President Yoweri Museveni’s re-election for a seventh term in the country’s January elections came as little surprise. Uganda’s electoral commission declared that Museveni had secured a seventh term in office with 7.9m votes – 71.6% of the vote. Opposition leader Bobi Wine, who dismissed the outcome as fraudulent, gained 2.7m votes – 24% of the total.<\/p>\n
The octogenarian, in office since 1986, is one of the world’s longest-ruling leaders. Over the decades he has consolidated political power across key institutions and sectors. He has been accused by critics of leveraging this control to manipulate elections in his favour. They argue that under Museveni elections in Uganda have become merely procedural, given the dominance of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the state’s tight control over the nation’s political space.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch reported that the 2026 elections were marred by violence and human rights abuses, a continuation of the trend witnessed in past polls in which Museveni and his party triumphed. Opposition candidates like Wine faced restrictions, arrests and intimidation while the internet was shut down for days.<\/p>\n
The African Union Commission commended the conduct of Uganda’s elections – even though the Union’s own election observer mission revealed irregularities – while the chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Republican Jim Risch, called the polls a “hollow exercise”.<\/p>\n
This photograph shows a ballot box on a road closed for a polling station in Kampala on January 15, 2026, during Uganda’s 2026 general elections. (Photo by BADRU KATUMBA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
The dividends of peace<\/p>\n
Museveni was a central figure in the military campaigns that toppled the disastrous regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. Upon taking power he pledged to implement widespread democratic reforms and led the nation through a period of political renewal. During this time he allowed multi-party politics and gave speeches that extolled his democratic ideals and criticised other African leaders for clinging on to power longer than necessary. “The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power,” he famously declared at his 1986 swearing-in ceremony.<\/p>\n
Yet by the 2000s Museveni had reversed course. He entrenched himself more deeply in power, removing constitutional safeguards such as term limits and age limits in a bid to rule indefinitely. Loyalists were also installed across key institutions, weakening checks on executive power and concentrating power in his party.<\/p>\n
Even as democratic space in Uganda has shrunk, Museveni’s relatively peaceful rule has been a boon for economic growth and development. Uganda’s economy has averaged around 6% annual GDP growth over the past three decades, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Museveni has overseen a rise in Uganda’s GDP per capita from $330 in 1986 to $986 in 2024 (measured in constant 2015 dollars). Ugandans are on average three times wealthier in real terms. This transformation has happened despite the country’s explosive population growth. Uganda’s population has increased from 15m people when he took power to around 50m today. The country had a 56% poverty rate in 1992, when the first national survey of the post-war economy was conducted. By 2024 the poverty rate had fallen to 16%, according to the country’s national statistics office.<\/p>\n
Veteran Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo notes that while Museveni appears intent on being a “forever president” he can nonetheless point to a genuine record in terms of turning around the economy. Many African strongmen who have clung on to power cannot claim the same.<\/p>\n
“He took over a shattered country in 1986, ended state-sponsored torture and presided over an economic surge.” Uganda’s GDP has climbed from $6.7bn in 1986 to $65bn by 2025, at current prices. “A growing middle class now crowds Kampala’s malls, even if they spend half their lives trapped in the city’s notorious, soul-destroying traffic,” Onyango-Obbo writes. The IMF projects real GDP growth of 6% for Uganda in 2025, a figure that is expected to rise slightly to 6.3% this year. Inflation, meanwhile, is forecast to remain manageable between 3.3 and 3.5%.<\/p>\n
While Uganda’s economic growth has been robust, its economy is still about half the size of that of Kenya, which in 2025 had a GDP of $120bn according to the World Bank. Tanzania’s GDP ($78.8bn) is also larger than Uganda’s, though the two are broadly on par in terms of GDP per capita. Kenya’s 2024 GDP per capita is $2132, more than double Uganda’s $1077.<\/p>\n
The disparity between Uganda’s economy and its neighbour Kenya is perhaps most evident in the performance of key corporations in critical economic sectors such as telecoms. MTN Uganda reported 2.6 trillion Ugandan shillings ($720m) in revenue for the first nine months of 2025, with an adjusted profit after tax of 582bn Ugandan shillings ($160m), making it the top company in the country by revenues and profitability. By contrast, Kenya’s most profitable telco, Safaricom, crossed the $3bn revenue mark in the financial year ending on 30 March 2025 and delivered net profits of 58.2bn shillings ($450m) during the period.<\/p>\n
By avoiding the costly political misadventures that Uganda entangled itself in under Milton Obote and Idi Amin, both Kenya and Tanzania have managed to grow to become larger economies. But Uganda is catching up – and not just in terms of growth but also in terms of economic dynamism. Under Museveni the economy has diversified from a pure reliance on subsistence agriculture toward services and industry.<\/p>\n
The tempting promise of oil<\/p>\n
Joshua Kato, a chartered accountant and international tax advisor based in Kampala, tells African Business that the next phase of Uganda’s economic transformation will largely be shaped by hydrocarbons.<\/p>\n
Commercially viable oil reserves were discovered in the Lake Albert region 20 years ago, but production faced numerous delays due to infrastructure gaps – particularly the lack of a crude oil pipeline connecting the oil fields to maritime trade routes. Construction on this pipeline, which will run through Tanzania to the Indian Ocean at Tanga, is now nearing completion and commissioning is set for this year.<\/p>\n
Uganda plans to begin commercial crude oil production in mid-2026, with output projected to peak at 230,000 barrels per day. The country’s finance ministry projects that oil revenues could help push Uganda’s GDP growth into double digits in the financial year 2026 to 2027, and that it could average 7% to 8% annually over the next five years. The IMF similarly expects a significant boost to Uganda’s budget balance and current account once production begins.<\/p>\n
