Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine on Friday claimed victory in presidential elections, rejecting as a “complete sham” early results that gave President Yoweri Museveni a wide lead.
The election campaign was marred by deadly crackdowns by security forces on opposition candidates and their supporters.
With 29.4% of votes from Thursday’s ballot counted, Museveni had won 1,852,263 votes, or 63.9%, while main opposition candidate Bobi Wine had 821,874 (28.4%), the electoral commission said just after 11 am.
Museveni, 76, is seeking a sixth term after almost four decades in power, and the youthful Wine has emerged his main rival in a country where most have known only one president.
“We are putting every legal, every constitutional and every non-violent option on the table,” Wine said.
“I will be happy to share the videos of all the fraud and irregularities as soon as the internet is restored.” he told a news conference.
The internet remained down for a third day as vote counting continued from Thursday’s poll, with provisional results from 29 percent of polling stations giving Museveni an early lead of 63.9 percent while Wine trailed with 28 percent.
“I am very confident that we defeated the dictator by far. I call upon all Ugandans to reject the blackmail. We have certainly won the election and we’ve won it by far,” Wine told journalists.
“Whatever is being declared is a complete sham we reject it and we dissociate ourselves with it”
Election commission chairman Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama said he did “not appreciate the assertion that these results we are reading out are rigged”.
“The onus is on candidate Kyagulanyi to show how votes are rigged.”