Uganda's Museveni wins re-election

2011-02-20 23:43:21 GMT+7 (ICT)

KAMPALA, UGANDA (BNO NEWS) -- President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday was declared the winner of Uganda's presidential election by the electoral commission, extending his rule to 30 years, The Monitor reported.

Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, won with 68.38 per cent of 8,272,760 total votes, while opposition leader Kizza Besigye, from the Inter-Party Cooperation, obtained 26% of the votes.

'The Commission declares Yoweri Kaguta Museveni President elect of the Republic of Uganda," Badru Kiggundu, chairman of the Electoral Commission of Uganda, said while announcing the final results at Namboole stadium on Sunday.

Besigye displayed dozens of pre-ticked ballot papers on Saturday and vowed to reject results from what he says was a "sham" electoral process.

"These pre-ticked ballot papers were in many parts of the country. We have witnessed ghost voting, multiple voter register and falsification of the results from different polling station in a wide spread fashion," Besigye said.

"In many districts, our polling agents were arrested and removed from the polling stations to enable ballot stuffing and false recording of results. And at many polling stations in many districts, our agents were denied the declaration of result forms by partisan presiding officers," he added.

Kiggundu commended civil society organizations for conducting civic and voter education, and his staff for a successful joint presidential and parliamentary vote on Friday.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-02-20

I was in Kampala in January 1991 - virtually no tourists at that time - and there was much hope then that Museveni would be different and bring about change.

Turned out to be just another corrupt dictator intent on clinging onto power at all costs.