With 6.8 million ballots counted, or 37% of registered
voters, Museveni had won 4.05 million, or 62.2%, while main opposition
candidate Wine had 1.99 million votes (30.6%), the electoral commission said
just after 9 p.m.
The election campaign was marred by deadly crackdowns by
security forces on opposition candidates and their supporters. Wine and some other
opposition candidates were arrested on multiple occasions.
There was a heavy security presence around Wine’s sprawling
compound on Friday. The singer-turned-lawmaker said he was under siege and his
life was in danger.
“We have simply boosted our deployment in the neighbourhood
for his own security. We are not there to arrest him and he is not under
arrest,” Luke Owoyesigyire, deputy spokesman for Kampala’s metropolitan police
said.
The deputy spokesman for Uganda’s armed forces, Deo Akiiki,
said security officers intervened on Friday to arrest three intruders who had
jumped over the fence into Wine’s compound.
Wine has galvanized young Ugandans with calls for political
change and he told a news conference on Friday that he had video proof of
voting fraud. “I am very confident that we defeated the dictator by far,” 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.”
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.
Wine’s claims have not been independently verified by
Reuters. The United States and European Union did not deploy teams of observers
for this election, though the African Union and East African Community did.
Neither the AU or EAC observer teams responded to requests
for comment about possible irregularities.
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