President Yoweri Museveni yesterday debunked opposition allegations of massive rigging in the run up to his Saturday’s electoral victory declared by the Electoral Commission. He had won the 2016 polls with 60.8 per cent of the total votes cast. Museveni has been in the rulership of Uganda for the past three decades.
While addressing his a press conference at his country home in Rwakitura, after he was declared winner, he said: “Anyone trying to challenge the results of the elections must not be serious…that’s rubbish”.
At the age of 71, he reasoned that if there was rigging, he wouldn’t have lost in Kampala and Wakiso districts, which overwhelmingly voted opposition party Forum for Democratic Change candidate Dr Kizza Besigye, whose party has since rejected the outcome of the February 18, poll outcomes.
Oppositon FDC insists on not recognizing Mr Museveni’s victory, and is calling for an international audit of the results
Museveni claimed he lost votes in Kampala, the capital, because of the work of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) executive director Jennifer Musisi. He maintained that re-organising the city was good for order, the problem was that there was no adequate sensitisation and provision of alternatives for the affected people.
Museveni also promised that Uganda will become a middle income country under his stewardship in the next five years.
He said he had found that some Chinese nationals who were running an industry in Mukono had run out of the country thinking that there would be chaos. However, he assured the country there would be no chaos under his regime.
Museveni, who has been credited for stabilising Uganda, has had relative challenges in terms of economic growth due to the weakening Shilling, which in his briefing, said was a result of Ugandans wiring money to outside countries.
“I said no one will destabilise Uganda during and after elections… In the next five years Opposition will be wiped out. They are taking advantage of internal weaknesses. I know they are liars,” he said.
He hailed the Electoral Commission for doing a good job saying: “I want to thank the EC for struggling with this big job which was not easy. I insisted on using electronic finger print readers. And I am glad it worked. I was being intimidated that this will not work, I insisted,” which he said had eliminated multiple voting and that he would in the next five years, if resources allow, work on the full computerisation of voting.
“What I would want to work towards is full computerisation of the voting, where by one would only need a finger print to vote. That will totally eliminate any games,” said Mr Museveni
