The blackout comes as President Yoweri Museveni, criticised for cracking down on opponents, vies for his seventh time period.
Printed On 13 Jan 2026
Ugandan authorities have imposed a nationwide web blackout days earlier than presidential elections wherein President Yoweri Museveni is predicted to delay his 40-year rule.
A authorities regulatory physique instructed cellular community operators to dam public web entry beginning at 6pm (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday. Web monitor NetBlocks later confirmed a “nation-scale disruption to web connectivity”.
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The community outage has heightened concerns about repression within the run-up to the January 15 vote, wherein 81-year-old Museveni, Africa’s third-longest-serving chief, is being challenged by pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine.
Musevni’s re-election ‘all however locked down’
Ugandan safety personnel have rounded up tons of of opposition supporters prematurely of the vote and repeatedly fired stay bullets and tear fuel at pro-Wine marketing campaign rallies. In the meantime, opposition determine Kizza Besigye, who challenged Museveni in 4 earlier elections, is jailed on charges of treason.
The United Nations Human Rights Workplace has criticised Uganda’s authorities for creating an setting of “widespread repression and intimidation” earlier than the vote.
Brussels-based Worldwide Disaster Group has assessed that Museveni, “together with his agency grip on the levers of state energy … has re-election all however locked down.”
Wine views his candidacy as a marketing campaign “towards impunity,” reported Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi from Kampala, Uganda. However “he doesn’t imagine that he’s going to get a free or truthful election.”
Authorities bans two NGOs from working
Museveni’s authorities stated safety forces are appearing to cease what it described as lawless conduct by opposition supporters. The Uganda Communications Fee defended the web shutdown as essential to “curb “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and associated dangers.”
Along with slicing off the web, the federal government on Tuesday ordered two native rights teams which have been crucial of authorities – Chapter 4 Uganda and Human Rights Community for Journalists-Uganda – to halt their work.
The state-run Nationwide Bureau for NGOs accused Chapter 4 Uganda of partaking in actions “prejudicial” to Uganda’s safety and “ought to stop operations … with rapid impact”.
Kristof Titeca, a Uganda knowledgeable primarily based at Antwerp College, stated the federal government’s clampdown has made it “too harmful” for the opposition to successfully organise.
“The worth folks must pay for partaking in political opposition has change into very excessive,” stated Titeca.
Uganda additionally blocked web entry throughout its final election in 2021 – a vote marred by studies of state violence and electoral manipulation. Authorities had repeatedly promised the web would stay accessible this time, saying as just lately as January 5 that “claims suggesting in any other case are false, deceptive, and meant to trigger pointless worry and pressure among the many public”.
Along with Museveni and Wine, six different candidates are operating for president within the East African nation of roughly 45 million folks. Electoral authorities say there are 21.6 million registered voters.
