UgandaToday: PAD Raises Alarm Over Uganda’s January 15 Election, Calls for International Audit
Kampala | January 23, 2026
The Platform for African Democrats (PAD) has issued a strong statement expressing grave concern over the conduct and outcome of Uganda’s presidential election held on January 15, 2026, describing it as a contest shaped by repression, state intimidation, and systemic manipulation.
According to PAD, the election presented Ugandans with two sharply contrasting futures. On one hand was President Yoweri Museveni, 81, seeking a seventh term in office four decades after taking power. PAD notes that Museveni’s campaign was marked by heavy reliance on state resources, security forces, and institutions deployed to preserve regime continuity and elite interests.
On the other hand stood Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu—popularly known as Bobi Wine—the 43-year-old opposition leader whose campaign, PAD says, operated under relentless violence and obstruction. The statement cites shootings, arbitrary detentions, beatings, tear gas, water cannons, and sustained intimidation as defining features of Kyagulanyi’s campaign environment, alongside systematic interference with his efforts to mobilize supporters and communicate his message.
Internet Shutdown and Security Clampdown
PAD describes election day itself as following a familiar authoritarian script. The government ordered a nationwide internet shutdown on two days to polling, severely limiting independent reporting, vote tallying, and real-time documentation from Uganda’s more than 57,000 polling stations. The move, PAD argues, prevented activists and observers from exposing fraud and violence through digital platforms.
The group further reports that a heavy deployment of security forces at polling stations restricted access by opposition agents, raising serious doubts about transparency and the credibility of the process.
By the close of voting, amid widespread opposition allegations of ballot stuffing and vote rigging, PAD notes that security forces reportedly surrounded and invaded Bobi Wine’s residence—a tactic previously employed during the 2021 elections. In the 2016 polls, PAD recalls, the main challenger Dr. Kizza Besigye was arrested on election day.
Despite these events, the Ugandan government has insisted that the election was free and fair. PAD rejects this assertion, pointing to the internet shutdown, the suppression of polling-station data, the overwhelming security presence, and the rapid declaration of Museveni as president as evidence that meaningful verification of results was rendered impossible.
“Countries that turn off the internet during elections usually have something to hide,” the statement says, warning that such practices carry dire human rights consequences.
A Regional Pattern of Authoritarianism
PAD situates Uganda’s election within a broader regional pattern, arguing that African authoritarian elites increasingly act with impunity while insulating themselves from the daily struggles of ordinary citizens. As an example, the group cites neighboring Tanzania, where thousands of protesters reportedly died following the disputed October 2025 election, officially won by President Samia Suluhu Hassan with 97 percent of the vote—extending the rule of Chama Cha Mapinduzi, in power since independence in 1961.
While acknowledging recent conciliatory steps by President Hassan—including apologies for the internet shutdown and the pardoning of some political prisoners—PAD notes that there has been no election re-run and no release of key opposition leader Tundu Lissu.
Democracy, Youth, and Economic Decline
PAD warns that authoritarian governance directly undermines Africa’s economic prospects, particularly for young people. The group points to empirical evidence linking democratic governance with economic growth, noting that surveys show over 90 percent of Ugandans reject one-party rule, while more than 80 percent favor democracy.
Uganda’s demographic reality, PAD argues, makes the stakes especially high. More than 85 percent of the country’s estimated 50 million people are under the age of 25, with projections indicating a population of 85 million by 2050. Yet Uganda’s per capita income remains below USD 990—just 62 percent of the African average.
If a majority of Ugandans believe the election was stolen, PAD cautions, the likelihood of continued violence and human rights abuses remains dangerously high.
International Complicity and a Call to Action
The statement also criticizes the international community, arguing that years of inaction and selective engagement have emboldened authoritarian leaders. While democracy is often publicly championed, PAD says, international actors frequently close ranks around incumbents at the expense of citizens’ rights.
“Expressions of concern without meaningful action signal indifference,” PAD states, warning that without coordinated domestic and international pressure, Africans will continue to be treated as second- and third-class citizens by their own ruling elites.
PAD therefore calls on international partners invested in Africa’s future to conduct a thorough, independent audit of the Ugandan and Tanzanian elections, with the aim of proposing concrete remedial measures in cases of electoral fraud.
“Without such action,” the statement concludes, “these regimes will be permitted to get away—literally—with murder.”
Signatories
The statement is endorsed by a broad coalition of political leaders, former heads of state, parliamentarians, academics, and human rights advocates from Africa, Europe, and the Americas, including former Botswana President Ian Khama, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Zimbabwean opposition leader Tendai Biti, Kenyan Senator Edwin Sifuna, and senior figures from Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Venezuela, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
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