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 through which 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, through which 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 upfront of the vote and repeatedly fired reside bullets and tear gasoline 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 atmosphere of “widespread repression and intimidation” earlier than the vote.
Brussels-based Worldwide Disaster Group has assessed that Museveni, “along 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 “in opposition to impunity,” reported Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi from Kampala, Uganda. However “he doesn’t imagine that he’s going to get a free or honest election.”
Authorities bans two NGOs from working
Museveni’s authorities mentioned safety forces are performing 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 chopping off the web, the federal government on Tuesday ordered two native rights teams which were important 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 quick impact”.
Kristof Titeca, a Uganda skilled primarily based at Antwerp College, mentioned the federal government’s clampdown has made it “too harmful” for the opposition to successfully organise.
“The value individuals need to pay for partaking in political opposition has turn into very excessive,” mentioned Titeca.
Uganda additionally blocked web entry throughout its final election in 2021 – a vote marred by stories of state violence and electoral manipulation. Authorities had repeatedly promised the web would stay obtainable 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 rigidity among the many public”.
Along with Museveni and Wine, six different candidates are working for president within the East African nation of roughly 45 million individuals. Electoral authorities say there are 21.6 million registered voters.
