By Adonis Byemelwa
On the eve of Uganda’s 2021 presidential election, few observers doubted the likely outcome. Whatever the ballots revealed, Yoweri Museveni would almost certainly be declared the winner. A climate of repression, the routine use of state violence, allegations of vote manipulation, and an unprecedented internet shutdown had already shaped the terrain. When Museveni was announced as victor for a sixth consecutive term, it surprised almost no one.
Five years later, as Uganda heads toward the 15 January 2026 election, the same assumption hangs in the air. However, to conclude that Ugandan politics have stagnated would be a mistake. Beneath the surface of apparent continuity, the political ground has shifted in important and revealing ways, within the opposition, inside the ruling party, and around the unresolved question of succession in a post-Museveni Uganda.
State repression remains a defining feature of the political landscape, but repression alone does not explain why power remains so fiercely guarded. Museveni, now in his eighties, governs not only as a man who has ruled for nearly four decades, but as one whose personal survival, legacy, and family interests are deeply entangled with the state itself.
In this respect, Uganda fits a broader regional pattern. As the late Tanzanian political theorist Issa Shivji once argued, long-serving African rulers often come to fear elections not because they might lose office, but because losing office threatens everything that has accumulated around power: wealth, immunity, networks of loyalty, and historical narratives carefully constructed over decades.
This helps explain why even leaders with formidable reputations, Museveni in Uganda or Paul Kagame in Rwanda, remain deeply anxious about political exit. Scholars such as Mahmood Mamdani have long noted that when liberation movements transform into ruling parties, the state becomes personalised.
Power ceases to be temporary stewardship and instead becomes existential. Stepping aside is no longer a democratic act; it is a leap into uncertainty, vulnerability, and the possibility of retribution. In such systems, succession is not a neutral process but a high-stakes struggle over continuity, protection, and control.
Uganda’s opposition politics have evolved within this constricted space. Bobi Wine’s emergence since 2017 remains one of the most striking political developments of the past decade. A popular musician turned politician, he tapped into generational frustration with remarkable skill.
His story, from Kamwookya to global celebrity to political challenger, resonated deeply with young Ugandans who had known no other president. In a country where more than three-quarters of the population is under 35, his rise was not accidental; it was symptomatic.
Nevertheless, Bobi Wine’s significance lies not only in his popularity but in what his movement revealed. He showed that opposition politics could break beyond traditional party structures, ethnic alignments, and elite bargaining.
His National Unity Platform performed strongly even in areas long considered ruling-party strongholds, unsettling a regime accustomed to predictable electoral geographies.
As Kenyan political analyst Nanjala Nyabola has observed more broadly of youth-led African movements, their most significant threat to incumbents is not immediate victory, but their ability to disrupt the narratives that justify endless rule.
The regime’s response has followed a familiar script. As Bobi Wine’s appeal grew, so too did the violence directed at his supporters. The killings during the November 2020 protests were not an aberration but part of a broader logic of deterrence.
Opposition politics are tolerated only so long as they appear capable of translating popularity into power. Beyond that line, coercion becomes routine. Bobi Wine’s repeated arrests, physical abuse, and constant surveillance are not merely personal punishments; they are messages to anyone who might follow the same path.
This context also explains the continued suffering of Kizza Besigye. Often portrayed as a relic of an earlier era of opposition, Besigye remains symbolically dangerous to the Museveni system.
A former ally turned critic, he embodies betrayal from within, a far greater threat to personalised power than external dissent.
His repeated arrests, treason charges, and now his extraordinary rendition from Nairobi underscore a regime unwilling to allow even diminished challengers political space.
As Ugandan scholar Joseph Oloka-Onyango has argued, Besigye’s persecution reflects the regime’s fear of precedent: allowing one defiant opponent to survive politically invites others to persist.
At the same time, the opposition has not been immune to fragmentation, infiltration, and co-optation. Museveni’s political genius has always lain less in popular appeal than in his ability to neutralise rivals without banning them outright.
The co-optation of Democratic Party leader Norbert Mao into the cabinet, the implosion of the Forum for Democratic Change amid allegations of state financing, and internal rifts within the National Unity Platform all point to a deliberate strategy.
Divide, absorb, and weaken, preferably before the ballot is cast. Ghanaian political economist Eboe Hutchful once described this as “authoritarianism by accommodation,” a system that maintains pluralism in form while hollowing it out in practice.
Hovering over all of this is the unresolved question of succession. In recent years, attention has increasingly focused on Museveni’s son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
His rapid rise within the military, his increasingly political public persona, and the quiet sidelining of older party figures suggest careful groundwork rather than coincidence.
While the constitution formally bars serving military officers from political office, Uganda’s recent constitutional history demonstrates how malleable such constraints can be. The issue is not legality but timing and control.
What makes the succession question so fraught is precisely why leaders like Museveni fear leaving power in the first place. Succession is not simply about who rules next; it is about who controls the transition, who guarantees safety, and whose version of history prevails.
As South African political scientist Adam Habib has noted, negotiated exits require strong institutions. Uganda’s institutions, long subordinated to executive power, offer little reassurance to those who have ruled by bending them.
As recent elections in Mozambique and Tanzania have shown, even tightly managed electoral victories can unleash post-election instability, elite fractures, and widespread unrest. Winning the vote is no longer the final chapter. It is merely the beginning of a more uncertain phase.
In Uganda’s case, the ruling party’s victory in 2026 appears almost assured. What remains deeply uncertain is what follows: whether Museveni can choreograph a controlled succession, whether Muhoozi’s ascent consolidates or destabilises the regime, and whether opposition forces can survive long enough to shape the post-Museveni moment.
Uganda’s elections, then, are less about choice at the ballot box than about the slow, tense renegotiation of power in a system built to resist change. The tragedy, and the enduring resilience of Ugandan politics, lies in this contradiction: a population hungry for renewal confronting a political order that has made permanence its guiding principle.
