Uganda’s recent presidential election did not feel like a celebration of choice but that of a lockdown.
Development Diaries reports that the President Yoweri Museveni-led government ordered a nationwide internet blackout before and on voting day, claiming it was to curb ‘misinformation’.
But on the streets and in the townships, the effect was clear silence, with no livestreams, no citizen reporting, no organising, and no digital witness.
Human rights groups have called it what it is: a blunt assault on free expression, aimed squarely at youth-led movements and citizen journalists, with the real target being civic space, not public safety.
This clampdown is inseparable from Uganda’s demographics. The country’s vast youth population is fuelling state anxiety, with roughly three-quarters of citizens under 35, and about half of them not in school or work.
With youth unemployment hovering near 40 percent and economic opportunities scarce, frustration is widespread. President Yoweri Museveni has ruled since 1986, but today’s young citizens inhabit a Uganda that the decades-old political order never anticipated.
Against this backdrop, the authorities’ reaction of banning rallies, blocking sites, and jailing activists reflects a fear of their demographic power, not any concrete threat of violence; and elections without liberty are a sham.
During the vote, security forces beat and killed protesters, raided opposition figures’ homes, and arrested campaigners, as observers recorded an atmosphere of ‘intimidation, arrest and abductions’ that ‘instilled fear and eroded public trust’, with one attack on an opposition leader’s compound reportedly killing about ten people.
These actions violate Uganda’s constitution and international law, both of which guarantee political participation and free speech. What should have been a democratic exercise became an administrative charade powered by repression.
The country’s approach also fits a wider African pattern of governments adopting digital blackouts as an election-planning tool, with countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania repeatedly cutting internet or social media access around polls.
In 2024 alone, Africa recorded 21 shutdowns linked to elections. Governments cloak these actions in the language of national security or anti-‘rumour’ control. Still, their effect is consistent with silencing dissent, obstructing observers, and skewing the public sphere, with young people and women, who are already less likely to have reliable internet access, bearing the heaviest cost.
Regional bodies and foreign partners share blame if they legitimise such elections without demanding rights protections, with Human Rights Watch urging institutions like the African Union and East African Community to pressure Uganda to respect civic freedoms. Until those in power are held to account, Ugandan youth and marginalised citizens will remain the ones left behind.
The crackdown hits specific groups hardest, with young people and women’s organisations depending on online networks; people with disabilities relying on assistive technologies; and informal workers earning through digital platforms.
As a citizen of Uganda, you can resist this clampdown by documenting and reporting violations using secure tools to record internet outages, blocked apps, and online harassment.
You can support civic-tech groups and independent media offering digital training and alternative connectivity, including community and mesh networks.
Beyond the country’s borders, pressure matters. So citizens and civil society can lobby the African Union and East African Community to adopt binding rules that ban election-day shutdowns and sanction officials who order them. Governments, for their part, must enshrine in law that cutting communications during elections is illegal.
Finally, the country must rethink its posture towards young people. Treating an entire generation as a security risk only deepens alienation, and a stable Uganda will not be built by silencing its future, but by giving it room to speak.
