Ugandan President claims election victory after Opposition leader ‘abducted’

Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1986. Photo / Badru Katumba, AFP

Yoweri Museveni has claimed victory in a disputed Ugandan presidential election that gives him a seventh term in office.

The ballot was marred by violence, an internet shutdown and claims by Bobi Wine, the Opposition leader and former pop star, that military forces had entered his home and abducted him.

On Saturday (local time), Museveni claimed to have won almost 72% of Thursday’s vote, with Wine winning almost 25%. A victory for Museveni will extend his 40 years in power.

Wine had styled himself the “ghetto President” in reference to the slums where he spent his childhood in Kampala, the Ugandan capital.

He wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Saturday (local time) that he had escaped a police and army raid and was on the run, while his wife and family members remained under house arrest.

“I know that these criminals are looking for me everywhere, and I am trying my best to keep safe,” he said, hours after his party claimed in a statement that he had been “forcibly taken” from his residence by helicopter.

Wine’s rallies were disrupted throughout the campaign by the Government’s security forces which deployed tear gas and bullets, killing at least one person, and detained opposition supporters en masse.

He proclaimed his “complete rejection of the fake results” and accused the authorities of “ballot-stuffing”, the “military take-over of the election”, detaining political leaders and election officials and other electoral offences.

Ugandan police denied that Wine had been seized or had escaped, saying he was still at home and the deployment around his residence was necessary as it was an area of “security interest”.

Election observers from the African Union and other African bodies did not confirm the allegations of ballot-stuffing, but said they had heard “reports of intimidation, arrest and abductions” against Opposition and civil society groups.

Journalists on the ground said they had seen a large security presence around Kampala, seemingly part of an effort to ward off protests similar to those previously after elections in Kenya and Tanzania, in which hundreds died.

In the hours after the polls closed, police said that seven people had been killed and three injured in central Uganda when officers fired on Opposition “goons” sent by Muwanga Kivumbi, a member of Parliament for Wine’s party.

Kivumbi contested the claims, saying that 10 of his own campaign agents had been killed by security forces who had stormed his home.

In power since 1986, Museveni has consolidated absolute control over the machinery of government and the security services and has crushed contenders for the presidency throughout his rule.

He has changed the constitution twice to eliminate age and term limits. The election this week was widely regarded as little more than a formality.

However, Museveni is also popular among some Ugandans for ushering in a period of relative stability and has won gratitude from Western powers for sending troops to regional hotspots such as Somalia and taking in millions of refugees.

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