes with itself. Its elections are not about legitimacy but about calibration—deciding how to distribute spoils without destabilizing the pyramid.
That pyramid, however, is wobbling. The president’s age, the growing assertiveness of his son, and the deepening economic grievances of the young majority make for a volatile mix. The regime’s stability rests on its ability to manage a transition without losing control, to pass power without unleashing the very forces it has spent decades suppressing.
For Museveni, grooming his son for the role offers a way to preserve family power while reassuring the army of continuity. But it is a risky bet: Hereditary succession could fracture the delicate coalition that has sustained his rule. Many Ugandans, including within the NRM, see it as dynastic overreach.
What happens after the 2026 election will therefore define the future of Uganda’s political order. If Muhoozi’s allies dominate the next cabinet or the party’s key committees, the handover may have begun. If not, the regime may limp on, awaiting a crisis to force its reckoning.
For now, the president’s campaign focuses on familiar promises—“wealth creation,” “peace,” “stability.” The urban poor receive token loans; the army receives new equipment; and the elite scrambles for access to the inner circle. Ugandans know this election will not change anything. The result is certain; the succession is not. That uncertainty—who governs after Museveni and on what terms—hangs over the country like humidity before a storm.
