Uganda re-elects Museveni amid concern over vote credibility

Bloomberg

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was re- elected for a fifth term, extending his 30-year rule over the East African nation in polls marked by opposition arrests and international concern over the vote’s credibility.
The former guerrilla commander won 60.75 percent of Thursday’s vote, renewing his mandate to govern the continent’s biggest coffee exporter as it plans oil production in the next two years. Opposition candidate Kizza Besigye was in second place with 35.37 percent, Electoral Commission Chairman Badru Kiggundu told reporters Saturday in the capital, Kampala.
Turnout in the presidential and legislative elections was 63.5 percent, Kiggundu said. Voting took place amid heavy security, with some polling stations opening for a second day because of delays. Besigye is under house arrest after police stormed his party headquarters when he was accused of planning to announce his own vote tally, while some social media was blocked. The moves were criticized by the U.S. and European Union.
The 71-year-old’s re-election indicates a trend in Africa, where a growing number of leaders are trying to extend their rule, in some cases amending the constitution to do so. Museveni is one of the continent’s longest serving presidents, alongside Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

Regional Role
The results show a decline in support for Museveni since his 2011 re-election, when he won with 68.4 percent of the vote. According to Uganda’s constitution, he would be too old to stand in another vote in five years’ time.
Uganda’s $27 billion economy has companies such as London- based Tullow Oil Plc and France’s Total SA developing its estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil resources. While a foreign aid recipient, Uganda plays a prominent role in the region, contributing troops for the African Union campaign fighting Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia and militarily backing South Sudan’s government when civil war erupted in late 2013.
The US, which has described Uganda as a key strategic partner, expressed concern over Besigye’s detention and the harassment of opposition party members during voting and tallying. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Museveni to rein in the police and security forces and end the block on social media, the State Department said on its website. Kerry said that “such action calls into question Uganda’s commitment to a transparent and credible election process free from intimidation,” according to the statement.

Election Handling
Uganda’s handling of the elections “raises serious questions” about whether they have been conducted in a free and fair manner, New York-based Human Rights Watch said earlier Saturday.
Authorities created an atmosphere of intimidation in the run up to and during Thursday’s vote, while Uganda’s electoral commission lacks independence and the trust of the people, the European Union’s chief observer, Eduard Kukan, told reporters in Kampala before the results were announced.
He described Friday’s arrest of Besigye at his party headquarters as “unacceptable” and said the authorities’ block of some social media had curbed freedom of expression. Uganda has no legal means to ensure a level playing field for the elections, Kukan said.
Kiggundu defended the commission’s organization of the polls before declaring Museveni the winner. “There is not a country in the world that conducts multiparty elections and comes out error-free,” he said. “We are a young democracy.”
Besigye was Museveni’s personal physician during a five- year guerrilla war that brought the veteran leader to power. Police are surrounding his home to ensure he “doesn’t cause breach of public peace,” deputy police spokeswoman Polly Namaye said in an interview. Besigye’s party, the Forum for Democratic Change, said on its Twitter account all roads to his residence were blocked.

USA deplores anomalies in Uganda elections
Washington / AFP

The United States noted a series of troubling “irregularities” in Uganda’s presidential and parliamentary elections and said that “the Ugandan people deserve
better.”
Ugandan election officials said President Yoweri Museveni won 60 percent of the vote, handing him a fifth term. But opposition leader Kizza Besigye, in a message issued while under house arrest, denounced what he said were “sham elections.”
Mark Toner, a spokesman for the US State Department, called for Besigye’s immediate release and said in a statement that while the elections had been peaceful, their conduct was “deeply inconsistent with international standards and expectations for any democratic process.”