The swearing-in ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala lasted six hours, was declared a public holiday, and drew at least 35 heads of state. Museveni arrived in an armoured vehicle through streets under heavy security. His main rival, Bobi Wine, was already in exile in the United States, having fled a military raid on his home after the January vote.
That contrast, between the choreography of the inauguration and the conditions outside it, runs through everything Museveni’s new term will have to answer for. Coffee exports have surged, growth figures are strong, and the government keeps presenting economic data as proof that four decades of continuity still works. Yet growth and stability rhetoric have never settled the argument over who benefits, or how far prosperity reaches beyond the state’s inner circle.
A Disputed Start to a Seventh Term
The January election was not a clean contest. Uganda’s Communications Commission imposed a nationwide internet blackout on polling day, citing misinformation. Museveni was declared the winner with 71.65 per cent of the vote; his main challenger, pop star turned opposition leader Bobi Wine, received 24.72 per cent and immediately rejected the result, alleging widespread ballot-stuffing. Wine subsequently fled Uganda, saying he feared for his safety.
Human Rights Watch accused Ugandan authorities of intensified attacks on Wine’s National Unity Platform and its supporters after the vote, including mass arrests and the disappearance of two senior opposition figures. The swearing-in ceremony on 12 May at the Kololo Independence Grounds in Kampala was declared a public holiday and attended by at least 35 heads of state. The optics of regional endorsement were carefully managed. The domestic political atmosphere was less celebratory.
Why Museveni Still Wins
Part of the answer is institutional control.
Museveni’s son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has emerged as a de facto power centre and widely discussed successor. Kainerugaba serves as military chief and has attracted criticism for his social media attacks on opposition figures. That the succession question is being answered informally, within the family, before Museveni has announced any intention to step down, tells its own story about how power circulates in Kampala.
Another part is that Museveni still offers a language of order in a volatile region. Uganda has security interests and troops across several neighbouring states, and the government continues to market itself as a guarantor of stability. In a country with vivid memories of past disorder, that message still carries weight, especially outside the urban and online opposition sphere. There is also a harder truth: regimes that endure for this long do not survive on persuasion alone.
Reuters reported last year that Museveni signed legislation reintroducing military trials for some civilians, a move critics saw as a tool against dissent ahead of the election cycle.
The Economy Looks Better From Above
On paper, the macro story is not weak.
Uganda’s economy expanded by 8.5 per cent in the quarter ending December 2025, the strongest growth in over three years, driven by a 20 per cent surge in household spending and a 15.6 per cent jump in fixed investment. The government has forecast oil revenues of 2.2 trillion Ugandan shillings for the 2026-27 fiscal year, with crude production targeted to begin later this year through a partnership involving TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation.
Exports also give Museveni something to point to. Coffee earnings reached $2.4 billion in the year ending April 2026, up from $1.8 billion the previous year, a 36 per cent increase in value. Agriculture now accounts for 26 per cent of GDP and employs around 72 per cent of the labour force. For a government keen to present Uganda as productive rather than aid-dependent, these are useful figures. But export growth is not the same thing as broad social improvement.
A state can sell more coffee while many households still live one shock away from crisis.
Poverty Still Shapes the Ground
The World Bank projects growth of 6.8 per cent for Uganda in 2026, solid by any measure, whilst also estimating that 51.5 per cent of Ugandans lived below the poverty line in the 2024-25 financial year. Those two numbers can coexist because Uganda’s growth model does not reliably convert export strength into secure daily life. Food production may be central, but many people remain vulnerable to price shocks, insecure incomes, and the familiar pressures of corruption and patronage.
This matters politically for a specific reason. Poverty does not automatically produce opposition momentum, especially when the opposition faces repression, fragmentation, and limited institutional reach. Museveni does not need to make everyone prosperous. He needs enough Ugandans to believe that the alternatives are riskier, weaker, or too remote to trust.
In a country where most citizens have grown up under his rule, that calculation is baked into the political atmosphere itself.
The Bread-Basket Image and Limits
This term is likely to be judged less by whether Museveni can still win than by whether his system can distribute enough material improvement to justify its age.
Oil money may widen the state’s room to manoeuvre, and the macro numbers are moving in the right direction. But an 81-year-old ruler, a powerful son positioning himself informally, and a large poor population create a different political atmosphere from the one that sustained the regime a decade ago.
Uganda does have land, exports, and genuine growth. It also has millions of people for whom those achievements remain distant abstractions. The country can look successful from a trade ledger and still feel stagnant from a household budget. Museveni has won again because his state still controls the commanding heights of politics, security, and narrative. What that means for Uganda’s poor is less triumphant. They are being asked, once more, to wait for national strength to become private relief. After four decades of the same leadership, waiting is no longer a neutral condition.
It is part of the system itself.
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