The 15 January elections in Uganda are almost a foregone conclusion, preceded, as has become customary, by a violent crackdown against the opposition. As the results begin to trickle in, what are the prospects for the NUPs Bobi Wine and Uganda’s Gen Z?
The January 15, 2026, elections in Uganda were a battle between the old and the new. The election pits a geriatric autocracy against a deeply dissatisfied youth mobilising around the electoral issues that could loosen the ruling National Resistance Movement’s calcified grip on power. President Yoweri Museveni, aged 81, of the NRM – marking 40 years in office later this month – is running against pop-star-turned-politician Kyagulanyi Robert Sentamu of the National Unity Platform, popularly known as Bobi Wine, aged 43.
If the past four elections are anything to go by, the outcome of these elections is almost certainly predetermined. Paradoxically, these elections are far from ordinary. They are likely to transcend the usual, predictable cycle of irregularities: the uneven playing field, a compromised electoral commission, the violent suppression of the opposition, and allegations of tampered results that have historically defined Ugandan politics. Bobi Wine was three years old when Museveni seized power after a five-year bush war, triggered, ironically, by allegations that the 1980 elections were stolen. Plus ça change.
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The polls represent yet another case of the precarity of civic freedoms in Uganda. After a campaign in which Bobi Wine resorted to wearing a flak jacket and a helmet – the standard-issue gear for non-combatants in a war zone – the 2026 elections are shaping up to be the most repressive, and potentially the most violent, polls in the East African nation’s history. Yet the election is not only about ballots, blood and the regime’s survival: it is perhaps the most profound chapter in Uganda’s struggle for generational change.
While the militarisation of the ballot box is a common pathology among authoritarian states, in Uganda, it has evolved into a deeply structured, institutionalised operation. However, after four decades of unbroken rule, Museveni finds himself increasingly haunted by a demographic for which he long ran out of solutions: the vast Gen Z population.
The statistics tell a story of a regime on a collision course with its own citizens. Uganda has the world’s second-youngest population. With a median age of 16.9 years, over 70% of Uganda’s 46 million people are under the age of 30, yet they face a staggering 43% youth unemployment rate. That is the official statistic. Since the previous election cycle, the electorate has been bolstered by 3.5 million new Gen Z voters, who now comprise a full quarter of the voting population. The youth’s aspirations have been captured by Bobi Wine, seen as an outspoken personality embodying the desires of urban youths and the working class, representing the power of disruption, resistance and renovation.
The overwhelming presence and sheer size of the security apparatus during the campaign period failed as a deterrent for the youth saturated by the inequality that surrounds them, trapped in cycles of unemployment, lack of services, corruption and nepotism – all of which are the very core issues that mobilised other Gen Z revolutions around the world. The main warning from Gen Z revolutions in Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Peru and Kenya is that attempts to silence a generation’s voice can ignite a fire that few can contain.
If Museveni succeeds in completing his seventh term, he will secure his place among Africa’s most enduring dictators, surpassed only by Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Once embraced by the West as one of Africa’s most promising neoliberal reformers, Museveni is now accused by his old friends of cultivating a legacy of exclusion, brutality, corruption, and the complete destruction of constitutionally mandated institutions.
While Museveni is unlikely to lose the elections, at age 81 there is much speculation about his succession, especially given Uganda’s near-total militarisation. Under the NRM, the military has permeated every aspect of public life – its society, politics, government policy, development agenda, and its foreign relations. In its current violent and repressive incarnation, the post-Museveni order envisions the state ruled by Museveni’s son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba. At the moment, he heads the military and, disturbingly, displays the antics and violent idiosyncrasies reminiscent of Idi Amin. He has publicly threatened to behead Bobi Wine, hang opposition leader Dr Kizza Besiyge, and took to social media to boast about detaining and torturing Wine’s bodyguard Eddie Mutwe in his basement.
The violence is an inherent trait of the myopic philosophical and ideological vacuity that has characterised the ‘rule by the gun’ approach of the Museveni clan. It has failed to create a political order that projects a future vision for the nation that the majority of Ugandans now needs. In his astute and level-headed demeanour Bobi Wine has filled this void, eschewing violence, providing the political vision (of People Power) where the younger generation can imagine a future where they have agency. Because of this Museveni has placed the entire security apparatus on full active deployment, supported by armed militias, private security, and mercenaries to assist in bludgeoning the aspirations of the Gen Z.
The campaign period resembled a warzone. Bobi Wine campaigned wearing defensive gear (a bullet proof vest, helmet and goggles to protect against teargas). He faced relentless harassment, restrictions on his movements, brutal attacks and intimidation. Despite legal and procedural barriers aimed at frustrating the NUP’s electoral aspirations (restricted access to media, financial constraints, and targeted legal actions designed to drain their resources and divert attention from campaigning), Bobi Wine attracted massive crowds, even in the Southwest, the ethnic stronghold of the President.
Museveni campaigned on a now-familiar platform of guaranteeing security and stability, in line with the militarised rhetoric presenting the NRM as the guardian of peace. After 40 years, security and continuity are now investments with progressively diminishing returns; the generation that survived the civil wars between the 1960s and 1980s has been replaced by those that have only known Uganda under Museveni, and have no memory of war.
While the economy reached 6% growth in 2025 and is expected to hit 10% in 2027, wealth distribution has benefited mainly the southwestern and central regions. The youth have mobilised on socio-economic issues, on dignity, inclusion and employment. They primarily want the government to prioritise health, water, education, and infrastructure development, creating more jobs, economic opportunities, and ending corruption. They want political participation, demilitarised governance, and demand opportunities and accountability.
