September 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The son of Uganda’s current president, controversial General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, announced on Saturday that he is giving up running for president in the 2026 elections and called on his supporters to back his father’s candidacy “as one man.”
“I would like to announce that I will not be on the ballot for 2026,” the head of the Ugandan Armed Forces said in a post on social media X, claiming that “God Almighty” told him to “focus on his Army first.”
“I therefore fully support President Yoweri Museveni in the upcoming elections,” he added moments before addressing “all” his “millions of followers” to ask them to support President Museveni in the 2026 elections. “The future belongs only to our mighty God and we will triumph in his name,” he added.
Kainerugaba — appointed as head of the country’s armed forces by his father in March this year as part of a cabinet reshuffle — announced on social media in March 2023 that he would run in the 2026 election, only to later withdraw from it, less than a year after he was ousted from his post as head of Uganda’s army after tweeting that he could take Kenya’s capital Nairobi “within two weeks.”
Museveni, 80, has been in power since 1986 and has twice amended the constitution to extend his rule.
The president has also been accused on numerous occasions of using state security forces to intimidate the opposition, whose representatives openly rejected the results of the presidential elections held in 2021, alleging ballot box manipulation and intimidation and kidnapping of their supporters.
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