Even though Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 48, recently found himself in a diplomatic spat with Kenya, experts have long viewed him as a potential successor. Kainerugaba claimed 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.
In the 2026 presidential election, Yoweri Museveni, 78, who has ruled Uganda with an iron fist since 1986, might run once again.
After a string of contentious tweets early in October threatened to invade Kenya, Yoweri Museveni said on October 18 that his only son, who also has three daughters, would no longer tweet on the affairs of the country.
The head of state had claimed that his son could still use the social media platform to express himself, so long as he kept his comments to specific topics, like sports.
But Muhoozi Kainerugaba did not care, saying on Twitter the next day: “I am an adult and no one will ban me from anything.
The president’s son had said in the beginning of October that he and his army would need more time to seize control of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, than “two weeks.” A few days later, he expressed regret to William Ruto, the new president of Kenya.
The son of Uganda’s president was removed as the commander of the ground army on October 4.
Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s Twitter posts in support of the rebels in the Ethiopian district of Tigray, which is at conflict with the federal government, enraged the Addis Abeba government as early as 2022.
In 2013, Ugandan police carried out raids on the offices of two publications and a radio station after a general allegedly revealed in a secret memo that President Museveni was planning to assassinate critics and was preparing his son to succeed him.
