- as rival alleges electoral fraud
Uganda’s long-time president, Yoweri Museveni, has been re-elected with 58.64 per cent of the vote, according to the country’s electoral commission.
The commission announced this on Saturday afternoon.
Provisional Presidential results from Uganda Electoral Commission on Saturday around 9:00 am showed that Museveni was leading.
Election results from 86 per cent of polling stations indicated that the incumbent president garnered 5,300,831 votes (58%) while main opposition candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine got 3,119,965 votes (34.62%).
Ugandans expect the final results of the election later in the day.
Meanwhile, Kyagulanyi has alleged widespread fraud during the election. Museveni’s main challenger and opposition candidate Bobi Wine while alleging electoral fraud said his supporters had the right to protest.
With 29.4 per cent of votes from Thursday’s ballot counted, Museveni had won 1,852,263 votes, or 63.9 per cent, while main opposition candidate Bobi Wine had 821,874 (28.4 per cent), the electoral commission said.
The normally bustling capital Kampala was quiet on Friday, a holiday after Thursday’s poll, with most shops closed. Soldiers patrolled on foot in the rain in a suburb visited by Reuters.
The election campaign was marred by deadly crackdowns by security forces on opposition candidates and their supporters.
Wine, a singer-turned-lawmaker, who has galvanised young Ugandans with calls for political change, told a news conference he had video proof of voting fraud.
“We are winning,” he said.
“We are putting every legal, every constitutional and every non-violent option on the table,” Wine told Reuters.
“I will be happy to share the videos of all the fraud and irregularities as soon as the internet is restored,” he said.
His claims have not been independently verified by Reuters. Though the United States and European Union did not deploy teams of observers for the election, both the African Union and East African Community did sent teams.
Electoral Commission Chairman Simon Byabakama told a news conference that under Ugandan law, the burden of proof rested with Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi.
“The onus is upon candidate Kyagulanyi to show or to prove in what context and how the results are rigged,” he said.
Museveni, who has led the East African country with a population of nearly 46 million for 34 years, had not made any statement by noon.
A reporter for NTV Uganda said Museveni would hold a news conference at 8 p.m local time on Friday.
On Wednesday, the government ordered an internet blackout until further notice, a day after banning all social media and messaging apps.
Wine and his supporters used Facebook to relay live coverage of his campaigns and news conferences after he said many media outlets had declined to host him.
Byabakama assured Ugandans on Thursday after polls closed that results were arriving at the national tally centre, despite the internet blackout.
“We are not using local internet to transmit our results, we are using our own system,” he said, without giving details. “Don’t worry, results will come,” he added. (Reuters/NAN)