After holding power for this long and living his life in the public eye, one would have thought that Mr. Museveni, the son of Amos Kaguta, would by now have developed the ability to be read with surgical precision.
Instead, it seems he has merely mastered and polished top-tier unpredictability; an ability to stay ahead of the curve and reinvent himself whenever he deems it absolutely necessary. The question is: why?
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, born in 1944 and now in his early 80s, has ruled Uganda since 1986, recently securing a seventh term in the January 2026 elections. His sustained political dominance has been marked by unpredictability, the ability to outmaneuver rivals, and periodic reinvention.
This stems from a mixture of strategic habits forged in guerrilla warfare, institutional control, patronage networks, military doctrine and adaptive pragmatism.
Museveni cultivates an image of being hard to read, even for insiders. He keeps his cards close, makes sudden maneuvers through cabinet reshuffles, security appointments or surprising interventions, while diffusing power centres so that no single faction gains too much clarity or leverage.
This “calculated unpredictability” keeps allies cautious and rivals off-balance. For instance, he neutralized ambitious figures like former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi through layered maneuvers that dismantled years of planning almost overnight.
The strange thing is how everyone thinks they know him and can beat him at his own game. It is almost as if Mr. Museveni intends for people to believe they have finally figured him out.
Museveni’s political style draws heavily from his rebel background and military lens on politics. He treats challenges as tactical problems, often relying on security structures such as intelligence agencies and the army over purely civilian mechanisms. He is, at his core, a military strategist both in thought and application.
Publicly, he delivers lengthy and often evasive discourses, framing decisions as “historical necessities” while sidestepping succession questions and portraying himself as a reluctant guardian of the 1986 “revolution.”
What fascinates many observers is how those seeking to defeat him politically rarely seem to learn from history that is buried in plain sight.
Museveni feeds off both institutional control and coercive power. But what is most important to study is how he goes about exercising that control. When he sought to remove presidential term limits in 2005 and age limits in 2017 through constitutional amendments, the process was presented almost casually, as though it were merely noise driven by excitable individuals like the late 'Colonel' Muhammad Abiriga, whom many dismissed and did not take seriously.
When he wanted his son to enter the army, it was framed as an LDU training programme. Meanwhile, his party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), continued dominating Parliament while security structures and patronage networks sidelined, absorbed or weakened opponents.
It is equally fascinating how he appears to have politically dismantled the most recent Speaker of Parliament while still meeting her as frequently as he wished. I am almost certain he gave her the impression that she still had a path to victory, even selling the possibility of a CEC endorsement that, in hindsight, may never have existed.
There were members of Cabinet who, until the very last hour, believed the Speakership of AAA was a fait accompli. It never was.
Now no one knows for sure whether AAA will go to court, remain politically silent or even face jail.
That is Mr Museveni for you.