Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, announced his candidacy for the 2026 presidential election, stating it was “time for our generation to shine,” before withdrawing his tweet on Thursday.
Observers have long predicted Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 48, who recently became entangled in a diplomatic spat with Kenya, to take over, despite Kainerugaba’s declaration in 2013 that “Uganda is not a monarchy.”
“In the name of Jesus Christ my God, in the name of all the youth of Uganda and the world and in the name of our great revolution, I will run for president in 2026,” Muhoozi Kainerugaba wrote on Twitter late Wednesday evening, before removing his tweet from the social network.
In another tweet on Wednesday, which he did not delete this time, Muhoozi Kainerugaba appeared to criticize his septuagenarian father, writing, “How many agree with me that our time has come? Enough of the old people ruling us. Dominate us. It’s time for our generation to shine. Retweet and like.”
Yoweri Museveni said on October 18, 2022, that his only son (he also has three daughters) would no longer tweet on the country’s affairs, following a series of controversial tweets in early October in which he notably threatened to invade Kenya.
The president clarified that his son may still express himself on social media, as long as he limited himself to comments about sports, for example.
But Muhoozi Kainerugaba said the next day on Twitter: “I am an adult and no one will ban me from anything.
In early October, the president’s son had suggested that it would take him and his army not “two weeks” to take over the Kenyan capital Nairobi. He apologized a few days later to Kenyan President William Ruto.
On October 4, he was replaced as head of the Ugandan ground forces.
In 2022, a series of comments on Twitter by Muhoozi Kainerugaba in favour of rebels in the Ethiopian region of Tigray, which is at war with the federal authorities, also angered Addis Ababa.