Uganda: Museveni's son says he will "definitely" be president

The son of Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, said in a tweet on Thursday that he will "certainly" be president after his father.

The 48-year-old Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who recently became embroiled in a diplomatic row with Kenya, has long been seen by observers as a possible successor, even though Kainerugaba said in 2013 that "Uganda is not a monarchy".

"The only way I can thank my beautiful mother is to become president of Uganda. And I certainly will," Muhoozi Kainerugaba tweeted on Thursday.

Yoweri Museveni, 78, who has ruled Uganda with an iron fist since 1986, could again be a candidate in the presidential election scheduled for 2026.

On 18 October, Yoweri Museveni declared that his only son who also has three daughters would no longer tweet about the country's affairs after a series of controversial tweets in early October had threatened to invade Kenya.

The head of state had said that his son could still express himself on the social network, provided he limited himself to comments on sports, for example.

But Muhoozi Kainerugaba did not care, saying on Twitter the next day: "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 apologised a few days later to the new Kenyan President William Ruto.

On 4 October, the son of the Ugandan head of state was replaced as head of the country's ground forces.

Already in 2022, a series of comments on Twitter by Muhoozi Kainerugaba in favour of the rebels in the Ethiopian region of Tigray, which is at war with the federal authorities, had also incensed the authorities in Addis Ababa.

In 2013, Ugandan police raided the offices of two newspapers and a radio station after a confidential memo from a general claimed that President Museveni was grooming his son to succeed him and planned to assassinate opponents.