Uganda’s president, who has been in workplace for practically 4 many years, has appointed his son as the top of the nation’s army, fueling long-held suspicions within the East African nation that the chief is getting ready his son to in the future succeed him.
The president, Yoweri Museveni, said late Thursday that he had named his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 49, because the nation’s prime military commander. Normal Kainerugaba had been serving as a senior adviser to his father, and had been participating in large rallies throughout the nation to assist place himself as inheritor obvious — at the same time as consultants say that Mr. Museveni, who’s 79, is unlikely to relinquish energy throughout his lifetime.
Normal Kainerugaba had burst into the worldwide limelight lately for his erratic, late-night tweets. No less than one of many common’s closest confidants was additionally named to a prime cupboard place.
Mr. Museveni, a six-term president, is anticipated to run in Uganda’s subsequent elections, in 2026, and to proceed tightening his grip over the plush, landlocked nation. However his advancing age and tensions amongst his shut associates within the army and governing occasion have rekindled speak about an alleged plan from a decade in the past during which it was claimed that he was grooming his son for energy.
Mr. Museveni has repeatedly denied such a plan, which is often known as the “Muhoozi Undertaking.”
Since coming to energy in 1986, Mr. Museveni, a key Western ally, has dominated Uganda with an iron fist, cracking down on press freedom, jailing opposition leaders and having his critics tortured. Mr. Museveni, his son and different prime Ugandan officers had been accused of crimes towards humanity in a submission filed final yr on the Worldwide Felony Court docket.
Mr. Museveni additionally signed a extensively condemned anti-gay regulation final yr that included a life sentence for anybody partaking in homosexual intercourse and was thought-about among the many harshest on the earth. In August, the United Nations human rights workplace in Uganda closed after the federal government declined to resume an settlement permitting it to perform within the nation.
Normal Kainerugaba is the eldest youngster and solely son of Mr. Museveni, who additionally has three daughters. His first title, Muhoozi, means “the avenger,” the president has stated. The son, who attended army faculties in the US and Britain, has additionally served because the commander of the Ugandan army’s land forces and because the head of an elite unit of particular forces accountable for defending Mr. Museveni and his pursuits.
In current months, Normal Kainerugaba has been attempting to shine his picture and consolidate his assist nationwide. He has been assembly politicians and attending rallies, actions that critics say violate guidelines barring active-duty military officers in Uganda from taking part in politics.
For months now, he has shunned sharing provocative tweets, which previously have generally angered his father. He has additionally assumed the chairmanship of the Patriotic League of Uganda, a nonpartisan group that he says goals to foster nationwide pleasure.
On Friday, some Ugandan observers stated that Normal Kainerugaba’s appointment allowed Mr. Museveni not solely to watch the military carefully but in addition to maintain everybody guessing as succession politics brew and the election attracts nearer.
“It appears to place the son in a means that’s strategic in order that he can run the household property in case the daddy was to go on,” Michael Mutyaba, a Ugandan researcher and political analyst, stated in a phone interview.
The president, Mr. Mutyaba added, “likes to remain unpredictable, which is a technique he retains energy.”