What Uganda’s regulator ordered
Uganda’s communications regulator ordered mobile network operators to cut public internet access nationwide from 6pm local time (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday 13 January 2026, two days before a presidential election that President Yoweri Museveni is expected to use to extend his four-decade rule. The directive, issued by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), set no published end time and was framed by the regulator as necessary to prevent “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks,” according to reporting carried on the same day by Al Jazeera from Kampala.
The internet monitor NetBlocks separately confirmed a “nation-scale disruption to internet connectivity” once the order took effect, Al Jazeera reported. There was no public statement from the presidency or the Electoral Commission explaining the order.
What independent reporting established
A wire dispatch published the same day by AFP via Le Monde confirmed the regulator’s instruction, the timing of the cut, and the regulator’s stated justification of curbing “misinformation” and “incitement to violence” until further notice. The AFP report was republished in Le Monde’s English edition without the regulator adding a public clarification, Le Monde said.
Al Jazeera’s team in Kampala reported that Ugandan security personnel had rounded up hundreds of opposition supporters in the run-up to the 15 January vote and that police had repeatedly fired live bullets and tear gas at rallies backing opposition candidate Bobi Wine. The UN Human Rights Office had publicly criticised the pre-vote environment as one of “widespread repression and intimidation,” while the Brussels-based International Crisis Group assessed that Museveni, “with his firm grip on the levers of state power, has re-election all but locked down.”
What is still uncertain
Three questions remained open as of the 13 January order. First, no regulator’s statement had set a time at which public internet access would be restored, leaving the blackout’s duration undefined at the order’s issuing moment. Second, the order’s scope — whether it covered fixed-line broadband, business circuits, and the mobile-money networks on which Uganda’s retail payments depend — had not been detailed in the regulator’s published justification. Third, opposition figure Kizza Besigye remained jailed on treason charges from a separate case, and the Electoral Commission had not responded to opposition complaints about pre-vote arrests.
The 15 January presidential ballot, in which the 81-year-old Museveni faces the pop-star-turned-politician Wine alongside six other candidates, was the immediate backdrop to the order. Uganda previously cut internet access during the 2021 election, a contest marked by opposition allegations of state violence and electoral manipulation.
Sources & reporting notes
This article is an original synthesis of two allowlisted outlets reporting on the day of the order; it is not eyewitness reporting.
- Al Jazeera — Uganda cuts internet days before presidential election13 January 2026 · On-the-ground reporting from Kampala on the UCC order, NetBlocks confirmation, the pre-vote crackdown and the UN Human Rights Office criticism.
- Le Monde (AFP) — Uganda cuts internet access ahead of elections13 January 2026 · Wire confirmation of the regulator's instruction, the 6pm cutoff time and the regulator's stated "misinformation" rationale.
