Uganda goes to the polls on 15 December 2025 and the presidential campaigns by the 8 candidates are in high gear. When the campaigns kicked off at the end of September 2025, they were dubbed peaceful and everyone thought, for the first time, that the campaigns will be a peaceful event, free from state orchestrated violence. Lo and behold, we celebrated too early, the campaigns are now bloody with 45 days left to the polling day. This is not the first time the state apparatus has meted violence on Ugandan voters. In November 2020, 54 Ugandans were killed in just two days while exercising their right to protest following the arrest of the opposition candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi. Police and other security agencies fired live ammunitions which led to their death and injured many others. Today, Uganda’s political landscape continues to be stained by the reckless and violent suppression of opposition campaigns especially the brutal dispersal of rallies organized by NUP’s presidential Candidate Robert Kyagulanyi and other opposition candidates in a few instances. What should be moments of democratic participation, public debate, and political choice have instead become scenes of horror with civilians running from gunfire, bodies lying in blood in streets, families mourning loved ones shot down for daring to attend a campaign, imagine, a mere campaign rally.
The use of excessive force, firing of live bullets, teargas and spreading of water into crowds seems to be deliberate. Further, the military has been seen to be storming campaign grounds, violently assaulting civilians and firing live ammunition without warning. This shows a state growing increasingly intolerant of dissent and choosing to kill its citizens rather than protecting them. This has been a growing trend throughout the elections and it looks like Uganda may not overcome it soon as all past elections have been marred with such violent scenes. Additionally, journalists have been attacked and several young supporters dragged into police trucks or simply left bleeding where they fell. To date, according to NUP, over 400 of their supporters have been violently arrested since the start of the campaign period. It should be noted that during the 2020-2021 campaigns, hundreds of NUP’s supporters were arrested in similar ways while attending campaign rallies and some are still missing up to today. This pattern of events is disheartening and exhibits a dangerous trajectory of our democracy as a country as this signals a situation where the status quo must not be contended.
The blood campaigns orchestrated by the security agencies is indefensible under international and regional human rights regimes. Uganda is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which mandate Uganda to safeguard freedoms of assembly, expression and association and most importantly, the right to political participation. Uganda is obliged to prevent arbitrary killings, to use force only as a measure of last resort, and to protect life at all times yet live ammunition has become a first response rather than a final option. Instead of de-escalation, citizens are met with gun barrels, tear gas and all manners of assaults. The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force expressly state that lethal force may only be used to protect life from imminent danger. In the current scenario, nothing justifies firing into crowds of unarmed supporters waving flags, singing campaign songs, or demanding a fair chance to vote. Every life lost, every person shot dead while following a candidate’s convoy or at a campaign rally represents not only a human tragedy, but a violation of Uganda’s binding international obligations.
This brutality comes at a cost far beyond the election season. When people fear attending rallies, democracy collapses into performance. When bullets replace ballots, power is no longer earned but forced. There has not been action taken against the errant officers and neither has there been an order for restraint, as the men and women in uniform continue to violently disperse Opposition campaign rallies while protecting and in some incidents facilitating the transport of supporters of the ruling party. The inaction to hold perpetrators accountable deepens public mistrust and this if not carefully dealt with, only plants seeds of discontent and anger that cannot simply be policed away. Every uninvestigated killing is a potential invitation to future violence.
A nation cannot claim legitimacy while its citizens bleed for trying to choose their leaders. In the human rights legal framework, Uganda must ensure; accountability, restraint and respect for the rights of all candidates and voters; end the use of excessive force and firing live ammunition in the name of crowd control, prosecute the errant perpetrators and allow opposition campaigns to proceed freely.
About the Author
Michael Aboneka is an Advocate of the Courts of Judicature of Uganda and; Partner at Thomas &Michael Advocates; He is the Team Leader of Walezi Wa Katiba Foundation; and a Constitutional building, Civic Space and Governance Expert. Michael is a member of Uganda Law Society, East Africa Law Society, Pan African Lawyer’s Union, International Society of Public Law & World Youth Alliance. He is currently a PhD at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa. His interest and areas of research regard international humanitarian law, governance and constitutionalism, disability rights, digital rights and human rights in general.
