Activist and academic Dr. Stella Nyanzi has reacted sharply to President Yoweri Museveni’s nomination rally held at Kololo grounds on Tuesday, describing the moment as a painful reminder of what she termed Uganda’s “captivity under dictatorship.”
In a statement shared from Germany, where she lives in exile with her children, Nyanzi said the nomination marked a bitter personal and political moment. She accused Museveni of clinging to power through a process she believes is already compromised.
“For me, as a Ugandan political refugee living with my children in Germany, today is a very bitter day. The dictator who murdered my father and then murdered my mother was successfully nominated as a presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections in Uganda,” Nyanzi wrote.
She claimed that Museveni’s nomination signaled another five years of “terrorizing Ugandans” and dismissed the process as a “sham election” tilted in his favor.
According to Nyanzi, opposition contenders do not present a unified or strategic front capable of challenging the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM).
“I am grieving because there is neither a viable nor strategic contender for power among the other nominees,” she added.
Nyanzi, known for her outspoken criticism of the Ugandan government, has faced arrests and harassment in the past before seeking asylum in Germany in 2020.
She argued that Tuesday’s event at Kololo was less about democracy and more about maintaining a long-standing grip on power.
Her remarks come as Museveni, 81, prepares to extend his rule beyond four decades, having first taken office in 1986.
While NRM officials celebrated his nomination as a triumph of stability and continuity, Nyanzi insisted it was a day of mourning for many Ugandans yearning for change.