Streets of Kampala are covered with military tanks and thousands of military personnel as the country heads to polls tomorrow. Several tanks have been seen roaming the streets of Kampala while places known for violence like Kiseka Market have been closed with heavy deployment of army.
The deployment comes to prevent any violence that may arise from the elections whose campaigns have been marred with violence, riots and bloody confrontations between opposition supporters and security organs that left at least 62 people dead and over 600 arrested.
Areas like Nansana, Kireka, Kyaliwajjala, Wakiso, and Seeta Mukono are also among those that are having a huge deployment of military. The deployed personnel include men from UPDF, Uganda Police Force and the Local Defence Unit who are heavily armed patrolling areas in Kampala metropolitan.
Opposition insists that heavy deployment is part of the regime’s tricks to intimidate their supporters from voting to remove a president who is seeking re election to extend his rule to four decades.
Electoral Commission has issued warnings to electorates to leave the voting area immediately after casting their votes while the National Unity Platform leader Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine has urged his supporters to keep at least within 100 meters to the polling station to guard their votes. Electoral commission has further warned against use of Cameras at the polling stations by individuals and even journalists who are not accredited by the Media council.
With such discrepancies between the electoral commission directives and presidential candidates stratagem to guard the votes, confrontation between voters and security personnel seem inevitable.