A Ugandan police officer stands as people look at electoral officials count votes in the capital Kampala on Thursday.Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters
Police and soldiers have surrounded the home of Uganda’s main opposition leader, placing him under house arrest, just hours after voting ended in a tightly controlled election that is expected to prolong the 40-year rule of President Yoweri Museveni.
Opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, a 43-year-old singer and musician known as Bobi Wine, has drawn huge crowds at his campaign rallies across Uganda in recent weeks. But security forces routinely blocked his travel, disrupted his events, detained hundreds of his supporters, roughed up journalists covering him, and fired tear gas and water cannons at those who lined the roads to see him.
A national internet shutdown, ordered by the Ugandan government on Tuesday, has made it difficult to know exactly what is happening at his home. But reports were trickling out on Thursday night as his supporters raised the alarm.
“Security officers have unlawfully jumped over the perimeter fence and are now erecting tents within his compound,” his political party, the National Unity Platform, said in a post on social media.
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The repressive measures during Uganda’s election have sparked widespread international concern, partly because they seem to be intensifying a recent crackdown on dissent across East Africa. Hundreds of people were reportedly shot dead by security forces in neighbouring Tanzania during an internet shutdown after its election in October.
Police officers detain a voter near a polling station in Kampala on Thursday.BADRU KATUMBA/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Kyagulanyi warned that the internet blackout was intended to make it easier for authorities to conduct “massive ballot stuffing” during the voting. “We’re holding elections in the dark,” he told journalists after casting his ballot.
Many of his party’s polling agents were abducted or chased away from voting stations on Thursday, while many of its top officials were arrested in recent days, he said.
The threat of violence was so severe that Mr. Kyagulanyi wore a flak jacket and helmet at his campaign rallies. He described the campaign as a “battlefield.” In total, more than 700 party members have been taken into custody, while many others disappeared or even died after they were abducted, he said.
One of Uganda’s most prominent opposition leaders, Kizza Besigye, has been in prison for the past 14 months after he was abducted in Kenya and forcibly brought back to the country to face a military trial. He was later charged with treason.
In the days leading up to Thursday’s election, the Ugandan government deployed military vehicles and soldiers in the capital, Kampala, where they patrolled the streets and stationed themselves at key traffic intersections.
The government also ordered the immediate closing of 10 of the country’s biggest independent democracy and human-rights groups. Authorities sent identical letters to each group, saying they had received “intelligence information” that the groups were “engaged in activities which are prejudicial to the security and laws of Uganda.”
The United Nations human-rights office said the internet shutdown and the suspension of the independent groups were “deeply worrying.” Open access to information is crucial to free elections, it said in a statement this week.
Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the UN AIDS agency and the wife of Mr. Besigye, said the closing of the human-rights groups was preposterous. “This is about silencing citizens and crippling election monitoring – and it destroys what little credibility this election had left,” she said in a social-media post.
The government said the internet shutdown was necessary to reduce the “rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation.” It also said the blackout would curb the risk of electoral fraud, although it did not explain how.
Uganda's incumbent president Yoweri Museveni after casting his ballot in Rwakitura on Thursday.-/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Museveni, now 81, seized power in 1986 in an armed takeover by rebel forces. At the time, he complained that Africa’s biggest problem was “leaders who want to overstay in power.” But since then, he has extended his rule for several decades, often deploying the police and military against his opponents.
During the campaign for the last national election in 2021, his security forces shot and killed at least 54 anti-government protesters.
Last month, he alleged that Mr. Kyagulanyi would try to overwhelm the security forces with large numbers of his supporters, and he issued this warning to Ugandans: “Please don’t listen to him, because every soldier has 120 bullets.”
Mr. Museveni is believed to be grooming his son, Ugandan military chief General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to succeed him as president. Gen. Kainerugaba has become notorious in recent years for making erratic posts on social media, including threats to kill opposition leaders and invade neighbouring countries.
In 2023, Mr. Museveni was widely criticized by Western leaders when he approved a harsh anti-gay law, which included the death penalty for the vaguely defined act of “aggravated homosexuality.” After the law was passed, many Ugandans were evicted from their homes, dismissed from their jobs or detained and tortured by police.