KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – Ugandan opposition figure Bobi Wine is calling for peaceful protests after the presidential election, accusing election officials of “fighting counterfeit results” that have shown President Yoweri Museveni’s victory.
Wine, a singer and lawmaker whose real name is Kyagulanyi Sentamu, spoke on Tuesday, the day after the police warned in a statement that some opposition politicians were planning “violent demonstrations across the country and unrest starting in Kampala”, the capital. That statement warned that the police had “strategically deployed themselves to contain these illegal acts”.
Wine said on Tuesday that the East African country’s constitution allows for peaceful protests.
“Ugandans must now rise to the occasion and resist Museveni and his blood regime,” he said. “As we have already said, we are not violent and we are legal. Our philosophy remains firm. People’s power is stronger than people in power. “
Museveni was declared the winner of the January 14 elections with 58% of the votes, while Wine had 35%. Wine called these results fraudulent, citing cases of soldiers who allegedly filled the polls, voted for people and expelled voters from polling stations.
Uganda’s high court last week allowed Wine to withdraw a petition that his lawyers had filed to invalidate Museveni’s re-election. Wine said he no longer trusts the nine-judge panel, accusing the court of bias.
Museveni dismissed allegations of electoral fraud after election officials announced his victory, calling the elections “the most free from cheating” since Uganda’s independence from Britain in 1962.
Museveni, a former guerrilla leader who took power by force in 1986 and has since been elected six times, is popular with many Ugandans for bringing relative stability and security. Museveni himself punished former leaders like Idi Amin, whose regime was known for kidnappings and extrajudicial executions.
But opposition figures like Wine accuse Museveni of ruling more and more like his predecessors. They say that corruption and alleged abuses by the security forces have become more common as Museveni tries to extend his government.
“Many of our brothers and sisters have disappeared and have never been seen again,” Wine said on Tuesday, talking about alleged disappearances after the presidential election. “Those who were lucky enough to return said that they were subjected to indescribable torture and brutality.”
Some of the victims were castrated, he said.
Museveni recently dismissed claims that his forces illegally detained civilians, saying that his army “is a disciplined force” and that his party “does not kill” his opponents. But he acknowledged that he stepped up security before the elections, deploying soldiers from a previously deployed command unit in Somalia that “killed some” people he described as terrorists.
Uganda has never seen a peaceful transfer of power, one of the reasons why even some in Museveni’s party openly say that he must prepare a successor.