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Ugandan opposition leader and popular singer Bobi Wine has been freed after a brief arrest by the police. WIne had been taken away just after he was confirmed as a candidate in next year’s presidential election.
The local NBS Television, reporting from the scene, said the singer was put into a police van amid violent scuffles between police and his supporters.
Wine on Monday had gone to the nomination centre in Kyambogo in the capital, Kampala as Uganda’s electoral body started the nomination process for presidential candidates in the upcoming 2021 general elections.
Police fired tear gas to disperse his supporters who turned up to support him on nomination day.
Bobi Wine presented his nomination papers to the electoral commission to be cleared to challenge President Yoweri Museveni in next year's election.
Joel Senyonyi, spokesman for Wine’s NUP party, said “they [police] used a hammer and broke the windows of his vehicle and forcefully dragged him out … they bundled him into their own vehicle and took off”.
So far, 10 aspirants are vying for the top job. Others include former army commander General Mugisha Muntu and former Security Minister General Henry Tumukunde.
President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country for 34 years, was the first to be nominated. He warned that any opponents who destabilize the country will be dealt with.
One presidential candidate Patrick Amuriat was arrested at the headquarters of his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
Soldiers and police officers have been heavily deployed at the party's offices, the Daily Monitor newspaper reports.
Mr Amuriat is reported to have vowed to defy restrictions on the number of supporters accompanying him to the electoral commission where he is scheduled to submit his nomination papers at midday. The newspaper has tweeted a video of his arrest.
These are some of the events analysts say makes the outlook of the politics tense as Uganda braces up for elections February next year.
Wine, 38, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, aims to end President Yoweri Museveni’s 34 years in power.
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
The Electoral Court has granted the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) permission to postpone by-elections in the country due to the continuous effects of the coronavirus.
This after the commission approached the court seeking a postponement.
\"As required in law, the municipal elections will be proclaimed by Cogta Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma after her consultations with the Electoral Commission.
\"In this regard, the Electoral Commission has begun consultations with the minister.
These matters are not a prerogative of the Electoral Commission, but require a collaborative effort and national consensus,\" she said.
Ethiopian opposition party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has accused Prime minister Abiy Ahmed and his government of being in chaos and trying to thrive in chaos.
“It has become fashionable to blame TPLF for everything that goes wrong in the country,” Getachew Reda, a TPLF spokesman told the BBC denying that the front had any hand and or interest in the killing of Oromo entertainer Hachalu Hundessa early last week.
In a six page document titled “Context and Updates of Current Issues in Ethiopia,” the PM’s office cited two main factors for the assassination and subsequent deadly protests and mass arrests.
The document said “Unabated attempt made by aggrieved forces to perpetuate political tensions and increasing political polarization and the negative role of media in creating ethnic tensions;” were at the heart of the issues.
“It’s a flat-out lie,” Reda told the BBC stressing that the TPLF “doesn’t believe in eliminating individuals to make political scores.” The PM’s statement did not specifically mention TPLF but made inferences to them.
The paragraph that seemed to be pointing at the TPLF read: “... it should be mentioned here that the government is under constant and unrestrained pressure from disgruntled forces, organizing and supporting anti-peace elements, by using the economic and political muscles they have built over the last three decades, in order to undermine this inevitable reform process.”
Escalating war of words between PM Abiy administration and TPLF extremely dangerous, irresponsible.
Strategy of demonising TPLF deflects some of the Oromo anger but risks deepening sense of siege, victimhood in Tigray Region and stoke, potentially, new armed conflict.— Rashid Abdi (@RAbdiCG) July 10, 2020
Aside the TPLF, the governing party had also accused former Oromo rebel group of being behind the shooting of Hachalu Hundessa. Amid high security deployment, Addis Ababa and Oromia regional state remains peaceful according to reports.
Ethiopia is in the tenth day of an internet blackout that was effected the morning after the musician was killed. It is the longest blockade since Abiy came to power. A spokeswoman has defended the move.
“... if the internet is being used by certain forces to spread hate speech and vitriol, that is perpetuating and initiating ethnic, religious and communal violence, then ensuring human security supersedes,” Billene Aster Syoum told the BBC.
Now in isolation for 14 days after testing positive for COVID-19, Gauteng Premier David Makhura, said he will be monitoring his health.
The one thing to note is that the return of pollution, occasioned by the unregulated import of old cars, is that it has brought us closer to our president.
During some of the more than 15 televised addresses on Covid-19 guidelines, President Yoweri Museveni told us that he has banned air conditioning at State House.
In case you didn’t know, Kampala air has for a few years been the second dirtiest of cities on the African continent.
So the Uganda president literally sacrifices his life to rule the country, shortening his life by so many years than if he was to live on his farm during his old age.
And the busiest State House (there are several state houses and lodges in the country) is in the middle of the city, so those of us in the suburbs should be breathing slightly less dirty air than he does.
