TheCable

Some agents of the political parties that took part in the 2016 general election in Uganda on Saturday stormed out of the collation center in anger after President Yoweri Museveni was declared winner of the poll.

Museveni came to power in 1986 after partaking in the rebellion that toppled Idi Amin Dada, the country’s longtime dictator, and Milton Obote, who took over from Idi Amin.

The first election under Museveni’s government held on May 9, 1996 and he defeated Paul Ssemogerere of the Democratic Party.

Since then, the president has contested and won all other presidential elections.

According to reports, Saturday’s exercise shocked representatives of other presidential candidates and journalists at the collation center as Kiggundu allegedly came in with a written document reading out results and percentages.

The authorities had earlier blocked access to social media, apparently to prevent monitoring of the election.

There have been reports of harassment of opposition candidates on the orders of Museveni, who refused to partake in all the debates organised ahead of the election.

Declaring Museveni as the winner, Kiggundu warned against announcement  of results from parallel tally centres.

The result released by chairman of the electoral body showed that Museveni polled 60.75% ahead of Kizza Besigye, candidate of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), who had 35.3%.

Besigye, who enjoys a large following in the country, experienced different forms of harassment, including detention, in the electioneering period.

As at Saturday when the results were announced, Besigye was placed under house arrest but that did not stop him from calling “on all Ugandans and the international community to reject and condemn the fraud that has been committed”.

Museveni and Besigye were once allies.

Besigye served as Museveni’s physician during the period that both men fought in the war to overthrow Obote.