Uganda: Main opposition candidate arrested on election day

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The main opposition candidate in Uganda was arrested late Thursday in the capital, his aide said, as vote counting started in presidential and parliamentary polls marred by the late arrival of voting materials.

Kizza Besigye was arrested in the Kampala suburb of Naguru, where he had gone to investigate alleged ballot-stuffing in a house run by the intelligence agencies, said Shawn Mubiru, who is in charge of communications for Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change party.

He said Besigye was taken to an unknown location. The police did not respond to requests for comment.

Besigye is Ugandan President Museveni's main challenger in the polls, in which six other opposition candidates are also standing.

Besigye's supporters said the delays were deliberate and were aimed at favoring President Yoweri Museveni, whose rival is popular in Kampala. A senior foreign election observer called the delays "absolutely inexcusable." Several dozen polling stations never opened on Thursday, and the election commission late Thursday said they would be open on Friday

The government also shut down access to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

In Kampala's Ggaba neighborhood, hundreds of people waited for seven hours for one polling center to open before voting papers finally arrived. When the people found out there were ballots only for choosing members of parliament, with no ballots for the vote for president, they overpowered the police, grabbed the ballot boxes and threw them all over a field.

Police fired tear gas, and polling officers fled before any votes were cast.

"If the election is free and fair we will be the first people to respect it, even if we are not the winner," Besigye said Thursday at a polling station in his rural home of Rukungiri. "But where it is not a free and fair election then we must fight for free and fair elections because that is the essence of our citizenship."

In Kampala, the spokesman for Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change said the delays were a "deliberate attempt to frustrate" voters in urban areas where Besigye is believed to be very popular, especially Kampala and the neighboring district of Wakiso.

"Why is it that in areas where we enjoy massive support, like Kampala and Wakiso, that's where these things are happening? We can't have a credible election under this environment," said Ssemujju Nganda.

As people voted in school playgrounds, church gardens and other outdoor sites, young men on motorcycles who appeared to support Besigye looked on from a distance, saying they wanted to make sure there was no ballot stuffing. The lines were full of mostly young people. Policemen and policewomen monitored the queues for any disturbances.

Besigye was Museveni's personal physician during a bush war and served as deputy interior minister in Museveni's first Cabinet. He broke with the president in 1999, saying Museveni was no longer a democrat.

The head of the Commonwealth Observer Group, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, called the long delays "absolutely inexcusable" and said they "will not inspire trust in the system and the process."

Museveni said the shutdown of social media sites "must be steps taken by security" in anticipation of certain threats.

Sarah Jackson of Amnesty International said in a statement that it was "a blatant violation of Ugandans' fundamental rights to freedom of expression and to seek and receive information."

Museveni said security forces would deal with those who threaten violence during and after the election. Those who arrive at polling stations in time should be allowed to vote, he said.

Later the electoral commission said voting had been extended from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. for voters in the Kampala and Wakiso districts, and that voting will also happen Friday in at least 36 polling stations where voting had not taken place at all on Thursday.

More than 15 million people were registered to vote, for members of parliament as well as president. Many waited under the hot sun to vote at polling stations that at mid-day were still not functioning.

"These cases are worrying because every citizen of Uganda has the right to vote," said Eduard Kukan of Slovakia, chief of the European Union's election observer mission.

Many of those waiting said they would not leave without voting.

"This is very disappointing but I am going to stay here under the sun until it is my turn to vote," said Fred Mubiru, a taxi driver. "Nothing will discourage me."

Museveni, 71, came to power in 1986 and pulled Uganda out of years of chaos. He is a key U.S. ally on security matters, especially in Somalia. But his critics worry that he may want to rule for life, and accuse him of using the security forces to intimidate the opposition.

Besigye, 59, is running for the fourth time against Museveni. He promised a more effective government, vowing to stem official corruption.

___

Associated Press journalists Andrew Njuguna and Josphat Kasire in Kampala contributed to this report.

___

This version has the correct spelling of Ggaba, a Kampala neighborhood.