Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s son and his advisor on special operations, has said he prefers veteran opposition politician and People’s Front for Transition (PFT) Red Card Front principal Dr Warren Kizza Besigye Kifefe to singer-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine, the leader of the People Power pressure group and National Unity Platform (NUP), the main opposition party in Parliament of Uganda.
Dr Besigye is the fiercest critic to Museveni, Muhoozi’s father. A former personal physician to Gen Museveni and a doctor to his fellow bush war fighters during the 1981-1986 National Resistance Army (NRA), the predecessor to the National Resistance Movement (NRM), Dr Besigye served in the Museveni-led government until the turn of the millenium when he fell out with his former boss and consequently challenged him in the 2001 presidential election.
BESIGYE, BOBI WINE
Under the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), the retired UPDF colonel would go on to challenge Gen Museveni in three more consecutive presidential elections (2006, 2011 and 2016), losing in all according to results by the country’s Electoral Commission (EC) — which results Besigye and his group trashed as not free, not fair, not credible and not verifiable. Besigye challenged the results sometimes and chose street protests at other times. The most prominent of Besigye’s protests were the 2011 walk to work demos that shook the Museveni state.
Recently, a retired top security official who was responsible for cracking down on the 2011 protests revealed shocking secrets on how Besigye almost removed Museveni’s government through the protests as well as maneuvers to bribe security operatives to work with the protesting opposition. (Read Story Here).
Bobi Wine would emerge on the political stage in 2017 after winning the Kyadondo East parliamentary byelection and later challenging Gen Museveni in the 2021 presidential election that Dr Besigye chose not to take part in, allowing the FDC President Eng Patrick Oboi Amuriat aka POA to carry the Najjanankumbi-based flag. As Bobi Wine is still trying to settle in Besigye’s shoes as the new opposition leader (although Besigye remains a respectable opposition boss that the Museveni regime takes seriously) a new political player is slowly seeking his place on the political stage, particularly on issues to do with the transition (or even succession) from Gen Museveni, Uganda’s ruler for nearly four decades, to a new leader in what could be the first peaceful handover of power since indepenence.
Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba is known to make political statements, taking swipes at members of the opposition and positioning himself as the rightful heir to Museveni’s throne. Gen Muhoozi, who was recently promoted to the rank of General but fired as the Commander of the UPDF Land Forces, is also increasingly becoming defiant and seemingly impatient with his father. For example, Muhoozi has defied his father’s orders that he should quit tweeting about controversial issues like politics and security, making it clear that nobody, including his father Gen Museveni, will ban him from using Twitter since he is an adult. (Read Story Here).
MUHOOZI ON BESIGYE AND BOBI WINE
Now, Gen Muhoozi has made it clear that he likes Dr Besigye but does not like Bobi Wine (whom he has continued to refer to as kabobi). The first son says he has some things to learn from Besigye, a man he said was an elder, but not the singer-turned-politician. “Personally, I like Dr Kizza Besigye. He is an elder and we can learn a few things from him. But Kabobi? Hapana!” wrote Muhoozi.
It should be remembered that Muhoozi and Besigye have previously been entangled in a bitter exchange, with a war of words suggesting that there is no love lost between the president’s son and Museveni’s former personal physician-turned-opposition leader. For example, Besigye has attacked Muhoozi’s wife Charlotte for being involved in a mega Covid19 scandal, and also made it clear to the first son that his father Museveni illegally recruited him into the national army, the UPDF, and has been unlawfully promoting him. (Read interesting stories Here and There).
SECOND OPPOSITION LEADER
Besigye becomes the second senior opposition politician that Muhoozi has showered some praise on. Months ago, the first son praised Democratic Party (DP) President General Norbert Mao, telling Ugandans that the former Gulu District LCV Chairman is the best oppositional leader who even has great potential to succeed his father Gen Yoweri Museveni. Mao responded saying that Muhoozi could be a prophet. (See Details Here).
A few months down the road, Muhoozi’s father Gen Museveni appointed Norbert Mao as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, a position that had been vacant for about one year since Museveni named his cabinet in June 2021. Museveni and Mao also signed a cooperation agreement to guide their new deal. The deal made some political observers like ex-minister Dr Miria Matembe to suspect that Norbert Mao was being prepared to become Muhoozi’s Vice President in 2026.
Since joining government, Norbert Mao has been waxing lyrical about his supposed role as the ‘midwife’ of Uganda’s political transition from Gen Museveni to what he has called ‘a new Uganda.’ But Gen Museveni recently trashed Norbert Mao’s ‘peaceful power handover’ talks. Mao has fired back. (Read Story Here).
