The United States on Wednesday announced its decision to cancel its diplomatic observation of Uganda’s January 14 elections, the US embassy in Uganda said on its website. 

The US envoy to Uganda, Natalie E Brown, also took to Twitter to announce the same. The decision was taken after Uganda’s election commission denied more than 75% of the US election observer accreditation requests. 

There were no other justifications given for this action, Brown said in a press release.

This news came right after the longtime Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that the ‘foreigners’ are conspiring against him. Following that, he has also shut down access to social media like Facebook because the social networks had deleted the Ugandan accounts that were campaigning for him.

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Natalie E Brown stated that the United State’s role in observing the elections of Uganda has been nothing more than to ensure a fair election. The US has only made sure that the conduct of elections is maintained impartially without any interference from their part, she added.

The Ugandan government had allowed several diplomatic observers to oversee elections in the past.

The US embassy also raised concerns over reports that the election commission had denied accreditation requests from members of other diplomatic missions and large numbers of Ugandan observers. “Several civil society organisations which already had organisational accreditation, the vast majority of their individual observers have not yet – two days ahead of elections – received accreditation badges,” the embassy said in its statement.

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Museveni has been the president of Uganda since 1986.