General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 51, has made no secret of his desire to succeed his father, who was declared winner of a seventh term as president on Saturday at the age of 81 in a vote declared a “sham” by the opposition.
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Kainerugaba, who is typically referred to by his first name in Uganda, was unusually quiet during the electoral campaign but returned to his habitually provocative online postings soon after the results.
“We have killed 22 NUP terrorists since last week,” Kainerugaba wrote on X, referring to the opposition National Unity Platform, led by Wine, the singer-turned-politician who came second in the ballot.
“I’m praying the 23rd is Kabobi,” he added, using his nickname for the opposition leader.
Wine has gone into hiding since the vote, accusing the security forces of raiding his home and attempting to capture him. His whereabouts have been unknown since Saturday.
“I’m giving him exactly 48 hours to surrender himself to the Police,” Kainerugaba wrote. “If he doesn’t we will treat him as an outlaw/rebel and handle him accordingly.”
In his own posts, Wine criticised Kainerugaba’s “threats to kill me” and demanded the military vacate his compound, adding: “My wife and people are not safe.”
– ‘Next president’ –
Many Ugandans enjoy the army chief’s outrageous posts — that last year included threats to behead Wine — and see him as the natural successor to his father, who has ruled the country for 40 years.
“He is my next president. He is a good man. I love him so much,” said Natasha Alinitwe, a 25-year-old supporter at a pro-government rally in Kampala on Saturday as the election results were announced.
Like many around her in the crowd, she was sporting a T-shirt with Kainerugaba’s face.
Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who seized power in 1986, made of point of doing press-ups on camera during the Covid pandemic.
Kainerugaba has often talked about taking over, and even announced in 2023 that he would run in the next presidential election.
“Enough of the old people ruling us. Dominating us. It’s time for our generation to shine,” he wrote at the time.
– ‘Project Muhoozi’ –
Kainerugaba studied at foreign military academies, including Britain’s prestigious Sandhurst, and was appointed head of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces in March 2024.
Analysts say this was a move by his father to curb his political ambitions after his 2023 announcement, later retracted, that he intended to run.
Discussing the succession is taboo.
Two newspapers and two radio stations were briefly shut down in 2013 after publishing a secret government memo about “Project Muhoozi”, reportedly about preparing his rise to power.
“President Museveni seems at times… to have given signals that his son will be the successor, but then to change his mind,” said Kristof Titeca, a Uganda specialist at Belgium’s University of Antwerp.
“A major reason is Muhoozi’s behaviour, or statements, which have been unpredictable and often quite radical,” he said.
UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima, wife of long-time Museveni critic Kizza Besigye, said her husband’s imprisonment was partly due to the president wanting to install his son.
Besigye faces the death penalty in Uganda for treason, charges widely condemned by international rights groups.
“(Museveni)has an agenda that Beisgye knows and opposes and that is to extend his dictatorship through his son,” she said.
“After this election, in the next five years, we are going to see him make every effort to prepare and to install his son as the next president of our country,” she said, describing Kainerugaba as a “loose cannon”.
Museveni’s brother, Salim Saleh, a former military officer, is seen in some quarters as a possible alternative to Kainerugaba, though he has been implicated in major corruption scandals in the past.
The coming weeks will be crucial, Titeca said, in seeing which of the two has the upper hand.