UGANDA’S PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has been re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term in office with over two-thirds of the vote in an election declared to be fraudulent by the opposition.
According to the official results from the country’s electoral commission, Mr Museveni won just over 68 per cent of all votes counted, well ahead of his closest rival, Dr Kizza Besigye, who has twice failed to unseat the president, on 26 per cent.
The result represents a change in electoral fortunes for Mr Museveni, who took a 59 per cent share of the votes in 2006 and has seen his share decline in every election since 2001, casting doubt on how free and fair the election was.
Dr Besigye immediately rejected the results, accusing Mr Museveni and the ruling NRM of bribing voters with money looted from the treasury. “We categorically reject the outcome of the elections,” he told a news conference yesterday. “We reject the leadership of Yoweri Museveni. ” He said money from foreign donors such as the EU could have been used.
“A large part of our budget is from taxpayers in other countries” yet much of it is being spent irresponsibly he said, “subverting the political process”.
In January, the Ugandan parliament approved a supplementary budget of $260 million after most of the budget was spent half way through the financial year, with much channelled to the NRM, it is alleged. Some 33 per cent of Uganda’s budget is donor-funded.
The EU observation mission in the country criticised the “monetisation” of the election. Speaking to reporters, Edward Scicluna, head of the EU observer team, said the distribution of money and gifts, widely seen by EU observers, had “no place in a democratic society”.
Dame Billie Miller, the head of the Commonwealth observation team, criticised the “commercialisation of politics”, including the “distribution of vast amounts of money”.
Mr Museveni is in firm control of a country on the brink of becoming a significant oil producer, with Irish company Tullow Oil expected to start pumping up to 250,000 barrels a day from the Lake Albert basin on the Congo border in 2012. Uganda has an estimated 2.5 billion barrels of oil, says Tullow.
However, doubts remain as to the strength of democracy in the country, with voter education poor and the state broadcaster affording more air time to the ruling NRM and Mr Museveni than opposition candidates, according to the EU.