Ugandans choose between leader of 20 years and former aide
Ugandan voters lined up in car parks, village squares and empty fields before dawn today to choose between the leader who has ruled the country for 20 years and four challengers.
They will also select a new parliament in the country’s first multiparty elections in two decades.
Some polling stations in the capital, Kampala, opened more than an hour late because of the late arrival of polling materials. Since most of the voting is taking place outdoors, thunderstorms in some parts of the country forced officials to suspend voting.
Voters turned out in large numbers in northern Uganda, an opposition stronghold where more than two million people live in camps because of regular raids by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army.
Security forces also turned out in high numbers after police said they feared some unidentified groups may try to disrupt the vote.
But there were no reports of violence or other serious problems in the first hours of voting.
Incumbent Yoweri Museveni and opposition leader Kizza Besigye were the top two presidential candidates heading into today’s vote. Besigye has had to split his time between campaigning and standing trial for treason, rape and other charges he and his supporters maintain were trumped up to hurt him in the election.
Voters were also electing 284 members of parliament, in the first voting day in Uganda to combine both the presidential and parliamentary elections.
Final results were expected by Saturday afternoon, as required by Uganda law.
While few voters were willing to say for whom they would vote, most said security and peace in the country were their highest priorities.
Mabel Kigozi, 38, said the tense campaign, which was marred by sporadic violence, made her nervous about the future of the country.
“The issue is to vote for a presidential candidate who can bring peace, unity and reconciliation, who can bring togetherness to Uganda,” Kigozi said, declining to name her candidate. “I don’t want war, violence, tribalism, I don’t want that division.”
Museveni appeared set to receive the most votes, according to opinion polls, the only question was whether there he will take more than 50%, eliminating the need for a run-off election.
The balloting is the first multiparty election in Uganda since 1980, a step forward after nearly 20 years of Museveni’s “no party politics”. But the same change to the constitution that allowed the participation of political parties, also removed term limits on the president, allowing Museveni, 62, to run as many times as he wishes.
In recent years, Museveni has frustrated donors by intervening in neighbouring Congo’s civil war, increasing military spending, changing the constitution to give the president more power and refusing to retire from politics as he had promised during the 2001 elections.
After Besigye returned from self-imposed exile last year to run against Museveni for a second time, prosecutors charged him with treason and rape and jailed him for three weeks. Museveni supporters also filed several civil court cases and appeals to have Besigye’s candidacy nullified, efforts that were all eventually thrown out.
“This election right from the word go could never have been free or fair,” Besigye said. “Our objective was to further expose this position both locally and internationally and to use what ever space would be available during the campaign to educate the population.”
But Museveni’s government has rejected all criticism. He has advised Ugandans to ignore “foreign meddlers”.
In an address to the nation on the eve of the vote, he told Ugandans that voting “is not a joke”.
“It is a matter of life and death. If you decide wrongly, you will bear the consequences,” Museveni said on state-run radio and television. “It has happened in the past. It can happen again.”
Uganda’s Electoral Commission has accredited 40,000 local and international observers to monitor the election, which will take place at more than 16,000 polling stations for 10.4 million registered voters. The European Union, Commonwealth and African Union all sent election observers.
