Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, recent from successful a seventh time period at age 81, stated Sunday that opposition politicians had been “terrorists” who had tried to make use of violence to overturn the outcomes.
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Official outcomes confirmed Museveni successful a landslide with 72 per cent from Thursday’s election, however the ballot was criticised by African election observers and rights teams as a result of heavy repression of the opposition and an web blackout.
The whereabouts of opposition chief Bobi Wine, actual title Robert Kyagulanyi, who gained 25 per cent, had been nonetheless unsure after he stated on Saturday that he had escaped a police raid on his house and was in hiding.
Police denied the raid and stated Wine was nonetheless at house, however blocked journalists from approaching the residence.
Wine has not posted on X since Saturday, when he denounced the “blatant theft of the presidential election”.
‘We Know What You Are Doing’
In his victory speech on Sunday, Museveni stated Wine’s social gathering, the Nationwide Unity Platform (NUP), had deliberate to assault polling stations in areas the place they had been shedding.
“A number of the opposition are mistaken and likewise terrorists,” stated Museveni, who has dominated the East African nation since 1986, when he seized energy on the head of a insurgent military.
“They’re working with some foreigners and a few gay teams,” he stated.
“All of the traitors — that is free recommendation from me — cease every little thing, as a result of we all know what you’re doing and you’ll not do it,” he added.
Though some web was restored late Saturday, the federal government stated it will keep a ban on social media platforms till additional discover.
The federal government blocked the web two days earlier than the vote, saying it was obligatory to stop “misinformation” and “incitement to violence”.
Uganda has remained largely peaceable because the outcomes, although there have been small-scale protests late Saturday, with AFP journalists saying tear fuel was fired in elements of the capital Kampala.
The safety presence was considerably lowered on Sunday, with individuals out on the streets and retailers open.
Assaults Deliberate ‘All over the place’
Analysts say the election was a formality, given Museveni’s complete management over the state and safety equipment, although many Ugandans nonetheless reward him for bringing relative peace and prosperity.
He has taken no probabilities in making an attempt to stop the violent unrest that rocked neighbouring Tanzania in the course of the polls in October.
Probably the most critical stories of violence on election day got here from the Butambala space of central Uganda, the place an opposition lawmaker advised AFP that safety forces had killed at the least 10 individuals at his house.
Museveni echoed the police account that the deaths resulted from a deliberate assault on a ballot-tallying centre and police station within the space.
He claimed the NUP had deliberate related assaults “all over the place”.
Human Rights Watch accused the federal government of “brutal repression” of the opposition forward of the vote.
One other key opposition chief, Kizza Besigye, who ran 4 instances towards Museveni, was kidnapped in Kenya in 2024 and introduced again to a army court docket in Uganda for a treason trial that’s ongoing.
African election observers, together with a workforce from the African Union, stated Saturday that “stories of intimidation, arrest and abductions” had “instilled concern and eroded public belief within the electoral course of”.
AFP
