YOWERI Museveni, Uganda’s incumbent president has been declared the winner of Thursday’s presidential election in an election marred by security intimidation and rigging.
According to Uganda’s electoral electoral commission on Saturday afternoon, Museveni won the election with 58.64 percent of the total votes cast while his main challenger, Robert Kyagulanyi, who is also known as Bobi Wine garnered 34.83 percent of the total votes cast.
Museveni, who has ruled the country for 35 years since he helped to overthrow the brutal regime of …. has influenced the Ugandan’s parliament to change the country electoral laws to accommodate his lust for power.
Before the election on Thursday, the government ordered the shut down of the internet, an action that raises suspicions of rigging and manipulation.
Bobi Wine, whose house was taken over by the Ugandan security operatives had alleged on Friday that he had video proof of voting fraud, and would share the videos as soon as internet connections are restored. He added that he would take “every legal option is on the table” to challenge the official election results, including peaceful protests and in the court.
Related Story: Ugandan election: Museveni deploys violent tactics to retain power after 35 years in office
The build-up to the election was also characterised by harassment of opposition and killings. More than 50 people were killed when security forces put down riots in November over Wine’s arrest. Wine has petitioned the International Criminal Court this month over alleged torture and other abuses by security forces.
Although the Museveni has been declared the winner, at least 15 of his cabinet ministers, including the vice president, lost the polls, with many losing to candidates from Wine’s party.
Uganda’s electoral commission has said Wine should prove his allegations of rigging, and it has deflected questions about how countrywide voting results were transmitted during the internet blackout by saying “we designed our own system.”
There were reports of the arrest of independent election observers and the denial of accreditation to so many international election observers including members of the United States and the European Union election observers.
“Uganda’s electoral process has been fundamentally flawed,” the top US diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, tweeted Saturday, calling for the immediate and full restoration of internet access and warning that “the U.S. response hinges on what the Ugandan government does now.”
The head of the African Union observer team, Samuel Azuu Fonkam, told reporters he could not say whether the election had been free and fair, noting the “limited” AU mission which largely focused on the capital, Kampala. Asked about Wine’s allegations of rigging, he said he could not “speak about things we did not see or observe.”
The East African Community observer team in its preliminary statement noted issues including “disproportionate use of force in some instances” by security forces, the internet shutdown, some late-opening polling stations and isolated cases of failure in biometric kits to verify voters. But it called the vote largely peaceful and said it “demonstrated the level of maturity expected of a democracy.”
Uganda’s elections are often marred by allegations of fraud and abuses by security forces. The previous election saw sporadic post-election riots.
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