President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda staged a commanding lead in the provisional results from the October 15 presidential election, announced the electoral agency.
The results, which were announced by the Uganda Electoral Commission on Friday morning, revealed that the 81-year-old had garnered 76% of the votes from 60% of the country’s polling stations tallied so far.
Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, who is the leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party, is coming second with about 20% of the vote. Other contenders have shared the remaining 5%.
Ugandans cast ballots in a tense national election on Thursday after violent campaigns, with 81-year-old President Museveni running for a seventh term.
Pop star-turned-politician Wine, 43, has claimed that there was “massive” fraud during the election, which took place during an internet outage. The authorities have not addressed his claims, and he has not offered any supporting documentation.
Late on Thursday, the NUP party said the military and police had surrounded his house in the capital, Kampala, “effectively placing him and his wife under house arrest”.
“Security officers have unlawfully jumped over the perimeter fence and are now erecting tents within his compound,” the party posted on X. The authorities are yet to comment.
Following the 2021 election, in which he garnered 35% of the vote, Wine was confined to his home for several days by security forces.
During Thursday’s vote, voting was delayed by up to four hours in many polling stations around the country as ballot boxes were slow to arrive and biometric machines, used to verify voters’ identity, did not work properly.
