If a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson, one of the UK’s former Prime Ministers, famously remarked, five years are probably a century—and can change a lot of things.
In five years, Uganda will hold its next presidential election, and many Ugandans are saying that opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, could run for president for a third time since he is still young.
In the January 15 election, he won just 24.72% against President Museveni’s 71.65%. Bobi Wine called the results “fake”. While he remains popular, he has to contend with two stumbling blocks. In fact, one of them strongly suggests he may never become president.
And that is something many of his supporters would struggle to come to terms with. He, after all, is their political messiah and has had to grapple with seemingly insurmountable challenges, some of which have brought him dangerously close to death.
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Top on the stumbling blocks list is Mr Museveni’s son, who is also the head of the army, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba. Gen Kainerugaba has been at the forefront of demoralising Bobi Wine. He reportedly ordered the arrest of Eddie Mutwe, his bodyguard. As Eddie Mutwe’s daughter appeared on social media in tears over her father’s detention, Gen Kainerugaba shocked the country by callously announcing that he was holding him in his basement.
The disclosure was made on social media, and it came after the National Unity Platform, the party Bobi Wine heads, announced Eddie Mutwe had been abducted. Gen Kainerugaba later deleted his post, but major news outlets had picked it up.
Even as Bobi Wine remains in hiding, having fled his home, after security forces raided it and placed his family under house arrest, Gen Kainerugaba has continued to taunt him.
He does so almost on a daily basis. And he deletes—often belatedly—posts he considers offensive or outrageous, long after people have already screenshot them.
There is no doubt Gen Kainerugaba has set his eyes on the presidency. His father, aged 81, is battling the ravages of time. They bring with them disease and, crucially, death. His time is limited. During Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, he was doing as many as 30 press-ups, which he proudly shared on social media. Today he would struggle to do 20.
Bobi Wine would not be bothered about Gen Kainerugaba wanting to run for president. In a free and fair election, he would beat him hands down. But presidential elections in Uganda have a lot to do with who wields power and controls the military.
Mr Museveni, for example, has made it fiendishly difficult—and dangerous—for Bobi Wine and Dr Kizza Besigye, currently languishing in prison, to have a real chance of winning. It is almost inconceivable that Gen Kainerugaba can treat Bobi Wine differently.
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Another stumbling block for Bobi Wine is the passage of time. A lot of things happen in five years, and new comers keep appearing on the political landscape, some far more popular than those who have been in politics for decades.
To understand this better, you begin with Bobi Wine himself. In 2016, Uganda held presidential elections, and he was not anywhere near active politics, though he had composed a few political songs. In 2017, almost out of the blue, he flung himself into politics and contested a by-election in Kyadondo East, winning a parliamentary seat.
He has never looked back. But for him to have a real chance of becoming president, he has to get rid of these stumbling blocks. Can he?
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.
