Who's Bobi Wine

 In Uganda, the military deployed to opposition strongholds in Kampala and the government blocked all social media going into Thursday’s elections. On Jan. 14, millions of Ugandans will vote in the country’s presidential elections. To many, the day may seem like politics as usual as incumbent President Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) again seeks to extend his rule.

This is the first time in the past two decades that Kizza Besigye of the leading opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), is not challenging Museveni. Besigye has run in each of the last four presidential elections, and claims to have been arrested 43 times since 2000 for leading the opposition again Museveni.

Patrick Oboi Amuriat is the FDC’s new candidate, but the main opposition candidate — and the primary target of surveillance and abuse by the Ugandan government’s security forces — is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known popularly as Bobi Wine.

Wine remains the opposition front-runner on a slate of 10 candidates challenging Museveni, despite having faced multiple assassination attempts, repeated arrests and police intimidation. Ugandan security forces have killed dozens of his supporters since his transition from musician to a member of parliamentin 2017.