On the campaign trail, Bobi Wine spoke openly about the prospect of Gen Z protests. For his part, and without a trace of irony, Museveni criticised the youth for their inaction. In a live UBC radio interview on December 13, 2025, Museveni asked: ‘You Gen Z, what have you done so far?’ He continued: ‘When I was 26, we started the FRONASA movement to liberate this country. But for you Gen Z, all I hear is “vibe, vibe.” What is your vibe doing for the country?’
The army and the police have been deployed massively in the cities. While the security state is a complex web of units, political and ethnic affiliations, as well as economic interests, the main structures of concentrated power have remained in the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), the Presidential Guard Brigade, the Special Forces Command (SFC), and the three intelligence services (military, internal and external).
The UPDF is the largest of the units having over 55,000 troops. Police units and military intelligence are part of a wider ethnicised network of security units that defend the interests of the NRM elite and keep the regime in power. The powerful Special Forces Command (SFC) is considered a private army under Museveni’s direct control. In 2021, it was reported to have around 10,000 soldiers. All these agencies have been used to entrench Museveni’s power, allowing him to win re-elections in 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021. Under the guise of national security threats, these agencies have isolated, surveilled and targeted opponents. They are vital instruments to ensure an NRM victory, together with an array of fraudulent strategies of results tampering.
A recent report by Makerere University’s Human Rights and Peace Centre, Guns, Bread, and Butter, on Uganda’s militarisation, explains how a slow coup occurred under Museveni with the military’s increased dominance and control over the economy (fisheries, land, minerals, wildlife) and public institutions (police, courts, legislature). Their incursion into the state allowed the security apparatus to neutralise dissent by weaponising several laws, including the Anti-Terrorism Act; weaken the powers of the parliament and the judiciary by deploying police units to arrest and surveil opposition supporters, and even ensure loyalty from within the NRM.
During the 2016 elections, Finfisher spyware was used by the CMI and deployed against perceived political opponents, which included members of parliament, civil society and activists. In 2019, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed how China’s Huawei helped spy on political opponents by intercepting encrypted messages and tracking their locations. In 2018, the government also imposed a social media tax used to curb online dissent. This was used during the 2021 elections, where NUP supporters were tracked via their phones and social media and subsequently arrested.
Israeli cyber security company, Cellebrite, had previously provided Uganda with phone hacking tools that allowed for digital forensic investigations via its UFED technology. During the 2021 polls, the police operationalised a new unit to suppress violence, which guarded TV and radio stations. Together with the creation of ad hoc militias to shadow and intimidate the opposition, Uganda’s political intelligence machine grew, only deepening intrigue by fabricating threats, diverting from actual security threats, and deploying different units to trigger electoral violence to justify a violent crackdown. In 2021 over 100 people were killed in post-election protests and over 400 arrested.
Ahead of these 2026 elections, the police recruited an additional 12,000 constables to enhance security across the country while increasing the span of the CCTV surveillance system and the capacity for forensic analysis. In early 2024, the intelligence services launched a new security unit under the command of military intelligence mandated to monitor the opposition. This unit worked in coordination with the police’s Directorate of Criminal Investigation that installed operatives in key neighbourhoods in the capital. In each of the country’s 146 districts men were recruited at the NRM cell level to violently repress, beat, intimidate and disarticulate any opposition activity. The group was formed to act under the guise of election constables operating under the Resident District Commissioners countrywide trained, armed and mandated to ensure the NRM wins in their areas. This militia has now grown to over 20,000 men.
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This decentralisation of violence (that allows for the denial of responsibility at the command level) is also occurring at the intelligence level with operatives and informers operating within all institutions from hospitals to private companies and schools. These informers are told to recruit children aged 12-14 to report on which teachers held anti-government views, and which parents were supporting the opposition. Other militias, like the Ghetto Structure, operate in particular areas. This group will roam working class neighbourhoods of the capital Kampala, a stronghold of the opposition.
Steps to disarticulate civil society and the counterforces that drive the youth’s protest have intensified in the last few months. A few days ago, the regime suspended the activities of Uganda’s most active human rights NGOs, freezing their accounts and curtailing their ability to support dissenting voices with legal representation. Chapter Four Uganda, Alliance for Election Finance Monitoring (ACFIM), Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-U), National NGO Forum, and National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders received letters from the NGO Bureau notifying them of the suspension.
Chapter Four Uganda was informed that the intelligence agencies had received information alleging the organisation is engaged in activities that threaten national security. Like in Tanzania in October 2025, where an internet shutdown for six days facilitated the country’s worst massacre, Uganda has had an internet shutdown from 13 January to stifle mobilisation but also to impede ability to document state violence. Live broadcasts of ‘protests’ or ‘riots’ have been banned. Leaders of the 2024 ‘March to Parliament’ protest have been identified for arrest, abduction and intimidation. Many have fled the country.
Whichever the outcome, the message is clear: the regime may win the battle of these elections, but they are unlikely to silence a generation that demands more. The African proverb that ‘no matter how tall the man, he cannot see the future’ sums up the Ugandan scenario for Museveni, Muhoozi and the many securocrats who have already lost the future – despite their show of force.
Paula Cristina Roque is the author of Governing in the Shadows Angola’s Securitised State (African Arguments/Hurst, 2021). She has been an adviser on sub-Saharan Africa for the Crisis Management Initiative, a senior analyst for Southern Africa with the International Crisis Group, and a senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies.