Uganda: President Museveni wins elections, Besigye decries rigged results


Reading time 2 min.
arton18986

Uganda’s incumbet president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has won the recently
held presidential and parliamentary elections. But opposition leader, Dr Kiiza Besigye, has rejected the results and threatened to call on his supporters to protest against what he referred to as massive rigging.

Museveni who came to power in 1986 through a gorilla warfare has beaten seven other presidential candidates, including one woman, to win Uganda’s presidential and parliamentary elections with over 50 per cent.

A presidential candidate needs to gain not less than 51 per cent of votes cast to be declared president, according to Uganda’s constitution.

“With 5428369 votes, which is 69.38 per cent of tallied votes, I declare Yoweri Museveni the winner,” declared electoral commission chairman, Badru Kigundu, as he announced the final results.

President Yoweri Museveni’s main challenger, Dr Kiiza Besigye, got 2064963 votes which represents 26.3 per cent.

The East African country, with a population of 34 million voters, had registered 13,954,129 potential voters ahead of the crucial polls, but less than 8,272,760 millions voted.

Leader of the opposition, Dr Kiiza Besigye, has rejected the results and threatened to call on his supporters to protest against what he referred to as massive rigging.

“We are still gathering information about the rigging. If we confirm massive rigging, we will not complain in courts of law. We will instead go to people’s courts,” Besigye said.

But speaking on behalf of the ruling National Resisatance Movement political party, Ofwono Opondo has rubbished Dr. Kiiza Besigye’s allegation of vote rigging.

“Besigye is a liar. He has always lied to the public on many issues. At one
time he said that 90 per cent of the army support him, but when he was arrested by the same army for misbehaviour he cried foul,” Ofwono who argues that the elections were free and fair, said.

This has been Dr. Kiiza Besigye’s third presidential campaign to unseat Yoweri Museveni. But he has placed a distant second in all three elections and cried foul pointing to electoral fraud.

After taking the case of electoral fraud to court in the first two instances, judges ruled that although there was some cheating they were not enough to change the results in his favour.

Uganda  Read latest news and features from Uganda : business, politics, culture, life & style, entertainment and sports
Support Follow Afrik-News on Google News