The Ugandan military forcibly removed pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine from his home on Friday and took him to an unknown location, said officials in Wine’s National Unity Platform party, a stunning development in a bruising presidential race marred by violence and allegations of electoral interference and voter suppression.
Wine, who is waging a second challenge to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s decades-long rule, alleged widespread electoral fraud and “ballot stuffing” on Friday. Hours later, Ugandan military forces cut power to Wine’s compound, scaled the fence surrounding the residence and began to break into the home, National Unity Platform spokesman Joel Besekezi Ssenyonyi told local media.
The Ugandan military forced Wine into a helicopter and flew him to an unknown destination, the party said in a post on X. The Ugandan military and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Wine rose to fame after releasing songs critical of Museveni’s government, drawing support from the East African nation’s young demographic, though his emergence as a key opposition figure placed him in the crosshairs of Museveni’s security forces. Wine sought medical treatment in the United States in 2018, saying he was tortured by the Ugandan military while in custody following a scuffle at a political rally where his driver was fatally shot.
On Friday, Wine said Museveni’s security forces had surrounded his compound, effectively placing him on house arrest. He accused security forces of killing 10 of his supporters.
“This ain’t strength,” he said on X. “They do this out of fear for the people they have offended by committing so many atrocities against them. They do this because they are afraid of the people’s reaction after stealing their vote.”
The third longest-serving ruler in Africa, 81-year-old Museveni has led Uganda since 1986, when his guerrilla fighters seized control of the country, promising to restore democracy and promote human rights. But during his nearly 40-year rule, Museveni has scrapped presidential age and term limits, jailed political rivals and ordered violent crackdowns on anti-government protests in an effort to tighten his grip on power.
Museveni has secured 73.72 percent of the votes so far, according to preliminary results from the country’s electoral commission. Wine trails with just 22.66 percent of the votes.
In the weeks leading up to Thursday’s contest, Ugandan security forces fired tear gas and pepper spray into crowds attending opposition rallies and beat rally-goers, subjecting some to arbitrary arrests and torture, according to Amnesty International.
On Tuesday, two days before Ugandans were scheduled to head to the polls, Museveni’s government cut off internet and phone lines, according to the monitoring group NetBlocks. The Uganda Communications Commission said in a notice that it had decided to temporarily suspend internet access and some mobile services to the country’s some 45 million people in an effort “to mitigate the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation, curb risks of electoral fraud, and prevent incitement to violence.” The blackout remains in effect.
Election day in Uganda got off to a chaotic start Thursday, with residents waiting in line for hours to cast their vote. At polling stations across the country, officials resorted to using paper registration records to manually verify voters after biometric machines failed.
Wine first challenged Museveni’s rule in 2021. During that contest, Museveni cast Wine as a destabilizing figure and ordered the government’s security forces to crack down on his political rallies with deadly force. Uganda’s security forces arrested Wine three times over the course of that race. They also arrested his lawyer and at least 600 of his rally-goers, and killed his bodyguard.
Though Wine only secured a third of the 2021 vote according to the official tally, Museveni received his smallest vote share since his first electoral campaign three decades ago, according to the Associated Press.
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