Internet was once again buzzing Saturday after President Museveni’s son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba who has been mobilizing support ahead of 2026 presidential elections announced that he would not contest for the country’s highest office that has been occupied by his father for nearly four decades.
Gen Muhoozi who now serves as the Chief of Defense Forces (CDF), responsible for the administration and the operational control of the Ugandan military (Uganda People’s Defense Forces), has in the past two years been mobilising and assuring his supporters that he would replace his father come 2026 presidential elections, despite President Museveni’s public assurances that there was no such plan.
Uganda’s Constitution and the UPDF Act bar serving military officers from expressing political views until they are officially retired from the UPDF but Gen Muhoozi has been openly making political statements and addressing political rallies reportedly organised and funded by his supporters unhindered.
“I would like to announce that I will not be on the ballot paper in 2026. Almighty God told me to focus on His army first. So, I fully endorse President Yoweri Museveni in the next elections,” Gen Muhoozi posted on his X (formerly Twitter) handle in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
The presidential advisor special operations was controversially appointed CDF by his long-serving father on March 21, 2024, after commanding the UPDF land forces for three years. He replaced Gen Wilson Mbasu Mbadi, a career military officer who was appointed junior minister for trade, industry and cooperatives when Mr Museveni, a former guerrilla leader reshuffled his cabinet early this year.
In another tweet that followed about an hour after the declaration, the 50-year-old heir apparent to the presidency told his over 95,000 X followers that “for me, nothing on this earth is more holier than UPDF! So, I cannot think of a greater honour than being in UPDF. It is holy ground!! God bless holy UPDF and sacred Uganda forever” before warning that no civilian would lead Uganda after his ageing father, a former rebel leader who recently celebrated his 80th birthday.
But as social media users were still debating his posts, the controversial general, asked his “his millions of supporters,” especially mobilisers of his political pressure group, Patriotic League Uganda (PLU), to support Mr. Museveni, who plans to extend his grip on power in 2026.
“The future belongs to our mighty God alone, and we shall triumph in His name,” he posted before taking a swipe at foreign media houses whose journalists he described as “low-life” planning to pen opinions about his presidential ambitions.
“Now some ‘low-life’ foreign journalists are going to write op-eds in their Western papers saying ‘Museveni’s Son a Threat to Ugandan Democracy’. Egged on no doubt by internal and foreign enemies who want to enslave our country again. When we were fighting for Ugandan freedom in Teso, Lango, Bundibugyo, Garamba, Mogadishu, Juba, and Bor, those ‘fake lovers’ of Uganda were nowhere to be seen. Back then, for them, it wouldn’t have mattered if our impoverished country was destroyed forever. Now they perceive that there is profit to be made from our now prosperous nation. Fellow Ugandans, resisting the imperialists is a patriotic duty!” he posted.
