Yoweri Museveni wins Uganda’s flawed presidential election

AFTER ONE of the most violent election campaigns in Ugandan history, the result was a foregone conclusion. On January 16th, two days after polls closed, the Electoral Commission declared that Yoweri Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) had been elected president—yet again—with 59% of the vote. It is the sixth time Mr Museveni (pictured, after casting his ballot) has won at the polls, at least according to the official count, since fighting his way to power in 1986. Although his share of the vote fell slightly, he was still comfortably ahead of his nearest challenger, Robert Kyagulanyi, a pop star and politician better known as Bobi Wine, who drew 35%.As results were coming in, Mr Wine, while claiming victory, complained of “the worst rigging this country has ever experienced”. One of his organisers in western Uganda says that at a polling station she visited there was no ballot box for presidential votes. Another activist, limping, claims that soldiers and some locals beat her when she tried to monitor the vote in the central district of Nakaseke. The army’s spokeswoman says she is unaware of the allegation.