Polls open in Uganda amid crackdown, fears of violence, internet blackout

UN Human Rights Office has stressed 'open entree to connection & accusation is cardinal to escaped & genuine elections'.

Uganda is connected borderline arsenic polls person opened, with President Yoweri Museveni expected to widen his four-decade rule amid a constabulary crackdown connected the opposition, fears of unit and an net shutdown.

The East African federation is holding a contentious wide predetermination connected Thursday aft a Ugandan authorities regulatory assemblage instructed mobile web operators to artifact nationalist net access, starting connected Tuesday evening.

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Polling stations were dilatory to open, arsenic is accustomed successful Uganda, but voting was nether mode soon aft 7am (04:00 GMT) successful astatine slightest 1 Kampala suburb, AFP quality bureau journalists saw. There were dense constabulary and service patrols successful the borderline municipality of Jinja, different AFP squad said.

Partial results are expected aboriginal successful the time aft polls close.

More than 21.6 cardinal voters person registered for the election. In a state wherever 70 percent of radical are nether property 35, precocious unemployment is simply a cardinal contented for first-time voters.

The section Daily Monitor paper ran a full-page connected however to “election-proof your home”, advising citizens to reenforce doors and windows and designate a harmless country successful lawsuit of unrest.

The United Nations Human Rights Office stressed connected Wednesday that “open entree to connection & accusation is cardinal to escaped & genuine elections”.

“All Ugandans indispensable beryllium capable to instrumentality portion successful shaping their aboriginal & the aboriginal of their country,” it said.

The authorities of Museveni, 81, has been accused of overseeing a years-long crackdown connected its critics, arresting governmental absorption leaders and their supporters.

Museveni is being challenged successful Thursday’s ballot by popular star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, whose run rallies person been routinely disrupted by the Ugandan authorities.

As with his 2021 campaign, hundreds of Bobi Wine’s supporters person been arrested successful the run-up to the vote. He has been wearing a flak overgarment astatine rallies, describing the predetermination arsenic a “war” and Museveni arsenic a “military dictator”.

“We are precise alert that they are readying to rig the election, to brutalise people, to termination people, and they don’t privation the remainder of the satellite to see,” Bobi Wine told AFP.

The UN Human Rights Office past week warned that Ugandans would beryllium heading to the polls amid “widespread repression and intimidation against the governmental opposition, quality rights defenders, journalists and those with dissenting views”.

The Uganda Communications Commission defended the net shutdown arsenic indispensable to curb “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks”.