Bobi Wine alleges government attack after Museveni election victory

The opposition leader claims the government has stepped up crackdowns following the contested election

President Yoweri Museveni has won a sixth term as president, Uganda’s electoral commission said on Saturday while top opposition challenger Bobi Wine alleged rigging and officials struggled to explain how polling results were compiled amid an internet power cut.

On Sunday, Mr Wine —a 38-year-old singer-turned-MP — alleged that government forces had forbidden journalists and fellow party members from reaching his house. Mr Wine tweeted that Zaake Francis Butebi, an MP in his party, had been arrested and violently beaten, requiring hospital treatment.

In a generational clash widely watched across the African continent, with a booming young population and a host of ageing leaders, Mr Wine posed arguably the greatest challenge yet to Mr Museveni who has held power since 1986.

He had strong support in urban centres where frustration with unemployment and corruption is high.

The electoral commission said Mr Museveni received 58 per cent of ballots and Mr Wine 34 per cent, and voter turnout was 52 per cent.

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  Opposition candidate, Bobi Wine and wife Barbara Itungo Kyagulanyi laugh during the Ugandan presidential elections in Kampala, Uganda. Getty Images

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  Opposition candidate, Bobi Wine casts his vote. Getty Images

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  Opposition candidate, Bobi Wine clenches his fist after voting. Getty Images

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  People gather during the presidential elections in Kampala, Uganda. Reuters

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  Voters queue to cast their ballots in the presidential elections outside a voting center in Kampala, Uganda. Reuters

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  Ugandan police officers sit on a truck at a polling station in Magere. AFP

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  Bobi Wine holds his wife's Barbara Itungo Kyagulanyi hand, as well as his voter ID at a polling station in Magere, Uganda. AFP

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  Bobi Wine gestures as he leaves after casting his pictures at a polling station in Magere, Uganda. AFP

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  Voters queue to vote at a polling station in Magere, Uganda. AFP

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  Security forces stand outside a polling station in Kampala, Uganda. AP Photo

An official in the United Kingdom called for the election to be investigated on Saturday.

"Many in Uganda and beyond have expressed concerns about the overall political climate in the run up to the elections as well as the electoral process. It is important these concerns are raised, investigated and resolved in a peaceful, legal and constitutional manner," Britain's minister for Africa, James Duddridge, said.

"We ask that all parties, including the security services, but also all of Uganda’s political movements, act with restraint to ensure the peaceful resolution of disputes," he added.

The top United States diplomat to Africa has called the electoral process “fundamentally flawed.”

Thursday’s vote followed the East African country’s worst pre-election violence since the 76-year-old Mr Museveni took office over three decades ago.

Mr Wine and other opposition candidates were often harassed, and more than 50 people were killed when security forces put down riots in November over Mr Wine’s arrest.

Mr Wine petitioned the International Criminal Court this month over alleged torture and other abuses by security forces.

While the president holds on to power, at least 15 of his Cabinet ministers, including the vice president, were voted out, with many losing to candidates from Mr Wine’s party, local media reported.

Mr Wine claimed victory on Friday, asserting that he had video evidence of vote-rigging and saying “every legal option is on the table” to challenge the official election results, including peaceful protests.

Candidates can challenge election results at the Supreme Court.

Hours later, he tweeted that the military had entered his home compound and “we are in serious trouble,” which a military spokeswoman denied.

Mr Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was roughed up and arrested several times while campaigning but was never convicted, and eventually he campaigned wearing a flak jacket and said he feared for his life.

A heavy presence of security forces remained around his home, where he has said he was alone with his wife and a single security guard.

Uganda’s electoral commission has said Mr Wine should prove his allegations of rigging, and it has deflected questions about how countrywide voting results were transmitted during the internet power cut by saying “we designed our own system.”

It could not explain how it worked.

Monitoring of the vote was further complicated by the arrests of independent monitors and the denial of accreditation to members of a US observer mission.

Another major observer, the European Union, said its offer to deploy electoral experts “was not taken up.”

“Uganda’s electoral process has been fundamentally flawed,” the top US diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, tweeted Saturday, calling for the immediate and full restoration of internet access and warning that “the US response hinges on what the Ugandan government does now.”

Mr Museveni, once praised as part of a new generation of African leaders, still has support among some in Uganda for bringing stability.

A longtime US security ally, he once criticised African leaders who refused to step aside but has since overseen the removal of term limits and an age limit on the presidency.

The head of the African Union observer team, Samuel Azuu Fonkam, told reporters he could not say whether the election had been free and fair, noting the “limited” AU mission which largely focused on the capital, Kampala.

Asked about Mr Wine’s allegations of rigging, he said he could not “speak about things we did not see or observe.”

The East African Community observer team in its preliminary statement noted issues including “disproportionate use of force in some instances” by security forces, the internet shutdown, some late-opening polling stations and isolated cases of failure in biometric kits to verify voters.

But it called the vote largely peaceful and said it “demonstrated the level of maturity expected of a democracy.”