Uganda’s military takes centre stage in Museveni succession

By Willis Okumu Senior Researcher, East Africa Peace and Security Governance Programme, ISS Nairobi

Uganda's January elections, which handed President Yoweri Museveni, 81, a seventh term, have heightened political debate over his succession. Government and opposition actors have positioned themselves as potential successors, with Museveni's son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, military chief of the Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces (UPDF), the apparent front-runner.

Since Uganda's independence in 1962, power has never changed hands through voting. From 1962 to 1980, no elections were held. From 1979, a military commission that ruled the country organised polls for December 1980. These were disputed, leading to political contestation through guerrilla warfare until Museveni marched into Kampala in 1986 to claim the presidency.

Uganda was governed by a single-party system under Museveni from 1986 to 1996. Since the introduction of multiparty elections in 1996, Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) have won every poll.