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An armed Ugandan riot policeman patrols previous marketing campaign posters for longtime President Yoweri Museveni.
Ben Curtis/AP
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Ben Curtis/AP
LAGOS, Nigeria — Thousands and thousands of Ugandans are voting Thursday in a tense presidential election as 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni seeks to increase his four-decade grip on energy.
Museveni, one in all Africa’s longest-serving leaders, faces a well-recognized challenger: 43-year-old pop star-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, extra broadly often called Bobi Wine. This can be a rematch of the 2021 election, when Museveni was declared the winner amid widespread allegations of fraud.
5 different candidates are additionally working on this 12 months’s election, with 21.6 million registered voters anticipated to forged ballots.
Heavy safety and rising pressure
The vote is happening underneath an web blackout and a heavy navy presence. A whole bunch of activists have been detained, and journalists and human rights teams face restrictions, measures the federal government calls crucial for safety.
On Tuesday, the Uganda Communications Fee instructed cellular operators and web service suppliers that the blackout was imposed on the “robust suggestions” of safety companies.
“This momentary suspension is a precautionary intervention to make sure peace, defend nationwide stability and forestall the misuse of communication platforms throughout a delicate nationwide train,” the fee stated in a letter.
An entrenched chief
For the seventh election in a row, Museveni’s marketing campaign has stuffed the streets of the capital, Kampala. At one of many remaining rallies earlier than the vote, a marching band led 1000’s of supporters. Many wore yellow T-shirts and caps emblazoned with the insignia of the ruling Nationwide Resistance Motion — and pictures of the octogenarian president.
A musician warms up his trumpet earlier than performing for supporters of Uganda’s incumbent president, Yoweri Museveni, forward of his get together’s closing marketing campaign rally.
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AFP/through Getty Photos
Addressing the gang in his remaining rally on Tuesday, Museveni lower a weathered determine, itemizing achievements in infrastructure and safety. After almost 40 years in energy, he argued that solely his continued rule might protect them.
However in 1986, the 12 months he got here to energy, Museveni made a unique case. He wrote that “the issue of Africa normally, and Uganda specifically, just isn’t the individuals however leaders who need to overstay in energy.”
4 many years on, these phrases echo again at him as Uganda — in addition to a rising variety of international locations throughout the continent — grapples with the identical problem.
The nation has by no means skilled a peaceable switch of energy between elected leaders since gaining independence, making these elections particularly consequential.
A youthful voters
Uganda has one of many youngest populations on the planet. An awesome majority of its 50 million persons are underneath age 40 and have solely ever recognized one president.
Ugandan opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, who is named Bobi Wine, waves to supporters at an election marketing campaign rally in Mukono, Uganda, on Jan. 9.
Hajarah Nalwadda/AP
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Hajarah Nalwadda/AP
Frustration amongst youthful Ugandans has fueled help for Bobi Wine, chief of the Nationwide Unity Platform. The musician-turned-politician has drawn massive crowds, notably amongst city youth, campaigning on guarantees to ease financial hardship and finish what he calls “household rule.”
Museveni’s son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the nation’s high navy commander, is broadly seen as his father’s inheritor. Recognized for his erratic social media exercise, he has incessantly posted about his assumption that he’ll assume energy.
“It is like the federal government is at conflict with its individuals”
Uganda is a big geopolitical actor in East Africa, with troops deployed throughout the continent. The election comes amid regional instability: Tanzania skilled violent protests throughout its October elections, and Kenya has seen lethal anti-government demonstrations in recent times. In Uganda too, as in 2021 — when violence and protests erupted across the vote — many worry this election might unleash related unrest.
For Western governments, Museveni stays strategically useful. He has deployed troops to regional bother spots and just lately agreed to simply accept U.S. deportees, incomes favor with the Trump administration regardless of long-standing considerations over his human rights file.
Even when Wine had been to win sufficient votes, many observers say he would face formidable obstacles to taking energy.
Police have repeatedly used tear fuel to interrupt up his rallies, and a number of other of his supporters have been arrested. Wine himself typically campaigns sporting a flak jacket and helmet, a stark reminder of the dangers he faces. He has been detained and overwhelmed a number of occasions and was shot within the leg by police two years in the past.
“It is like the federal government is at conflict with its individuals,” stated Miria Matembe, a lawyer and former opposition politician.
Matembe says that opposition teams had been blocked from campaigning and organizing freely and that voters had even been barred from staying behind to watch the depend after casting their ballots.
However she provides that, regardless of the official end result, for a lot of annoyed with the federal government, the vote stays a uncommon alternative to talk out.
Halima Athumani and Emmanuel Igunza contributed reporting from Uganda.
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