Lawyers for Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine have filed a challenge in the Supreme Court on Monday against President Yoweri Museveni’s victory in last month’s election.
Robert Kyagulayi (Bobbi Wine) and his party claim the poll was rigged in an election the president declared as the cleanest in Uganda’s post-independence history.
The 38-year-old singer-turned-presidential candidate came second behind veteran leader Museveni in the January 14 vote that followed some of Uganda’s worst pre-election bloodshed in years.
One of Wine’s lawyers, Medard Sseggona, said: “any election Museveni participates in can never be a peaceful election, can never be a free and fair election”.
“We want nullification of the election. We do not want (Museveni) participating in any future election,” Sseggona said outside the Kampala courthouse where he filed the petition today.
President Museveni, a 76-year-old who has ruled since 1986, won a sixth term with about 59 percent of the vote with Robert Kyagulayi trailing behind with about 35 percent of the vote.
According to an independent election analyst, Crispin Kaheru, the NUP may have a tough battle ahead of them as the electoral jurisprudence narrows an election process to votes, numbers and statistics on declaration day making election petitions very difficult.
“By law, Wine must prove to the court that any alleged irregularities affected the outcome of the election “to a substantial manner” — a much higher burden of proof than in civil cases.
Ugandan courts do not “look at elections as a process but only at events on polling day and declaration day, which makes it very difficult to prove the substantial effect of fraud wrongdoing,” Kaheru said.
Under the constitution, the Supreme Court must now rule on the petition within 45 days.
