Every Ugandan election cycle comes with its own flashpoint--an unpopular policy, a street-level crisis, or a botched reform that sends ordinary citizens into fury.
And each time, like clockwork, President Museveni steps in, cancelling the offending measure and casting himself as the people's saviour.
Talk of vendors being kicked out only to stay, boda boda, taxi operators and whatnot. This is the season.
This year, the flashpoint is the Enforcement of Penalty Scheme (EPS) under the controversial Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS), whose automated traffic fines are battering the incomes of taxi and boda boda operators.
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Already, the Ministry of Works and Transport is meeting with Kampala's taxi associations amid growing unrest over the EPS. Many operators claim they now work at a loss, with fines hitting them daily--sometimes for offences they weren't even aware of.
Next in line will be boda boda associations, already agitating online and in city meetings. Sources in both groups say they are preparing formal petitions to State House.
"The fines are unreasonable and automatic. You wake up and find your earnings wiped out by something a machine recorded. There is no appeal, no hearing. We can't survive," says Yusuf Kato, a boda rider in Makindye.
The public anger is real. But for those watching Uganda's political cycles, the likely outcome is just as predictable.
"Museveni always resolves these flashpoints when elections are around the corner," says a political analyst who requested anonymity.
"He did it during the Utoda wars with taxi operators, and again when boda riders clashed with KCCA over registrations and routes. He suspends, he promises, and people cheer."
This time, insiders expect Museveni to summon Transport Minister Katumba Wamala and Finance Minister Matia Kasaija with a simple directive: find the money to pay the Russian company behind the ITMS--and take the pressure off the streets.
Under the ten-year deal signed in 2021, the Russian firm, Joint Stock Company Global Security, earns a significant share of EPS revenue.
But with the system now under attack, the political cost is rising faster than the profits.
Sources hint that a presidential order suspending EPS fines "in their current form" could come within weeks.
"It will be framed as a pro-people move, a reset," one said. "But make no mistake, it's a political calculation."
For many voters--especially the working poor who feel hunted by automated cameras and unaffordable penalties--Museveni's expected move will land as a relief.
It will also reinforce his image as the only one who can rein in an overreaching state, even if he built that state himself.
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The message will be familiar: Museveni listens. Museveni acts. Museveni stays.
Just like every other local government is eating up presidential pledge for new district, road construction, hospital upgrade and such, so will it be with this EPS thing.
And as Uganda inches toward another election, the script--seasoned, cynical, but still effective--will likely play out once again.
