Uganda's octogenarian president seeks to extend four-decade rule

Fred Ojambo, Bloomberg News on Jun 28, 2025

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Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni is seeking nomination as the ruling party’s presidential candidate for the upcoming elections in January, in a bid to extend his four-decade grip on power, which human rights groups say has been characterized by the suppression of political opposition.

Museveni, 80, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, picked up nomination forms to run as the National Resistance Movement’s candidate and its chairman to push for economic development, Sandor Walusimbi, his spokesman said on X.

The former rebel leader has previously said that he plans to grow the Ugandan economy tenfold to $500 billion by 2040 by focusing on agro-industrialization, tourism, mineral-based industrialization, including oil and gas, and science and technology.

Gaining power after a five-year guerrilla war in January 1986, Museveni has won five consecutive elections. The results of most of the votes have been disputed.

Museveni, who is an ally of the U.S., has been accused by the opposition and human rights groups of repression. His main challenger in the 2006, 2011 and 2016 elections, Kizza Besigye, is incarcerated on treason charges after he was abducted from Kenya in November. He has denied the charges.

Ugandan pop star-turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi, who goes by the stage name Bobi Wine, was Museveni’s biggest challenger in the 2021 election. At least 54 people were killed in riots after Wine was arrested in the run-up to the polls, whose results he had rejected.