The former pop star taking on Yoweri Museveni in Uganda’s election

Together with his charisma, tenacity and everyman attraction, music star Bobi Wine has shaken up Ugandan politics.

Since his profession pivot a decade in the past, the 43-year-old has turn into a significant thorn within the facet of President Yoweri Museveni, an 81-year-old who has been in energy for 40 years.

Bobi Wine has enchanted legions of younger Ugandans, a demographic that makes up a big portion of the nation’s inhabitants. Having grown up within the slums of the capital, Kampala, he dubbed himself the “ghetto president” and campaigns on points corresponding to youth unemployment and human rights.

On 15 January, Bobi Wine, whose actual identify is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, after the previous Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, will compete towards Museveni in a presidential election for the second time. However the odds are stacked towards him.

Since coming into politics, the self-styled revolutionary has been imprisoned and confronted a number of legal prices.

His plight has piqued consideration world wide – in 2018, musicians together with Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, signed a petition demanding his launch from custody.

Wine was held on prices referring to the unlawful possession of firearms, however the case was extensively seen as being politically motivated. He was subsequently additionally arrested for treason, however ultimately, all of those circumstances had been dropped.

There was additional outrage in 2021, when the police shot at Bobi Wine whereas he was campaigning.

“I’m probably the most linked candidate to the inhabitants,” he instructed the BBC throughout his marketing campaign for the forthcoming election.

“That’s the reason among the many eight candidates, I’m probably the most hounded, I’m probably the most harassed, I’m probably the most feared.”

The authorities have repeatedly denied that the arrests of Bobi Wine, and supporters and members of his Nationwide Unity Platform (NUP) celebration, have been political. They are saying any detentions have been obligatory to keep up legislation and order.

The president has additionally accused Bobi Wine of holding violent rallies in built-up areas, placing his supporters and most of the people in danger – an allegation denied by the opposition chief.

When Museveni took workplace in 1986, Bobi Wine was nearly to show 4.

Museveni and his insurgent Nationwide Resistance Military (NRA) had seized energy in an armed rebellion.

Bobi Wine’s grandfather, Yozefu Walakira, was a part of a unique insurgent contingent however once in a while through the battle, he hosted Museveni in his house.

Bobi Wine spent a lot of his childhood in Kampala. His mom Margaret Nalunkuuma, a nurse, was the primary breadwinner and raised him on the land she purchased within the Kamwokya slum.

As a young person, Bobi Wine gained a ardour for the humanities. He attended Uganda’s prestigious Makerere College, incomes a diploma in music, dance and drama in 2003. He met his spouse and the mom of his 4 kids, Barbara “Barbie” Itungo, when he was a pupil and so they starred in the identical play.

After college, Bobi Wine launched into a music profession, branding his craft “edutainment”, that’s, leisure that educates. Certainly one of his earliest hits, Kadingo, was a track about private hygiene.

His music, which options parts of reggae, Afrobeats and conventional Ugandan rhythms, gained a big following, and established him as a champion for social and political change.

Regardless of his mounting fame, Bobi Wine selected to proceed recording in a music studio he had constructed within the Kamwokya slum. He additionally labored as an actor.

In 2016, lots of the nation’s well-known musicians backed President Museveni’s re-election. Bobi Wine, nevertheless, held out.

He launched a track named Situka, wherein he mused: “When the going will get robust, the robust should get going, particularly when leaders turn into misleaders and mentors turn into tormentors.”

The next yr, Bobi Wine turned his hand to politics.

He ran in a by-election for the Kyadondo-East constituency as an impartial candidate, dealing with politicians from the ruling NRM and the FDC, which was Uganda’s second-biggest celebration on the time.

He received by a landslide, securing greater than 5 occasions the full votes of his NRM opponent.

Round this time, Bobi Wine developed the Individuals Energy motion, a stress group campaigning for higher democratic and social situations.

Members started carrying crimson berets, which to at the present time stay a trademark for the opposition chief.

After Bobi Wine was repeatedly blocked from registering Individuals Energy as a political celebration, he joined the lesser-known, already-registered NURP. The celebration then modified its identify to the NUP and Bobi Wine was chosen to be its chief.

By 2021, he was able to problem Museveni within the presidential election. Within the run-up to the vote, dozens of individuals, a lot of whom had been believed to have been shot by the safety forces, had been killed. Bobi Wine in the end misplaced the election, gaining 35% of the vote in comparison with Museveni’s 59%.

Two years later, the NUP chief’s story was immortalised in a Nationwide Geographic documentary, titled Bobi Wine: The Individuals’s president. The movie was distributed globally and earned an Oscars nomination.

Regardless of his Hollywood credentials, Bobi Wine’s politics haven’t shifted a lot since he broke out virtually a decade in the past.

He stays happy with his humble background and nonetheless focuses his campaigns round points like corruption, youth unemployment and wealth redistribution.

However there’s a concern that ought to, towards all odds, he turn into president, his background may rely towards him.

The army is influential in Ugandan politics – in any case, they’ve deposed or tried to depose quite a few leaders because the nation grew to become impartial in 1962.

As Bobi Wine doesn’t have a army or ministerial background and, conversely, reduce his enamel within the artistic sector, it might be robust to get the armed forces to take him severely as president.

It is a view he rejects.

“Uganda has been prepared for a civilian chief since time immemorial,” he insists, including that based on Uganda’s structure, the army should be subordinate to the civilian authority.

Within the run-up to voting day, Bobi Wine has been campaigning throughout the nation, typically carrying a protecting flack jacket and helmet.

Footage exhibits his supporters accompanying his convoy, braving tear fuel and water cannon fired by the safety forces.

At a cease in northern Uganda, uniformed males whipped Bobi Wine’s supporters with sticks as they fashioned a human defend across the opposition chief.

His backers stay steadfast and dedicated, packing out rallies regardless of the chance of violence.

Bobi Wine can be undeterred.

“This election is about liberation,” he says. “It’s about freedom, it’s about individuals asserting their voices. We’re asking individuals to return out and protest within the poll field.”

Extra reporting by Catherine Byaruhanga and Sammy Awami