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Top Opposition Candidate in Uganda Is Arrested on Election Day As Uganda Votes, Polling Stations Open Hours Late and a Candidate Is Arrested
(about 3 hours later)
KAMPALA, Uganda — The main opposition presidential candidate in Uganda was arrested briefly late Thursday in Kampala, the capital, as vote counting began in presidential and parliamentary elections marred by the late arrival of voting materials. KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandans went to the polls on Thursday to choose presidential and parliamentary candidates in an election riddled with irregularities even before voting began.
The candidate, Kizza Besigye, was arrested in the suburb of Naguru, where he had gone to investigate reports of ballot-stuffing in a house run by the country’s intelligence agencies, said his aide, Shawn Mubiru, who is in charge of communications for Mr. Besigye’s party, the Forum for Democratic Change. Polling stations in some parts of the capital, Kampala, did not open until after noon — nearly six hours late, and three hours before their scheduled closing time. Some did not open at all. At one polling station, voters waited seven hours for ballots to arrive, and when they did they were for parliamentary candidates only.
He said Mr. Besigye was taken to an unknown location. The police did not respond to requests for comment. Wire reports later said Mr. Besigye had been held for 30 minutes. And the leading opposition candidate for president, Kizza Besigye, was arrested after trying to get into a police command center in the Naguru neighborhood of Kampala, the police said. Mr. Besigye’s party, the Forum for Democratic Change, countered that the command center was really a “vote-rigging center.”
Mr. Besigye is the main challenger to President Yoweri Museveni in the presidential election, in which six other opposition candidates are also running. “He was with people knocking on gates and banging cars,” said an assistant police commissioner, Namaye Polly. Mr. Besigye was later released, his lawyer said.
Mr. Besigye’s supporters said the delays were deliberate and were aimed at favoring Mr. Museveni and as a countermeasure against Mr. Besigye, who is popular in Kampala. A senior foreign election observer called the delays “absolutely inexcusable.” Several dozen polling places never opened on Thursday, and the election commission late Thursday said they would be open on Friday. The long delays and irregularities threatened to exacerbate tensions that had risen just days before the election. Two people were killed on Monday in riots, and Mr. Besigye was twice arrested while trying to hold campaign rallies in Kampala.
The government also shut down access to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Thursday’s vote in Uganda had been billed as the “D-Day” of presidential elections, the fifth under President Yoweri Museveni, 71, who has led Uganda for 30 years, longer than 75 percent of Ugandans have been alive. Ugandan law prohibits presidential candidates over 75 years old, so unless the law is changed, this is the last year Mr. Museveni can run.
In the Ggaba neighborhood of Kampala, hundreds of people waited for seven hours for one polling place to open before voting papers finally arrived. When the voters found out that the ballots were only those for choosing members of Parliament, not the president, they overpowered the police, grabbed the ballot boxes and threw them all over a field. Mr. Museveni is perceived by many Ugandans to be trying to groom his son — Brig. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, 41, head of Uganda’s special forces — to succeed him, and the political jockeying in response created the strongest field of opposition candidates yet. Amama Mbabazi, Mr. Museveni’s former No. 2, defected last year after a reported falling out and joined Mr. Besigye in challenging the president on Thursday.
This election season, Uganda’s police recruited over 100,000 volunteer Crime Preventers, who were given paramilitary training to help control crowds, arrest suspects, guard ballot boxes and gather intelligence. Many of them openly support the incumbent.
Most Ugandans assume that Mr. Museveni will be declared the winner: he has ample genuine support, bolstered by Uganda’s history of vote rigging and manipulation.
In the Kampala neighborhood of Kibuli, a hotbed of opposition support, ballots did not arrive until nearly 1 p.m. Voting was extended until 7 p.m., but even by then many Ugandans had still not been able to vote.
“I arrived early!” exclaimed Musa Muburak, 24, a shop manager and supporter of Mr. Besigye. “When I came back, they said it was too late!”
In the Ggaba neighborhood, hundreds of people waited seven hours for one polling place to open before voting papers finally arrived, The Associated Press reported. When the voters found out that the ballots were only those for choosing members of Parliament, not the president, they overpowered the police, grabbed the ballot boxes and threw them all over a field.
The police fired tear gas, and polling officers fled before any votes were cast.The police fired tear gas, and polling officers fled before any votes were cast.
“If the election is free and fair we will be the first people to respect it, even if we are not the winner,” Mr. Besigye said Thursday at a polling station in his rural home, Rukungiri. “But where it is not a free and fair election, then we must fight for free and fair elections because that is the essence of our citizenship.” Widespread outages of social media services, including WhatsApp and Twitter, were also reported Thursday.
In Kampala, a spokesman for the Forum for Democratic Change said the delays were a “deliberate attempt to frustrate” voters in urban areas where Mr.Besigye is believed to be very popular, especially Kampala and the neighboring district of Wakiso. Uganda’s electoral commission announced Thursday evening that more than a dozen polling stations in Kampala would reopen on Friday so that voting could continue. Results are not expected until Saturday.
“Why is it that in areas where we enjoy massive support, like Kampala and Wakiso, that’s where these things are happening?” said the spokesman, Ssemujju Nganda. “We can’t have a credible election under this environment.” President Museveni’s National Resistance Movement party rejected notions that delays in voting had favored the incumbent. A party spokesman, Mike Sabulu, said, “Delays don’t discriminate.”
“We should be winning,” he said. “We didn’t have any worries about anyone, because we didn’t see ourselves as competing with them.”
Nevertheless, early returns Thursday from neighborhoods around Kampala indicated solid victories for Mr. Besigye. At the polling site in Kibuli, Mr. Besigye had 216 votes to Mr. Museveni’s 66.
But Kampala is not representative of Uganda over all, and most here believe that Mr. Museveni is going to be awarded another five-year term.