President Yoweri Museveni said his seven rival candidates may not have much to offer Ugandans if elected in next year’s general election. (PPU photo)

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President Yoweri Museveni has said he can leave power, and therefore, there is no need to make an issue of it.

He made the remarks on November 8, 2025, while interacting with journalists from the Busigu sub-region during a live radio and TV talk show at State Lodge in Mbale city.

The show was moderated by Vision Group journalist Javier Silas Omagor, who is based in the eastern region.

Museveni, who is seeking another five-year mandate in the 2026 general election on the National Resistance Movement (NRM) ticket, first stated that the ruling party’s election manifesto is the most serious one.

“This is the only serious manifesto because what are the other fellows saying exactly? What are they saying? Museveni agende (Museveni should go). Ngende (I go)? I have no problem. I have got a very safe address; I can go, but the issue is you, Uganda, it’s not me,” he said.

Museveni, 81, emphasised that he never had any problem leaving power he took in January 1986.

“Me, I have no problem [and] I have never had any problem,” he said.

He also said his seven rival candidates may not have much to offer Ugandans if elected in next year’s general election.

“From what I hear, those presidents may not have much to offer because they don’t even seem to understand what the problem is,” the incumbent president told journalists.

Museveni is campaigning for a seventh term under the theme Protecting the Gains, Making a Qualitative Leap into High Middle-Income Status.

The theme focuses on safeguarding achievements in the last 39 years, such as peace and development, while aiming to propel Uganda to a high middle-income status.

Other gains it seeks to protect include wealth creation initiatives, jobs, service delivery, markets, as well as unity and political stability.

Museveni seized power against the background of a decade of brutality under Idi Amin’s regime and has since placed his fate in the hands of his party and the people.

Analysts say he remains a central figure in Uganda’s politics, and his strongest card is stability.

They argue that for nearly four decades, Museveni has kept the country largely peaceful compared to the turbulent years of coups and insurgencies that defined Uganda’s past.