Kato stresses that “if well managed” Uganda has significant opportunities to unlock rapid economic growth through the exploitation of its oil and gas reserves.<\/p>\n
“Oil and gas production could actually strengthen governance revenues through royalties. If governance is strong, I see a very good future for Uganda with international oil companies coming in,” he says.<\/p>\n
TotalEnergies employees work during construction at a well pad inside Murchison Falls National Park in western Uganda on February 22, 2023. (Photo by BADRU KATUMBA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
Fears over crony capitalism<\/p>\n
Critics, however, warn that there is a likelihood that gains from oil production will not be equitably shared, given how Uganda’s economy has been organised under Museveni. Although he has presided over decades of steady economic growth, much of it has not been broad-based. Wealth and opportunity in Uganda are concentrated in the hands of a small circle of connected individuals with close political, business, or family ties to the president.<\/p>\n
Indeed, nepotism and favouritism have been recurring features of Museveni’s government. His wife, Janet Museveni, serves as minister of education and sports. His son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, is the chief of defence forces and held senior military posts before his appointment in 2024.<\/p>\n
Retired general Caleb Akandwanaho, a younger brother of rhe president, has long been influential in defence and security matters, while other relatives have also held ministerial roles. In business as in politics, friends and family of the president who have no qualms wheeling and dealing to secure lucrative contracts have enjoyed greater success than other entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, millions of ordinary Ugandans remain locked out of meaningful economic participation. Government data shows that around 33% of households are still engaged in subsistence agriculture, with limited access to formal employment or higher incomes. The fear now is that oil wealth will be captured by the same elite networks that have prospered under Museveni’s rule, reinforcing a system of crony capitalism that has kept so many Ugandans in poverty despite consistent improvements in headline economic figures.<\/p>\n
Debt growing but sustainable<\/p>\n
In terms of the risks facing Uganda, Kato flags the pace at which public debt has grown in recent years as an ongoing concern. Uganda’s public debt has risen sharply in recent years to 115.9 trillion Ugandan shillings ($32.2bn), according to the ministry of finance’s latest disclosures. This puts its debt-to-GDP ratio slightly above 50%, up significantly from about 30% in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n
As far as government borrowing is concerned, Uganda is in a better position than Kenya, where total public debt is at nearly 70% of GDP, but worse off than Tanzania, which has borrowed money equivalent to roughly 48% of its national economic output. Most of the debt that Uganda has taken on in recent years has been used to fund infrastructure development to support oil production. Once production commences, export revenues are expected to pay off the debt.<\/p>\n
However, Alex Atwemereireho, an activist and natural resources law student at Kampala International University, tells African Business that Uganda’s debt binge could backfire. “Uganda has embraced ‘big state capitalism under debt’ to overhaul infrastructure. Highways, dams and the much-touted oil pipeline have all largely been financed by state borrowing,” he notes.<\/p>\n
“The government argues that these investments are necessary for industrialisation, but evidence suggests that returns on these megaprojects are slow and costs are often inflated by corruption and inefficiency,” Atwemereireho says.<\/p>\n
Indeed, a Ugandan parliamentary committee found that government-funded infrastructure projects in the country can cost up to three times more than necessary. The Committee on Public Accounts (Central Government), reporting in September last year on the auditor general’s 2023-24 findings, delivered a scathing judgment on the country’s road upgrades, which it said were frequently dogged by excessive construction costs and inflated supervision expenditure.<\/p>\n
While critics argue that Uganda’s debt is getting unsustainable, officials maintain that it is within manageable limits, citing fiscal reforms, revenue mobilisation and anticipated earnings from oil and gas. In an assessment conducted in December, the IMF noted that Uganda’s debt trajectory was sustainable, though vulnerable to shocks such as slower growth or weaker revenue collection. Analysts also warn that reliance on future oil revenues to stabilise debt could be risky if production timelines slip, output fails to meet targets, or global prices fall.<\/p>\n
Youth unemployment biggest risk<\/p>\n
For Kato, the biggest risk Uganda faces is youth unemployment: “75% of our population is below 30 years and we have a 3% annual population growth rate. This does not tally with the scarce job opportunities being created. We have a huge idle population and it is a political risk that we need to think about,” he says.<\/p>\n
Official estimates put Uganda’s youth unemployment between 13% and 20%, but analysts caution that these headline figures obscure a deeper crisis of underemployment. The real issue is not whether young Ugandans are working, but how they are working. The majority of youth who participate in the labour force are engaged in insecure, informal jobs rather than stable, formal employment.<\/p>\n
Many young people also face barriers accessing education and vocational training, creating a vicious cycle that leaves them ill-prepared for more meaningful opportunities in industry or services. Atwemereireho argues that young Ugandans not only want more secure, better-paying jobs, but also a fairer chance at political participation. The current political environment, he notes, restricts much of these freedoms and is in urgent need of reform. <\/p>\n
Still, he says that for all his contradictions as a reformer-turned-authoritarian, Museveni transformed “a failed state into a functioning one” and set Uganda’s economy on the path to recovery and growth.<\/p>\n
Supporters of opposition leader and presidential candidate for the National Unity Platform (NUP) Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, listen to his remarks during the party’s final campaign rally ahead of the 2026 general elections in Kampala on January 12, 2026. (Photo by Luis TATO \/ AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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