Re - The 2026 Uganda Elections, a fight to the finish, between President Yoweri Museveni and the upstart “Bobi Wine”
Cornelius Hamelberg
Re - the upcoming 2026 Uganda Elections slated for the 15th of January.
The Ugandan media should be a good source for updates. From time to time I bump into Stephen Lwanga , a Ugandan actor over here, and chat about latest developments in Uganda and Africa, but haven’t seen him for a while
I witnessed the upstart, so called “Bobi Wine” (Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu) being interviewed on BBC’s Focus on Africa, and my impression was that he did not at all sound presidential - compared to the infinitely more experienced Yoweri Museveni who is now going for his eighth consecutive term as President of Uganda, “The Pearl of Africa” . If anything, Wine merely went on whining, saying the expected nice things about crazy democracy, but looking a little scared, fear lurking in his bloodshot eyes, an undefined fear that was visible for the onlooker to interpret, just as the saying goes,”beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”. Since he was talking to the BBC - at prime time, I was expecting Wine the youth-man to drive home the familiar thesis which begins, “The old order changeth, yielding place to new” etc - followed by ( for sympathy) “I have paid my dues to be singing the blues” aspect of his hope and his ambition, because, verily, Wine has suffered and it seems is not the type to be merely only “ Shuffering and Shmiling” - Fela after all launched his “ Movement of the People” party and in that era another singer wannabe politician Chris Okotie also wanted to take a shot at being democratically elected JAGBAN of Nigeria.
Indeed, ambition should be made of sterner stuff….
But when it comes to Musical people who became politicians , the list is long
“ The optics” - a phrase I learned in this series, as showcased by the BBC footage of large crowds of enthusiastic Bobi Wine supporters wearing red party colours, for balance, contrasted with equally large crowds of Pro-Museveni enthusiasts decked in yellow, give the impression that the winner could be anybody’s guess even though Ugandan voter demographics suggest that most voters are younger than 43 year old Bobi Wine and 81 year old Yoweri Museveni who is still standing strongly against LGBTQ
Towards the end of the interview Bobi Wine was asked, what if the army does not approve of the election results ? I don’t fully remember what Bobi Wine replied but perhaps it was in order not to generate further controversy that he did not at all address the import of the question - the import of the question being that Museveni has been grooming his son to take over ( from him) and has already appointed him head of the Ugandan Army…