The peculiarities of the oppositional political discourse of Ugandan politician Bobi Wine

The article analyzes the political discourse of one of the most infl uential Ugandan opposition politicians, Bobi Wine, who is famous for his scathing criticism of Ioweri Museveni’s regime, existing since 1986. Bobi Wine, who offi cially started his political career in 2017, the year when he was elected in the Ugandan parliament, actually does not recognize the legitimacy of the rule of his ideological enemy. In the country the political myth is created according to which the opposition, and not Yoweri Musevini, won the presidential elections of 2021. Yoweri Museveni just used mass rigging of votes to ensure his victory. The research is carried out on the basis of interviews given by the oppositional politician in the years of 2017–2021. Its urgency is explained by the necessity to study non-systemic political discourse, including the one that belongs to poor, developing countries living not in democracy but in the conditions of harsh authoritarianism. The main method of the research is critical discourse analysis developed mainly by T. van Dejk, N. Fairclough, R. Wodak and based on the fundamental neo-Marxist and Foucauldian principles. It has been found out that the Ugandan oppositional political discourse is characterized by the accentuation of such oppositions as ‘the young generation vs. the older generation’, ‘people – authorities’. It is also marked by some degree of pathos, the belief in utopian visions and political myths as well as fi gurativeness. Bobi Wine emphasizes that he represents the Ugandan ghetto and, unlike his rival, he is young. Hence, he can understand the hopes of most Ugandan people who are tired of the many-years rule of the permanent leader of Uganda as well as the corruption fl ourishing in Uganda. In the speeches of the politician, the need for changes is explained. The stress is made on the fact that opposition does not have fear of the future while Yoweri Musevini, on the contrary, is portrayed as a person who has lost the sense of reality, and is, most of all, afraid of losing power.