Ugandan presidential election candidate Bobi Wine is seeking to legally contest the election results that declared incumbent President Yoweri Museveni as the winner, reported Al Jazeera.
Wine made the announcement via the National Unity Platform (NUP) party’s Twitter account on Sunday, just hours after the country’s election commission announced Museveni won the election with 58.6 percent of the votes.
As per the results declared by the Ugandan election commission, Bobi Wine secured just 34.8 percent of the votes.
“I take this painful but nonetheless inevitable leadership decision of urging you to desist from any form of violence as we prepare to challenge the election outcome and its glaring imperfections through the courts of law for the sake of our long-term victory and for Uganda,” he said.
Wine, a pop star-turned-politician whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, said he took the decision was after consulting with senior NUP leaders. He claimed that there had been ballot-box stuffing, intimidation, and that his party’s agents had been beaten and chased away during Thursday’s election. He remained under military house arrest on Sunday as his supporters called for his release.
Mathias Mpunga, the deputy President of Ugandan opposition National Unity Platform, said the party rejected the announced results of the presidential elections and demanded Wine’s immediate and unconditional release. The party claimed that Wine was placed under house arrest in the wake of the vote.
The 76-year-old Museveni has been in power since 1986 when he helped to end years of tyranny under Idi Amin and Milton Obote. He is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. He dismissed the opposition’s fraud allegations and the claims of vote-rigging in an address to the nation, saying Thursday’s election may turn out to be the “most cheating-free” election in Uganda’s history.
He thanked his supporters and urged them to avoid any kind of violence.
