As of 2025, he is the third-longest consecutively serving current non-royal national leader in the world (after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea and Paul Biya in Cameroon).

Museveni contested the subsequent 1980 general election on the platform of Uganda Patriotic Movement, though claimed electoral fraud after losing to the unpopular Milton Obote.

His presidency has been characterized by relative economic success and, in its later period, an upsurge in anti-gay activity alongside numerous constitutional amendments like the scrapping of presidential term and age limits in 2005 and 2017.

On 16 January 2021, Museveni was reelected to a sixth term with 58.6% of the vote, despite many videos and reports showing ballot box stuffing, over 400 polling stations with 100% voter turnout and human rights violations.

[4][5] According to Julius Nyerere, Museveni's father, Amos Kaguta, was a soldier in the King's African Rifles' 7th battalion during World War II.

Studying under the leftist Walter Rodney, among others, Museveni wrote a university thesis on the applicability of Frantz Fanon's ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa.

Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere ordered the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) to counter-attack and mobilized Ugandan dissidents to fight Amin's regime.

While in Tanzania, he discussed the cooperation of various anti-Amin rebel groups as well as the political future of Uganda with Tanzanian politicians and other Ugandan opposition figures such as Obote.

[20] On 27 July 1985, sub factionalism within the Uganda People's Congress government led to a successful military coup against Obote by his former army commander, Lieutenant-General Tito Okello, an Acholi.

Museveni and the NRM/NRA were angry that the revolution for which they had fought for four years had been "hijacked" by the UNLA, which they viewed as having been discredited by gross human rights violations during Obote II.

The people of Uganda should die only from natural causes which are beyond our control, but not from fellow human beings who continue to walk the length and breadth of our land.Although Museveni headed a new government in Kampala, the NRM could not project its influence fully across Ugandan territory, finding itself fighting a number of insurgencies.

In the West Nile sub-region, inhabited by Kakwa and Lugbara (who had previously supported Amin), the UNRF and FUNA rebel groups fought for years until a combination of military offensives and diplomacy pacified the region.

Rebel groups sprang up among the Lango, Acholi, and Teso peoples, though they were overwhelmed by the strength of the NRA except in the far north where the Sudanese border provided a safe haven.

The Acholi rebel Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) failed to dislodge the NRA occupation of Acholiland, leading to the desperate chiliasm of the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM).

According to Olara Otunnu, a United Nations Diplomat argued that Museveni pursued a genocide to Nilotic – Luo people living in the Northern part of the country.

[33] In its conclusion, the report offered some hope: Any assessment of the NRM government's human rights performance is, perhaps inevitably, less favourable after four years in power than it was in the early months.

However, it is not true to say, as some critics and outside observers, that there has been a continuous slide back towards gross human rights abuse, that in some sense Uganda is fated to suffer at the hands of bad government.On 13 September 2019, Museveni's former Inspector General of Police (IGP) General Kale Kayihura was placed on the United States Department of the Treasury sanctions list for gross violation of Human rights during his reign as the IGP (from 2005 to March 2018).

To hear some of the diplomats and African experts tell it, President Yoweri K. Museveni started an ideological movement that is reshaping much of Africa, spelling the end of the corrupt, strong-man governments that characterized the cold-war era.

"We felt that the Rwandese started the war and it was their duty to go ahead and finish the job, but our President took time and convinced us that we had a stake in what is going on in Congo", one senior officer is reported as saying.

Moves to alter the constitution and alleged attempts to suppress opposition political forces have attracted criticism from domestic commentators, the international community, and Uganda's aid donors.

[60]As observed by some political commentators, including Wafula Oguttu, Museveni had previously stated that he considered the idea of clinging to office for "15 or more" years ill-advised.

"Our foreign ministry wanted to highlight two issues: the changing of the constitution to lift term limits, and problems with opening the political space, human rights and corruption", said Norwegian Ambassador Tore Gjos.

Before the vote, the FDC spokesperson stated, "Key sectors of the economy are headed by people from the president's home area... We have got the most sectarian regime in the history of the country in spite of the fact that there are no parties.

[75] Widespread speculation as to the cause of the crash led Museveni, on 10 August, to threaten the closure of media outlets that published "conspiracy theories" about Garang's death.

Also in this term, Museveni held meetings with investors that included Wisdek, to promote Uganda's call centre and outsourcing industry and create employment to the country.

[87] Further international scrutiny accompanied the 2009 Ugandan efforts to institute the death penalty for homosexuality, with British, Canadian, French, and American leaders expressing concerns for human rights.

[88][89] British newspaper The Guardian reported that Museveni "appeared to add his backing" to the legislative effort by, among other things, claiming "European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa", and saying gay relationships were against God's will.

"[114] The law enforcement agencies in Uganda, i.e. the police, the military etc., have arrested at least 53 people, including opposition leader Kizza Besigye, for demonstrating against the bill to scrap the presidential age limit.

[115][116] A group of legislators from the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), clandestinely agitated to remove the age limit because it would give Museveni leeway to run for another term in the 2021 elections.

[126] Independent international observers called for investigation into potential election fraud amidst a nationwide internet shutdown, human rights abuses,[127][128] and denied accreditation requests.