KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) \u2014 Police in Uganda on Saturday denied reports that the main opposition candidate in this week’s tense election had been arrested, terming the reports as \u201cdeceitful and inciteful.\u201d They urged citizens to remain peaceful as the country awaits the results in the presidential vote.<\/p>\n
Uganda held a general election on Thursday amid an internet shutdown that has been in place for four days, with the military heavily deployed across the country and pockets of violence erupting as people protested parliamentary election results in various parts of the country.<\/p>\n
President Yoweri Museveni, 81, is seeking a seventh term in office and is leading in the provisional results with more than 70% support. His main challenger, musician-turned-politician Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, better known as Bobi Wine, is currently holding 20% of the vote. Wine dismissed the announced results as \u201cfake,\u201d and asked his supporters to ignore them.<\/p>\n
Police on Saturday said that Wine was \u201cnot under arrest,\u201d as claimed by his National Unity Platform party. Police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke said Wine was free to leave his house, but there was \u201ccontrolled access\u201d for others trying to go into the property, to prevent people from using the premises to incite violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should not surprise you when we have a pickup or two near the residence of Kyagulanyi,\u201d Rusoke said.<\/p>\n
Ugandan electoral officials are set to announce the final presidential results on Saturday, as constitutionally required. The chairperson of the national electoral commission said Friday that everything was on course to announce the final result by the end of the day Saturday.<\/p>\n
The voting was marred by delays due to the late delivery of materials to polling stations after opening time and the failure of some biometric machines.<\/p>\n
President Museveni said he agreed with the electoral commission\u2019s plan to revert to paper voter registration records, but Wine alleged fraud, claiming that there was \u201cmassive ballot stuffing\u201d and that his party\u2019s polling agents were abducted to give an unfair advantage to the ruling party.<\/p>\n
The security forces were a constant presence throughout the election campaign, and Wine said authorities followed him and harassed his supporters, using tear gas against them. He campaigned in a flak jacket and helmet due to his security fears.<\/p>\n
Wine wrote Thursday on X that he was unable to leave his house, and on Friday his party wrote that he had been arrested and taken away in an army helicopter.<\/p>\n
Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of presidential power since independence from British colonial rule six decades ago.<\/p>\n
Veteran opposition figure Kizza Besigye, a four-time presidential candidate, remains in prison after he was charged with treason in February 2025.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) \u2014 Police in Uganda on Saturday denied reports that the main opposition candidate in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[153],"class_list":{"0":"post-29045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uganda","8":"tag-uganda"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29045","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=29045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}