Key Highlights
- The last legal obstacles to his rule — term limits and age restrictions — have been removed from the constitution, and some of his possible rivals have been jailed or sidelined. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADMuseveni took more than 71.6% of the vote while his closest challenger and Uganda’s most prominent opposition leader, Bobi Wine, took 24.7% of the vote, according to official results rejected by Wine as fake. More from World Uganda presidential election: Voting begins amid internet shutdown, complaints of polling delays Uganda: Museveni wins presidential election, extending rule into 5th decade“The opposition are lucky,” Museveni said about his victory after low voter turnout in Thursday’s election.
- “They have not seen our full strength.” Voter turnout stood at 52%, the lowest since Uganda’s return in 2006 to multiparty politics. Addressing the nation from his country home in western Uganda, where many dignitaries gathered to hear him speak publicly for the first time since his victory, Museveni said that he believed many of those who didn’t vote were members of the governing party. Wine, a musician-turned-politician whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has the option of launching a legal challenge with the courts, which previously have refused opposition efforts to nullify Museveni’s victories while recommending electoral reforms. Quick ReadsView AllIran state TV hijacked as protest messages, video of exiled Crown Prince Pahlavi air nationwideTrade war or diplomacy?
- How will Europe deal with Trump’s tariff threat over Greenland?Museveni, Africa’s third-longest governing president, will serve a seventh term that would bring him closer to five decades in power.
- His supporters credit him for the relative peace and stability that makes Uganda home to hundreds of thousands fleeing violence elsewhere in the region. In his speech, Museveni accused the opposition of trying to foment violence during voting.
- He urged religious leaders to reach out to young people who are likely to be misled into violence. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADAt least seven opposition supporters of a losing parliamentary candidate with Wine’s party were killed by police after they attacked a polling station with machetes in the central district of Butambala, he said.“Some of the opposition are wrong but also terrorists,” he said, calling Wine and others “traitors.”Wine, 43, has previously rejected the charge as false, saying he represents the hopes of millions of young people yearning for political change after decades of the same leader. On Sunday, Wine posted footage on the social platform X of what he said were alleged incidents of ballot stuffing and the intimidation of his r.
