Ugandan president wins election as opposition leader flees

The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, was declared this Saturday the winner of the presidential elections in the African country despite the accusation of electoral fraud leveled by the country’s opposition leader, Robert Kyagulanyi, known by his stage name Bobi Wine, who announced practically at the same time that he had fled after escaping from what he described as house arrest last night.

“I want to confirm that I have managed to escape from the Army and the Police. Right now I am not at home although my wife and other members of my family are still under house arrest,” declared the opposition leader, who has been denouncing for years that he is a victim of political persecution orchestrated by Museveni.

This Saturday the Police were forced to deny the accusations made by Wine’s family, who accused the security forces of “kidnapping” the presidential candidate. Wine spent the night at his home until he decided to evade the perimeter that the agents had drawn around his home for, the Police say, “security reasons.”

Wine, in his message, has attributed the confusion to the fact that the country is under a “national internet blackout.” “Given the commotion that occurred in our house at night, and given that no one has access permission, our neighbors concluded that they had managed to kidnap us and spread the news,” he indicated.

Museveni has won the elections with 71.6% of the votes; a comfortable victory over Wine (24.7%), according to the results released by the president of the Electoral Commission, Simon Byabakama, in an appearance that Wine has branded a farce before assuring that the elections have been the scene of a “military coup.”

“I reiterate our resounding rejection of the false results that Byabakama is reading. In addition to the electoral fraud, the military coup of the elections, the arrest of our electoral leaders and officials, and other electoral crimes, their results have no support,” he indicated.

“In addition to the flagrant theft of the presidential elections, these criminals have used various fraudulent techniques to usurp the popular will in numerous constituencies throughout the country,” said Wine before denouncing that all the candidates of his party, the Platform for National Unity, “are in the crosshairs” of the authorities even when they have irrefutable evidence of their victory. “This is truly crazy,” Wine denounced.