By Elias Biryabarema
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Opposition leader Bobi Wine said on Monday that he was giving up a legal challenge to the results of Uganda’s presidential election that gave incumbent Yoweri Museveni the victory, saying the Supreme Court judges who heard the case were biased.
Museveni, a former guerrilla leader who has led the East African country since 1986, was declared the winner of the January 14 elections with 59% of the vote, while Wine received 35%.
Wine, 39, a pop star and lawmaker whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, rejected the results and said he believed the victory was stolen from him. He asked the court to annul the results for several reasons, including the widespread use of violence.
“We decided to withdraw from the court,” Wine said at a news conference in the capital, Kampala. “The courts are not independent, it is clear that these people (judges) are working for Mr. Museveni.”
As evidence, he cited the court’s decision to reject a request he made to present additional evidence that he said showed early ballot counting, false ballot counting, impossibly high voter turnout and other irregularities.
Wine also said that some of the court’s judges have met with Museveni several times since he filed the petition and that some of the meetings were secret. “We are convinced that the Supreme Court has a pre-determined mind,” he said.
Solomon Muyita, a spokesman for the judiciary, told Reuters that judicial authorities would only respond to Wine’s accusations and the decision to withdraw the case when he formally closed the case through his lawyers.
“At the moment what he did was just a political statement. As far as the Supreme Court record is concerned, the case is still there,” he said.
Wine gained a large following among young Ugandans.
However, a crackdown by security forces on their supporters in recent months has left dozens dead and hundreds arrested. Wine and other leaders of his National Unity Platform party also accused security forces of crossing the country and kidnapping and torturing their supporters.
Police said they were investigating all reports of disappearances.
Last week, soldiers beat and severely injured journalists during Wine’s coverage by filing a petition with the UN human rights office in Uganda requesting an investigation into alleged human rights abuses.
On Thursday, Ugandan military sentenced seven soldiers to up to 90 days in prison after being convicted of assaulting journalists covering the event.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Writing by Omar Mohammed; Editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)