Ugandans under the age of 40 – and that is more than three-quarters of the population – have only known one president.

Yoweri Museveni seized the top job in 1986 following an armed uprising and at the age of 81, he shows no signs of budging.

His time at the helm has been accompanied by a long period of peace and significant development, for which many are grateful. But his critics say he has maintained his grip on power through a mixture of sidelining opponents and compromising independent institutions.

“We don’t believe in [presidential] term limits,” he once told the BBC, secure in his role after winning a fifth election.

A year later, the age limit for a presidential candidate was removed – paving the way, many believe, for Museveni to become president for life.

Museveni’s journey began in 1944, when he was born into a family of cattle keepers in Ankole, western Uganda.

He came of age during Uganda’s struggle for independence from the UK, which was followed by a period of brutality and turbulence under Milton Obote and Idi Amin.

For many years, Museveni did not know his birth date, writing in his memoir: “We had real life-threatening challenges such as extra-judicial killings and looting… we had no time to worry about details such as dates of birth.”

In 1967, Museveni left Uganda to attend the University of Dar es Salaam in neighbouring Tanzania. There, he studied economics and political science and forged alliances with politically active students from around the region.

Museveni’s name gained currency in the 1970s, after a coup by the notorious Amin.

Museveni helped form the Front for National Salvation – one of the rebel groups that, with Tanzania’s help, ousted Amin. Amin was infamous for crushing dissent and expelling the country’s Asian community. Under his eight-year rule an estimated 400,000 people were killed.

“He was part of the colonial system,” Museveni told the Global Indian Network in a recent interview. “Idi Amin was ignorant… a bit chauvinistic”.

Following Amin’s fall, former President Milton Obote returned to power via a general election. However, Museveni refused to accept Obote’s leadership, claiming the vote had been rigged.

He launched a guerrilla struggle in 1981 and five years later, his rebel group, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), seized power and Museveni became leader.

Uganda’s economy began to grow steadily and over 10 years, the country saw an average annual growth of more than 6%. Primary school enrolment doubled and HIV levels dropped because of an anti-Aids campaign spearheaded by the president.

Museveni became a darling of the West, but his reputation took a hit in 1998, when Uganda and Rwanda invaded neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo in support of rebels fighting to overthrow the government.

Around this time, critics also complained that the president was growing less tolerant of opposing views. It also became clear he had no plans to cede power.

Museveni had said, in a 1986 collection of writing: “The problem of Africa in general, and Uganda in particular, is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.”

But by 2005 his views had seemingly changed and Uganda’s constitution was amended, removing the cap on how many terms a president could serve.

In 2017, the age limit for presidential candidates was also eliminated – a move which led to MPs throwing chairs in a chaotic parliamentary brawl.

Museveni has also faced allegations that he has weakened the independence of key institutions.

In particular, Uganda’s judiciary has been accused of recruiting so-called “cadre judges” whose loyalty lies with the government.

When judges have gone against the government, they have sometimes found themselves at loggerheads with the authorities.

For example, in December 2005, armed security personnel raided the High Court in the capital, Kampala, re-arresting members of a suspected rebel group, who had just been acquitted of treason charges.

The media has also had its independence threatened. On the surface, Uganda has a lively media industry, but numerous outlets have been raided and journalists detained.

Perhaps the most significant factor in Museveni’s longevity is the neutering of potential opposition forces.

When it became clear that Museveni did not intend to leave power, some of his former associates started to break away. As they did, the security agencies turned their attention to them.

For instance, Kizza Besigye of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, who was once Museveni’s doctor, first ran against the president in 2001. Since then, he has been arrested and prosecuted numerous times. In 2024, he mysteriously disappeared in Nairobi, only to appear four days later in a Ugandan military court. He remains in jail on treason charges, which he denies.

Pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine is the latest Museveni critic to face the wrath of the state.

The 43-year-old opposition leader, whose star power draws huge crowds of youngsters, has been arrested, imprisoned and charged with crimes including treason. These have all later been dropped.

In 2021 the police tear-gassed and even shot at Bobi Wine and his supporters, saying they had defied coronavirus restrictions on large gatherings.

During the current campaign period, security forces have used “firearms and live ammunition to disperse peaceful assemblies” and abducted opposition party members in unmarked vans, a UN report says.

Amid this environment, Museveni ominously told the public that “one soldier carries 120 bullets”. However, he also ordered the police not to beat opposition supporters and use tear gas instead.

Museveni’s supporters point to the relative stability Uganda has enjoyed in the decades he has been in power.

Emmanuel Lumala Dombo, a spokesperson for the NRM, points out that more than 1.7 million people have moved to Uganda after fleeing strife in their own countries.

“Forty years ago, we were among the biggest exporters of refugees among the neighbouring countries that surround us,” Dombo told the BBC. “Right now Uganda is the biggest host of refugees in Africa.”

Museveni’s government has also recently been encouraging foreign investment, striking deals with the likes of China, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. He says he wants Uganda to become a middle-income country by 2040.

Museveni sees himself not only as a stable, ambitious presence, but also as a nurturing figure for Uganda’s youth. He fondly calls his young followers Bazukulu (meaning grandchildren in the Luganda language) and they refer to him by the nicknames M7 or Sevo.

But with an eye on Bobi Wine, who is roughly half of Museveni’s age, the president has been keen to show his vitality.

In 2020, to encourage exercise during lockdown he was filmed doing press-ups, and then repeated the trick several times that year, including in front of cheering students.

He has addressed his health on numerous occasions, saying late last year: “I have been here with you for 40 years now. Have you ever heard that I have been in hospital? Except when I had [coronavirus] for 21 days.”

As Museveni ages, critics worry that he is turning the country into his family’s fiefdom.

They note that the president’s wife, Janet, is the education minister and his son, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba is head of the army. Museveni’s grandson also enrolled into the army in July, a move seen as potentially perpetuating the family dynasty.

The NRM has said little about how it will manage Museveni’s succession, but speculation that 51-year-old Gen Kainerugaba will step up is rife.

Should this come to pass, it could jeopardise Museveni’s legacy of stability. Gen Kainerugaba is known for being unpredictable and provocative, especially on social media. He has used X to joke about invading Kenya, rile Ethiopia by backing Egypt during a dispute between the two countries and admit to detaining Bobi Wine’s bodyguard in his basement.

At the moment, however, with almost four decades of experience behind him, Museveni is confident he will bag a seventh victory.

“Uganda is secure. Go out and vote,” he told the public during a New Year’s Eve address. “The Ugandan NRM are unstoppable.”

Additional reporting by Sammy Awami