Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine filed a supreme court challenge seeking cancellation of the results of a presidential election that handed victory to incumbent Yoweri Museveni, his partyâs lawyer said.
Museveni, a former guerrilla leader who has led the East African country since 1986, was declared winner of the Jan. 14 election with 59% of the vote, while Wine was given 35%.
âWe want the poll cancelled and repeated,â said George Musisi, lawyer for Wineâs National Unity Platform (NUP).
Wine, 38, a pop star and lawmaker, rejected the results and said he believed his victory was stolen. Musisi said Wine was asking the court to overturn the results on several grounds including widespread use of violence.
âThere was outright ballot-stuffing, there was intimidation of NUP agents and supporters, some were arrested on the eve of the election, there was pre-ticking of ballots,â he said.
The filing showed the judiciary could be trusted to adjudicate over the dispute fairly, Museveniâs National Resistance Movement party told Reuters, adding the petition did not have much chance of succeeding.
âKyagulanyi is trying to give his supporters a soft landing but inside himself he knows he lost genuinely,â said Rogers Mulindwa, NRMâs spokesman.
Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, used his youthful energy and a widespread Ugandan love of music to build a large following among young people and present a formidable challenge to Museveni.
On the campaign trail, which Wine once described as a âwar zoneâ, he was forced to wear a bulletproof vest and a ballistics helmet for safety reasons.
To keep a lid on Wineâs support, authorities responded with a violent crackdown. His rallies were routinely broken up with bullets, beatings, teargas and detentions.
Wine was himself on various occasions prevented from appearing on radio talk shows during campaigns and blocked from going to certain parts of the country to canvass for votes.
Ugandaâs judiciary has over the years drawn criticism from the political opposition and some human rights activists for alleged partisan rulings in high-profile political cases.
Challenges to the results of all the four previous elections won by Museveni have been dismissed by the supreme court.
In the rulings, most judges acknowledged the elections were marred by irregularities, but said those irregularities could not have affected the electionâs ultimate result in a substantial manner.
CitizenTv
Follow Us on Instagram