Electoral Repression and Transnational Risk in East Africa

Lessons from Uganda’s 2026 Elections and Implications for Ethiopia

Electoral violence in East Africa isn’t just a set of isolated events. It’s a pattern and it’s getting worse. Uganda’s 2026 presidential election in January, in which the incumbent Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was declared winner with almost 75% of the vote, is the most recent and sharpest illustration of an intensifying repression cycle which is spreading across borders and quietly writing the rules for what comes next.

On 1 June 2026, Ethiopia holds its general election: the country’s first since the 2022 Tigray peace agreement, and arguably the highest-stakes vote in the region in a decade. Drawing on verified data from non-governmental organisations, this article measures the scale of repression in Uganda’s election; maps the cross-border suppression architecture operating across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania; and assesses what it all means for Ethiopia.

Uganda 2026: Measuring the Repression Cycle

Uganda’s 2026 election did not take place in a normal political environment. While Uganda prepared for the 2021 election and in the two days surrounding the arrest of opposition candidate Robert Kyagulanyi in November 2020, Ugandan security forces killed at least 54 people in protests, primarily in Kampala (Human Rights Watch, 2021). Opposition party the National Unity Platform further claimed 458 of its members had been abducted, but the government only publicly accounted for 171 of them in custody (Amnesty International, 2022). That year, Museveni won with 58.6% of the vote, his lowest share since multiparty elections were restored in 2006 (House of Commons Library, 2021). The 15.65 percentage-point jump to 74.25% in 2026 occurred not because of increased popularity , but against a backdrop of intensified repression.

Ahead of the 2026 vote, human rights watchdog OHCHR documented more than 550 opposition arrests and 160 enforced disappearances in 2025 alone (OHCHR, 2026), while five major civil society organisations including Chapter Four Uganda and the Alliance for Election Finance Monitoring had their permits suspended on 9 January, six days before voting began. To make matters worse, government regulatory body theUganda Communications Commission broke its earlier promise and imposed a nationwide internet shutdown from the evening of 13 January, mirroring complete shutdowns that occurred in 2016 and 2021 (Garbe, 2024). On election night, at least seven people were killed near a vote-counting centre in Butambala District (Al Jazeera, 2026). To add salt to the wound of electoral violence, 118 National Unity Platform members were charged with unlawful assembly in the days that followed (Human Rights Watch, 2026a).

A 2021 survey by non-partisan pan-African research network Afrobarometer found that 47% (18 percentage points higher than in 2019) of Ugandans feared becoming victims of electoral violence. By 2022, well after the election, that figure had barely moved, suggesting fear of electoral violence has become a permanent feature of political life (Afrobarometer, 2024). The data point matters because they show normalised fear suppresses opposition turnout, structurally advantaging incumbents beyond any formal vote-rigging.

Uganda 2021 vs. 2026: forced disappearances, deaths, internet shutdown days, Sources: HRW (2021, 2026); OHCHR (2026); House of Commons Library (2021); Afrobarometer (2023); Al Jazeera (2026); Amnesty International (2022)

A Regional Architecture of Repression

There is evidence that Uganda’s repression is no longer contained within its borders. A documented pattern of cross-border abductions now implicates Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in coordinated political repression. In November 2024, veteran opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye was abducted from Nairobi by Ugandan operatives and transferred to face treason charges in Kampala.

Various incidents reveal a form of interstate coordination aimed at keeping the East African ruling elites in power.
These incidents kept recurring, and in July 2024 Kenyan and Ugandan security official jointly seized 36 supporters of Forum for Democratic Change, one of Uganda’s smaller opposition parties (African Arguments, 2026). In January 2025, Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai was abducted in Nairobi and in October 2025, Kenyan civil society figures Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo were held incommunicado for 38 days after being taken by operatives on Kenyan territory.

But what shocked most East Africans was the October 2025 elections in Tanzania, which provide a regional benchmark for this analysis. Impartial conflict monitor ACLED recorded 70 political disorder events in mainland Tanzania in just three days (29–31 October), an unprecedented spike given Tanzania’s reputation for peace and security in the region. A preliminary report from an observer with intergovernmental organisation the Southern African Development Community documented ballot stuffing, the intimidation of observers and the use of lethal force against demonstrators. The scale confirmed what the Besigye abduction signalled months earlier: repression in East Africa now operates as a transregional system, not a set of isolated national incidents.

Transnational repression incidents, 2024–2026, Kenya/Uganda/Tanzania.

Ethiopia June 2026: Forward Risk Assessment

The data from Uganda and Tanzania provide a harsh background for Ethiopia’s June vote. ACLED and OHCHR data from January through November 2024 show a sharp decline in the intensity of Ethiopia’s conflict since 2023. Nonetheless, ACLED still recorded over 9,000 fatalities in that timeframe from the Amhara and Oromia insurgencies alone (Freedom House, 2025).

ACLED’s August 2024 monthly report recorded 227 political violence events and 945 fatalities in a single month, of which 141 events and 637 fatalities happened in Amhara, where Fano militia clashes with government forces peaked (ACLED, 2024). The cumulative toll of the Fano insurgency, which began in April 2023, is compounded by the government’s documented use of drone strikes: from ENDF drone strikes in Amhara, ACLED recorded over 430 fatalities since April 2023 (VOA, 2024). Since 2019, OHCHR estimates that human rights abuses have affected more than 8,200 victims in Amhara and Oromia in 2023, a 56% increase year-on-year (VOA, 2024).

In Ethiopia, over 3.3 million people remain displaced across Amhara, Oromia and Tigray (Human Rights Watch, 2026b). While there has not been displacement on this scale in Uganda,
Ethiopia’s institutional environment mirrors Uganda’s in two key respects. Firstly, the Ethiopian media legislation passed in April 2025 shifted oversight of the press to a direct political appointee of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Secondly, a Civil Society and Media Act adopted in June 2025 grants the government sweeping powers to restrict independent organisations (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2026). It is important to note that neither of these developments promotes favourable conditions for credible electoral observation.

With the above data, the baseline risk scenario for June 2026 is a low-legitimacy election where the incumbent Prosperity Party returns a dominant majority while Fano and OLA-affected constituencies in Amhara and Oromia are effectively disenfranchised by insecurity, with post-election unrest likely in contested zones. The unfavourable scenario which would include renewed Tigray clashes, opposition boycotts and a constitutional crisis carries a lower probability but a materially higher impact. Namely, this outcome would disrupt intergovernmental organisation the East African Community’s trade corridor and Ethiopia’s $2.2 billion IMF Extended Credit Facility, which is currently under active review.

Ethiopia monthly political violence events. Source: (ACLED, 2024)

Conclusion

The quantitative record is unambiguous and shows that repression in East Africa is intensifying across electoral cycles. It is also evident that Uganda’s 2026 election results with a 15-point jump in Museveni’s margin produced under conditions of mass arrest, enforced disappearances and internet shutdowns, is not an outlier. It is the predictable outcome of a repression system that has become both more efficient and international in scope. Ethiopia approaches its June 2026 election with 9,000+ conflict fatalities in 11 months, 3.3 million displaced persons and a media environment under executive control. For investors, the relevant variable is not the election result itself, but whether the institutions capable of contesting it still function. In Uganda, the evidence suggests they do not. In Ethiopia, the evidence is accumulating.

Bibliography