{"id":23598,"date":"2026-01-14T20:17:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/23598\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:17:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:17:42","slug":"ugandan-opposition-leader-campaigns-in-flak-jacket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/23598\/","title":{"rendered":"Ugandan opposition leader campaigns in flak jacket"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">MUKONO, Uganda &#8212; The Ugandan opposition leader known as Bobi Wine campaigned in the town of Mukono wearing a flak jacket and helmet as soldiers filled the streets of the country&#8217;s capital Kampala ahead of a presidential vote. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The safety gear seen in a photo captured Friday by photojournalist Hajarah Nalwadda offers no protection from the stinging clouds of tear gas that often follow Wine on the campaign trail at rallies where security forces are a constant presence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Wine, a musician-turned-politician whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, is challenging President Yoweri Museveni, who is seeking a seventh term in the Jan. 15 election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Museveni has ruled <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/uganda\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Uganda<\/a> since 1986 by repeatedly rewriting the rules to stay in power. Term and age limits have been scrapped and rivals jailed or sidelined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In a New Year\u2019s Eve address, the president said he recommended security forces use tear gas to break up crowds of what he called \u201cthe criminal opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Wine faced similar setbacks when he first ran for president in 2021. He often was roughed up by the police, clothes ripped from his body, and dozens of his supporters were jailed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUKONO, Uganda &#8212; The Ugandan opposition leader known as Bobi Wine campaigned in the town of Mukono wearing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[14489,645,5885,762,261,5886,153,242],"class_list":{"0":"post-23598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uganda","8":"tag-14489","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-chemical-weapons","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-prisons","14":"tag-uganda","15":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}