More than 21 million Ugandans Thursday cast their votes in a crucial presidential rematch between long-term incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, 81, and 43-year-old former pop star Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine.
President Museveni first came to power in 1986, seizing power from the government of General Tito Okello following a guerrilla war.
The 81-year-old incumbent has won six presidential elections and is urging voters to give him a seventh term in office to protect the gains of the past 40 years.
He studied political science at the University of Dar-es-Salaam before founding an armed movement that would help remove President Idi Amin from power in 1980.
Praised for his fight against the AIDS pandemic, Museveni's administrations have been dogged by allegations of corruption. Museveni, however, said those found guilty have been held to account.
In 2005, Uganda's parliament scrapped presidential term limits, allowing Museveni to contest successive elections. He is widely popular in Uganda's rural areas and is credited with bringing peace and stability to the East African nation after years of turmoil. He has also deployed peacekeepers to Somalia, the DR Congo and South Sudan.
While Museveni has consolidated power over two decades, a new generation of opposition figures has emerged to challenge his rule. Among them is Bobi Wine, who grew up in a low-income neighborhood in the capital Kampala and studied music at the University of Makerere before earning a bachelor of law degree at the Cavendish University in Kampala in 2024. In 2017 he joined politics and became the MP for Kyadondo East.
Wine has a largely youthful support base and is hugely popular in urban areas. Wine has promised to tackle widespread corruption and unemployment if elected.
In the last election in 2021, he won 35 percent of the vote against Museveni in an election his camp alleged was tampered with. He says the election is a protest vote against the policies of Museveni.
While the election is seen as primarily a contest between Museveni and Wine, there are six other candidates, including prominent lawyer Nandala Mafabi.
If no candidate gets an outright majority in the first round of voting, a runoff will be held within a month.
Uganda’s Museveni faces opposition leader in presidential election
