National Resistance

Uganda's battle for the youth vote – how Museveni keeps Bobi Wine’s reach in check

Retrieved on: 
星期三, 一月 17, 2024
Well, Ageing, Hope, Death, Research, Employment, Social media, Bobi Wine, National Resistance, Method, Culture, Marriage, Intelligence, History, Government, Achievement, Optimism, Center, Leadership, Movement, Wine, National Unity Platform, Fear, Population, Politics, Violence, MP, Museveni, National Resistance Movement, Man, Nightclub

Young people aged below 30 make up about 77% of the country’s population of 47 million people.

Key Points: 
  • Young people aged below 30 make up about 77% of the country’s population of 47 million people.
  • Opportunities remain limited, with two-thirds of Ugandans working for themselves or doing family-based agricultural work.
  • Bobi Wine’s run at the presidency in the 2021 election highlights the reality that capturing the youth vote in Uganda is complex.
  • The outcome of the 2021 elections defied expectations, given Uganda’s large and underemployed youth population and the emergence of Bobi Wine.


the structural capture of youth representation in Ugandan politics
diverse economic incentives for political loyalty in the form of loan schemes, grants and short-term employment
well-spun political narratives that draw on entrenched views of youth as beholden to their elders and the state.

New wine, old bottles

  • Commentators worldwide suggested his candidacy represented a real and unprecedented threat to Yoweri Museveni’s longstanding rule.
  • This is about the same proportion of votes that has accrued to the main opposition candidates in Uganda since multi-party elections resumed in 2006.
  • There were also reports of the ruling party dishing out money to potential voters, with instructions to vote for Museveni.
  • Contemporary tactics used by the ruling party to co-opt the youth converge with these historically rooted methods of regime consolidation.

Splitting the youth

  • First, the youth are organised into a “special interest group” reinforced through quota systems.
  • Political structures, such as youth MPs and representatives, absorb youth representation under regime authority and entrench regional divisions.
  • Ahead of the 2021 election, Museveni gave state appointments to popular musicians with wide youth appeal who had been working closely with Bobi Wine’s party.
  • Youth are often recruited as election workers, special police constables and crime preventers.

What hope for Bobi Wine?

  • In northern Uganda, for example, young people have lived through a recent history of devastating conflict and still struggle with its legacies.
  • Against this backdrop, if Bobi Wine contests in 2026, he is likely to struggle again.
  • Arthur Owor, the director for research and operations at the Centre for African Research, is a co-author of this article.


Rebecca Tapscott receives funding from the ESRC-funded Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID) and the Gerda Henkel Foundation's Special Programme for Security, Society and the State. Anna Macdonald receives funding from the ESRC-funded Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID).

Yoweri Museveni: ageing Uganda president rides on the memory of his past heroics

Retrieved on: 
星期日, 九月 17, 2023
Volunteering, Heroes' Day, Amin, National, Food, University, Neon, Violence, Amnesty International, Politics, Obote, Gun, Farmer, Khmer Rouge, National Resistance Army, Tanzanian Premier League, Goal, COVID, History, Ugandan Bush War, Government, Achievement, Virtue, Abuse, Man, International, Torture, Front, International Criminal Court, National Resistance, East African Revival, Memory, Revival, The Titan: Story of Michelangelo, Film industry, Tourism, Drug, Television, Order of Katonga, Luweero

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni – Africa’s fourth-longest-serving head of state in 2023 – has cemented his place in history.

Key Points: 
  • President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni – Africa’s fourth-longest-serving head of state in 2023 – has cemented his place in history.
  • When his men marched into Kampala in 1986, Museveni became the first leader of a popular insurrection to oust a sitting African government.
  • Keeping the politically instructive memory of the dark past vividly alive has been his enduring achievement.

The politics of salvation

    • His father was a member of the clan of noblemen; his mother was a born-again Christian, a convert of the East African Revival.
    • Revivalists were renowned for their loud professions of rectitude and for their wilful disobedience towards traditional authorities.
    • It was in politics, not religion, that the young Museveni sought to author other people’s salvation.

The ‘black Che Guevara’

    • By the time the Amin regime collapsed in April 1979, Museveni had 9,000 volunteers under his command.
    • In December 1980 Ugandans went to the polls to vote in a new government.
    • There followed a long guerrilla war, fought between Museveni’s band of militants and the brutal, incompetent military of Obote’s government.
    • In January 1986 National Resistance Army militiamen marched into Kampala and formed a new government, with Museveni as president.
    • Commentators sometimes referred to Museveni as the “black Che Guevara”.

Commemorating the Bush War

    • The awful violence of the Bush War, as it is called, made Museveni’s new government seem essential.
    • Today the memory of the Bush War remains a key part of the liturgy of public life.
    • Museveni periodically tours Luweero, where the Bush War was largely fought.
    • In September this year he celebrated his 79th birthday at Katonga, scene of a key battle of the Bush War.