Ugandan leader appoints son to top position, fueling debate over succession plan
Uganda’s president, who has been in power for nearly four decades, has appointed his son to head the country’s military, fueling long-held suspicions in the East African country that the leader is grooming his son to to succeed him one day.
The President Yoweri Museveni said this late on Thursday that he had appointed his son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 49, as the country’s top military commander. General Kainerugaba had served as his father’s senior advisor, and so it had been participation in major rallies across the country to help position himself as heir apparent – even as experts say Mr Museveni, who is 79, is unlikely to give up power in his lifetime.
General Kainerugaba had come into the global spotlight in recent years because of him erratic, late-night tweets. At least one of the general’s closest confidantes was also appointed to a top position in the Cabinet.
Mr Museveni, a chairman for six terms, is expected to contest Uganda’s next elections, in 2026, and continue to consolidate its grip on the lush, landlocked country. But his advancing age and tensions among his close associates in the military and the ruling party have reignited talk of an alleged plan from a decade ago that claimed he was grooming his son for power.
Mr Museveni has repeatedly denied such a plan, commonly referred to as the ‘Muhoozi project’.
Since coming to power in 1986, Mr Museveni an important Western allyhas ruled Uganda with an iron fist and cracked down on press freedom, the jailing of opposition leaders And to have his critics tortured. Mr Museveni, his son and other top Ugandan officials were accused of crimes against humanity in a complaint filed last year with the International Criminal Court.
Mr Museveni also signed a widely condemned man anti-gay law Last year, that included a life sentence for anyone engaging in gay sex, and was considered one of the punishments the heaviest in the world. In August, the United Nations human rights office in Uganda was closed after the government refused to renew an agreement that allowed it to operate in the country.
General Kainerugaba is the eldest child and only son of Mr Museveni, who also has three daughters. His first name, Muhoozi, means “the avenger,” the president has said. The son, who attended military schools in the United States and Britain, has also served as commander of the Ugandan army’s land forces and as head of an elite special forces unit responsible for protecting Mr Museveni and his interests.
In recent months, General Kainerugaba has sought to burnish his image and consolidate his support across the country. He has met with politicians and attended rallies, actions that critics say violate rules banning active-duty army officers in Uganda from participating in politics.
For months he has refrained from sharing provocative tweets, which has sometimes happened in the past made his father angry. He has also assumed the chairmanship of the Patriotic League of Uganda, a non-partisan group he says aims to promote national pride.
On Friday, some Ugandan observers said the appointment of General Kainerugaba allowed Mr Museveni not only to keep a close eye on the military but also to keep everyone in the dark as succession politics unfolded and elections approached.
“It appears that the son is being strategically positioned so that he can manage the family estate in case the father were to die,” Michael Mutyaba, a Ugandan researcher and political analyst, said in a telephone interview.
The president, Mr. Mutyaba added, “likes to remain unpredictable, and that is one of the ways he retains power.”