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In a country that has never witnessed peaceful transfer of power since her independence in 1962, Ugandans braved the internet shutdown, fear, anxiety and heavily armed security deployment to cast votes for the President and parliamentary seats on January 15, 2026.
Article 1 of the 1995 Uganda constitution (power belongs to people) guides citizens to choose their own leaders from the president to local councils after every five years. Out of a population of nearly 49 million, the Uganda Electoral Commission registered 21,649,068 voters out of which 11,366,201 votes were cast with 11,090,848 valid and 275,353 invalid at 50,739 polling stations, projecting a voter turnup of 52 per cent.
The same electoral commission said Yoweri Museveni got 7,946,772 votes, a representation of 71.65 per cent of the votes cast, to win the elections. Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi came second with 2,741,238 votes, which is 24.72 per cent of the total votes cast.
As guided by article 103 section (7) of 1995 constitution the electoral commission chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama declared the incumbent 81-year-old Yoweri Kaguta Museveni as winner securing a seventh elective five-year term and prolonging his rule beyond the 40 years he has been president.
The first runner up and Uganda’s main opposition leader Kyagulanyi of the National Unity Platform rejected the results, calling them fabricated and fake. He said the results the EC read do not reflect the will of the people of Uganda.
One of the obvious cases backing Kyagulanyi’s statements was the glaring lack of transparency in vote tallying and the final results reporting at the national tallying centre, and most importantly the malpractices that transpired throughout the entire election cycle.
Kyagulanyi’s point of view resonates with many Ugandans across the spectrum, international observers and media powerhouses. An election must be transparent, free and fair to all contenders, citizens and observers. Otherwise, it ceases to be credible and thereby subjecting it to rejection, legal gymnastics and civil unrest.
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who led the delegation of observers from the African Union, raised similar shortcomings. A credible free and fair election is one of the tenets of democracy.
However, without fear of contradiction, Uganda’s 2026 elections where marred with glaring electoral irregularities and malpractices, use of disproportionate force, voter suppression, human rights violations from the beginning of the exercise to the end.
During the campaign period, some of the recorded irregularities ranged from blocking candidate Kyagulanyi from freely addressing the electorate in some parts of Uganda. There were also concerns of excessive deployment of heavily armed overzealous uniformed men and militias with ammunitions, batons and tear gas that ended up beating journalists, shooting live bullets and abducting some dissenting voices.
For instance, by the end of the elections several opposition supporters and administrators had gone missing while others were incarcerated. Overwhelming monetisation of politics turned elections into auctions at all levels, contributing to record-breaking voter bribery and election fraud.
Hiring mobile goons, as it was the case in Gulu and Kampala, to terrorise peaceful assemblies killed freedom of assembly and participation a cardinal principle of democracy.
Abuse of power and manipulating public institutions into partisan political mobilization and denominating opposition candidates were all atrocities that eroded electoral integrity. Bold media entities were denied access to cover presidential candidate – an act besieging press freedoms and independent media, which is another key tenet of democracy.
The arrest of civil society player Sarah Bireete and the suspension of Chapter Four’s operations, among other Civil Society Organisations, left a vacuum in election scrutiny, accountability, transparency and human rights observation.
Prior to the polls, the internet was switched off, an act that violated citizens’ participation, civic engagements and suppressed freedom of expression and the right to information. The failure of biometric voter verification machines to operate culminated into lack of transparency, accuracy, efficiency and electoral integrity.
Ballot staffing, short changing results, abducting opposition polling agents with declaration forms all contributed to the electoral fraud and completely degraded democracy.
Despite all the unthinkable shortcomings, there are some scores for democracy to reckon. Among them is holding regular elections, as well as women and youth participation in political spaces. Following what has transpired throughout the election cycle and in Tanzania recently, the status of democracy in Africa is deteriorating – from a precarious authoritarian state to totalitarianism.
Lest we forget, bad elections in 1980 forced a young Yoweri Museveni to start an armed five-year rebellion against the Obote regime that similarly abused all tenets of democracy. Sadly, we have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from history.
Fortunately, Uganda can still leverage on the 2016 Amama Mbabazi Vs Yoweri Museveni ruling, guiding the country to have electoral reforms that could perhaps end the underlined election malpractices to give democracy a chance to thrive.
If nations continue with this trend of election malpractices, it is only a matter of time before Uganda or any other country faces the same fate as Libya and Sudan.
The writer is a sustainable development analyst and political pundit.
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