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KAMPALA, Uganda – The Ugandan Election Commission said on Saturday that President Yoweri Museveni had won a sixth five-year term, extending his reign to four decades, while the main opposition challenger, Bobi Wine, rejected the “results concise and fraudulent ”and that officials struggled to explain how the polls were compiled amid an Internet blackout.
In a generational clash seen across the African continent with a burgeoning young population and a host of aging leaders, 38-year-old singer-turned-lawmaker Wine has arguably posed Museveni’s biggest challenge to date. The self-proclaimed “ghetto president” had strong support in urban centers where frustration with unemployment and corruption is high. He claimed victory.
In a telephone interview from his home, which he said was surrounded by soldiers who did not want to let him go, Wine urged the international community to “call General Museveni to order” by withholding aid, by imposing sanctions and using Magnitsky legislation to hold alleged users of human rights to account.
Wine reiterated that all legal options were being considered, including challenging the results in court and calling for peaceful protests.
The electoral commission said Museveni received 58% of the vote and Wine 34%, and the turnout was 52, in a process that America’s top diplomat in Africa called “fundamentally flawed.”
The commission advised celebrants to remember precautions regarding Covid-19, but the reaction in the capital, Kampala, has been mixed. At one point, hundreds of Museveni supporters on motorcycles rushed past, honking and chanting. The soldiers remained in the streets.
PA journalists trying to reach Wine’s home on the outskirts of Kampala were turned back by police. Wine said he was alone with his wife, Barbie, and a lone security guard after police told a private security firm to remove their protection ahead of Thursday’s election.
“I am alive,” Wine said. After declaring “the world is watching” on the eve of the vote, he said: “I don’t know what will happen to me and my wife” now. He said he would not leave Uganda and abandon its 45 million people to the kind of treatment he faced.
The vote followed the worst pre-election violence in the East African country since Museveni, 76, took office in 1986. Wine and other candidates have been beaten or harassed, and more than 50 people were killed when security forces quelled the November riots. his arrest. Wine, real name Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has been detained several times during his campaign, but has never been convicted. He said he feared for his life.
This month, Wine petitioned the International Criminal Court for torture and other alleged abuses by security forces and named several officials, including Museveni.
In response to his allegations of electoral fraud, Uganda’s electoral commission said Wine would have to prove it. Wine says he has video evidence and will share it once internet access is restored.
Museveni said in a national speech that “I think this may turn out to be the most cheat-free election since 1962,” or independence from Britain.
The election commission deflected questions about how nationwide voting results were transmitted during the internet blackout by saying, “we have designed our own system”.
“We did not receive any orders from above during this election,” commission chairman Simon Byabakama told reporters, adding that his team was “neither intimidated nor threatened”.
While the president holds power, at least nine of his ministers, including the vice president, were elected in the legislative elections, many losing to candidates from the Wine party, local media reported.
Tracking the vote was further complicated by the arrests of independent observers and the denial of accreditation of most members of the US observer mission, leading the US to cancel it. The European Union said its offer to deploy electoral experts “had not been accepted”.
“The Ugandan electoral process has been fundamentally flawed,” tweeted senior US diplomat for Africa Tibor Nagy, warning that “the US response depends on what the Ugandan government does now.
Museveni, once hailed as part of a new generation of African leaders and a long-time US security ally, still has support in Uganda to bring stability. He once criticized African leaders who refused to step down but who have since overseen the removal of term limits and an age limit for the presidency.
He has repeatedly claimed that foreign groups were trying to meddle in this election, without providing any evidence. He accused Wine of being “an agent of foreign interests”. Wine denies it.
The leader of the African Union observer team, Samuel Azuu Fonkam, told reporters he could not say whether the election was free and fair, noting the “limited” mission which was largely focused on Kampala. When asked about Wine’s allegations of rigging, he said he couldn’t “talk about things we haven’t seen or observed.”
The East African Community observer team noted “disproportionate use of force in some cases” by security forces, Internet shutdown, some late-opening polling stations and isolated cases of failure of biometric kits to verify voters. But he called the vote largely peaceful and said it “demonstrates the level of maturity expected of a democracy.”
Elections in Uganda are often marred by allegations of fraud and abuse of the security forces.
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