Internet cut off in Uganda ahead of tense election
Ugandan authorities appeared to cut off internet access in the country yesterday on the eve of a tense presidential election.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for leading opposition candidate Bobi Wine said all contact had been lost with him.
“Confirmed: Uganda is now in the midst of a nation-scale internet blackout,” watchdog NetBlocks said in a statement. Ugandans using leading internet service providers MTN and Airtel said they could no longer get online.
The US-based lawyer for Wine, Bruce Afran, told reporters that the candidate “is now in his compound with his wife and a single staff member who is unarmed and is not security personnel. Security and police are stationed outside his home and effectively encircled it.”
Afran said he feared Wine, a popular young singer and lawmaker, will once again be arrested, and warned that “we’re going to see protests on the streets” if longtime President Yoweri Museveni is declared the winner of today’s vote because of suspected fraud.
Wine, 38, has captured the imagination of many at home and abroad in his generational clash with the 76-year-old Museveni, who has rebuffed calls for his retirement after 34 years in power.
Hundreds of staffers for Wine’s party are in detention, Afran said: “We believe this portends a a significant attempt at vote-rigging”.
Yesterday, the US ambassador to Uganda said the embassy will not observe the election, citing a decision by electoral authorities to deny accreditation to most members of the observation team.
Uganda’s government has repeatedly alleged that foreigners are working in support of the opposition. Wine has been accused of being “an agent of foreign interests”, which he denies.
On Wednesday, Museveni shut down access to social media and blasted Facebook after the social network removed Ugandan accounts linked to his re-election campaign because they had engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour.
Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, insists his campaign is nonviolent and he urges his supporters not to be intimidated by the heavy military deployment in Kampala, the capital.
At least 54 people were killed in November as the security forces put down riots sparked by the arrest of Wine, whose rallies were frequently broken up by police purportedly enforcing coronavirus control measures. Wine’s supporters allege security forces are cracking down on his supporters. Many have suffered beatings, and at least 49 of Wine’s associates and supporters have been criminally charged.