Political parties (both dominant and single) have long been considered an invaluable asset for durable authoritarian regimes. More recent scholarship has called into question the institutional "strength" of these parties, and whether they actually serve their leaders better when they lack such strength. Uganda's National Resistance Movement (NRM), indelibly linked to its founder, 40 year incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, is one such weak-dominant party. As Museveni, aged 81 at writing, appears to be in the process of arranging a succession of power to his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba, this paper asks what the weakness of the NRM means for this succession plan, and how the challenges of succession differ significantly from those in an institutionally strong authoritarian ruling party. The article draws on the author's multiple periods of fieldwork in Uganda since 2011.