The economic transformation committee of the ANC has suggested that pension funds take over some of the assets of indebted state-owned power company Eskom.
An effort to clean up plastic waste and turn it into building materials shifts gear as COVID-19 arrives and protective gear falls short
GULU, Uganda - When the Ugandan government ordered all non-essential workplaces shut to contain the coronavirus pandemic in late March, Peter Okwoko and his colleague Paige Balcom kept working.
But the pair - who had been turning collected plastic waste into building materials such as roofing tiles and pavers since last year - shifted gear and instead began manufacturing makeshift plastic face shields from discarded plastic bottles.
\"The doctor from Gulu regional referral hospital requested we make 10 face shield masks urgently because they didn't have enough\" and the hospital had just received its first COVID-19 patient, said Okwoko, 29, a co-founder of Takataka Plastics.
Late last month, the Ministry of Health said Uganda's public hospitals are likely to run out of existing stocks of protective equipment within three months.
Balcom, 26, a mechanical engineer who met Okwoko in 2019 while doing research on plastic pollution in Uganda, said some of the material used in the face shields now comes from hospital waste, such as used intravenous drip bottles.
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — The supercharged political landscape in the U.S. has grown even more perilous for companies with the 2020 presidential election looming as Goya, a food company with a tremendously loyal following, has discovered. The company, which makes many products used on Hispanic cuisine, but whose following extends well outside of that []
The University of California will sue the federal government over new visa guidelines that would force international students to leave the United States if they are enrolled in a college or academic program that only offers courses online, university officials said Wednesday. California’s international students had reacted with confusion and dismay after Immigrations and Customs []
The post UC will sue Trump administration over new international student visa rules appeared first on Black Voice News.
While the coronavirus stifled many opportunities, a single dad in China came up with a unique solution: He took his 4-year-old daughter on an inspiring 2,500-mile cycling journey to Tibet over two months. Dou Haobei, 26, decided to make the most of the recent downturn in business during the pandemic and bring his daughter, Dou []
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Another white woman tries to police the actions of a Black person.
The CEO of Actionable Insights gets called out.
Malawi's parliament has endorsed June 23 as the date for the presidential election re-run after a court annulled last year's vote over irregularities, a lawmaker said.
The election had handed President Peter Mutharika a second term, but with just 38.5% of the vote.
Legally parliament had to validate the new polling date.
He said the court ruling \"clearly states that parliament must set a date for the elections\".
Meantime, a new electoral commission was sworn-in on Tuesday to organise the new vote, after the top court also ordered an investigation into the conduct of the previous one.
All Ugandans aged six years and above will be given free face masks in a bid to protect themselves against the coronavirus, President Yoweri Museveni has said.
“This mask must be worn all the time when you are in public.
Since many people raised the issue that they cannot afford these masks, the government has decided to provide these masks to all Ugandans (aged) six years and above,” Mr Museveni said in a televised address.
At the same time, President Museveni said that public transport will resume on June 2, 2020 after all Ugandans get face masks.
This will require you to wear a proper mask,\" Mr Museveni said.
The observers recognise that an electoral system governed by a whole series of constantly changing pieces of legislation \"responds to the outcome of political dialogue between the main parties, Renamo and Frelimo, rather than taking a holistic review of the electoral framework.\"
Stop the inclusion of fraudulent results: Under Renamo pressure, the parties agreed an electoral court system which could intervene to redress misconduct and errors by election commissions, STAEs, and polling stations.
Civil society members to be non-partisan
Members of the National Elections Commission (CNE) \"do not represent the public or private institutions or political or social institutions they come from, and defend the national interest\", says the electoral law.
For the 2008-9 elections, parliament (AR) agreed a dramatic change - a majority of CNE members, including the chair (presidente) were nominated by Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to try to force some independence and neutrality.
But this agreement between Frelimo and Renamo to select party aligned CSO members is not specified in the electoral law and clearly goes against the spirit of the law.
The IEC says that it stands ready to resume running by-elections under Level 1 lockdown, with strict Covid-19 protocols in place.
Other ministers, however, rejected Mr Kutesa's suggestion and asked Mr Matia Kasaija of Finance to look for funds in the 2020/21 budget for buying radios and TV sets for the 15 million learners.
While the planned distribution of free radios and TV sets was never intended to assist virtual political campaigns but ease access to distance learning and teaching across Uganda, sources in Cabinet talked of \"killing two birds with one stone\".
She, however, said the distribution of radio sets and TV had nothing to do with the anticipated virtual political campaigns.
Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, the executive director of Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode), and other analysts have questioned the rationale of buying radios and TV sets for households without access to electricity, money for buying batteries and struggling to feed themselves in the face of the pandemic.
According to another Cabinet source, the President also told Cabinet that since Education requires only two senses - listening and seeing, the planned distribution of free government TV sets and radios will boost distance learning infrastructure, a teaching strategy needed to combat the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The governor allowed counties with 20 active cases or fewer to opt out.
