Uganda. Family of main opposition leader leaves Uganda ahead of elections due to alleged threats

Madrid, 8 one. (European Press) –

Uganda’s main opposition presidential candidate, Robert Kyogulani, has stated that his wife and sons have left the country ahead of next week’s elections due to “information” about plans to kidnap their sons.

The opponent, known as Bobby Wayne, said he had “received information about possible physical assaults” on himself and his wife, as well as the “kidnapping” of their children, Uganda’s Daily Monitor reported. .

He thus confirmed that “friends in the Diaspora” called him to “host” his family “for a while”. “This does not mean that my wife or wife will be safer staying here, but our effort is to ensure that one of these minors is not kidnapped and trying to use them to coerce us,” he said.

Kyogulani, a famous Ugandan singer who entered politics years ago, also criticized “regime advocates” for questioning the reasons for his sons leaving the country. “In a free and democratic country, no one should live in fear because they oppose the government,” he said.

“In a free country, a presidential candidate wouldn’t have to wear a flak jacket and helmet to go to his campaign. This is the country we’re fighting to build,” he said, before noting that the president, Yoweri Museveni, should be “ashamed that after 35 Years, children are forced to flee the country in fear of a retaliatory attack. ”

Bobby Wayne reacted in this way by posting several photographs in which his family can be seen at Kampala airport. One of the first to publish it was Musa Sali, better known as Bebe Cool, a Bobi Wine competitor in the music world and a follower of Museveni.

The opposition suspended his campaign at the end of December due to the killing of one of his guards by security forces as part of a rally ahead of the January 14 elections.

Kiagulani’s bodyguard, known as Francis Sentza Kalibala, appears to have been deliberately run over by a police car while evacuating a critically injured journalist, likely with a firearm, during an earlier incident.

Museveni, who has been in charge of Uganda since 1986, will try to achieve a new mandate at the polls, although he will have the lead role of Bobi Wine, who was arrested at the beginning of the month during an election event for violating coronavirus-related rules. It sparked a wave of protests across the country that killed at least 50 people.

The opponent has also forged an alliance with former presidential candidate Kizza Besigye to try to expand his support base and defeat Museveni, who would be able to go to the polls again after Parliament raised the minimum age that would have prevented him from running, since then. Then he will be over 75 years old.