Climate of fear permeates Uganda presidential election

Vote-counting was continuing on Thursday night, sometimes by the light of lamps and cellphones in darkened voting stations. Riot police lobbed tear gas and stun grenades at them and fired warning shots from automatic rifles, then chased them through narrow alleys, arresting some.

“A re-election for Museveni would signal the persistent advantages incumbents have in controlling the political process, making it very hard for opposition parties or candidates to compete with national structures, finance and support from partisan government institutions”, he said.

He said Besigye was taken to an unknown location. Josephine Mayanja-Nkangi, a spokeswoman for Mbabazi, said he interpreted the deployment to mean he can not leave his house. “It would also likely spark protests in FDC strongholds in Kampala”.

Niringiye also claimed Museveni uses money to buy peasants’ votes in rural areas but since he can not entice the middle class in Kampala the same way, he uses power to repress it.

Voting is taking place Friday at 36 polling stations in Kampala and the neighboring district of Wakiso where no voting took place on Thursday.

President Museveni justified his actions by citing “security risks” and the fact that users were using social media messaging services such as Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp to “spread lies”.

A VPN – a Virtual Private Network – gets round government censorship by redirecting your internet activity to a computer in a different country.

Uganda’s opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye has been arrested by police as he tried to verify reports of an alleged illegal polling station.

“What happened is that Besigye stormed a police facility where we operate and receive emergency calls…”

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby condemned Besigye’s detention. Jotham Taremwa, election commission spokesman, said: “There was a bit of a delay at some polling stations because of logistical problems”.

In January, Ugandans used the hashtag #1986pictures with tweets of 30-year-old pictures and remarks like “In 30 years, everything has changed in Uganda except the president”.

The chairman of Uganda’s Electoral Commission Dr. Baddru Kiggundu has apologized to Ugandans for the delay in the delivery of voting materials to several polling stations around the country. “Once you are dealing with these African dictators, there is nothing impossible; he can lose the election and proclaim himself the victor, we don’t expect that Museveni can have that courage and handover the power to us peacefully; he is controlling the elections and and he has the power to influence the results at every stage”.

Parliamentary and regional elections were also underway.

Ugandan police briefly detained top presidential challenger Kizza Besigye after a day of polling Thursday marred by long delays and police firing tear gas to disperse furious voters in the capital Kampala.

In Uganda, however, Museveni maintains firm control of the levers of power and is expected to win yet another five-year term. He is a key USA ally on security matters, especially in Somalia.

Mr Besigye was Mr Museveni’s personal physician during a bush war and served as deputy interior minister in Mr Museveni’s first Cabinet.