Uganda’s electoral authority on Friday reported that the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni is currently leading in the presidential election followed by Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, a pop star-turned-politician, popularly known as Bobi Wine, reported Anadolu Agency.
The Electoral Commission announced that as per the first preliminary voting results, Museveni is leading in the polls with 61.31% of the votes followed by Wine with 27.9% of the total votes counted. The former is seeking a sixth term in office, having ruled for almost four decades.
The 76-year-old Museveni from the National Resistance Movement (NRM) political party bagged 50,097 votes, while his top competitor Ssentamu from the National Unity Platform (NUP) party garnered 22,802 votes from 330 polling stations. A total of 153 votes were declared invalid.
The other nine presidential candidates got as low as 5% of the votes. Some 18 million voters are registered for the presidential and parliamentary vote.
Uganda’s Electoral Commission hailed the elections for being calm and peaceful in a nationwide briefing. Biometric voting machines were used at 34,000 polling stations. Once past the biometric verification, voters were directed to three ballot boxes to vote for their district level, parliamentary, and presidential candidates.
Just before the election in Uganda, the government had ordered a ban on the internet and social media to avert any unlikely situation as violence in the run-up to the election claimed the lives of at least 54 people. The internet still remained shut down as votes were counted to maintain calm in the country.
It is believed that the Ugandan government’s decision to ban social media companies comes as retaliation after Facebook deleted pro-government accounts tied to the Ministry for Information and Technology for trying to manipulate public debate before Thursday’s key polls.
The final vote results are expected to be announced officially by Saturday.
