- REUTERS
Ugandan presidential candidate Kizza Besigye is searched with a metal detector by a policeman outside the High Court in Uganda's capital Kampala in this photograph taken on January 13. Besigye is facing charges of treason and rape.
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP):
PRESIDENT YOWERI Museveni overwhelmingly won re-election in Uganda's first multiparty election in 25 years, the nation's electoral commission declared yesterday, but the leading opposition party said its independent tally showed the incumbent trailing.
Within an hour of the announcement, police used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse a crowd blocking the road and throwing stones near the headquarters of Museveni's main opponent, Kizza Besigye. Young men attacked a man who appeared to be a Museveni supporter, but there were no reports of other injuries or arrests.
Uganda's incumbent President Yoweri Museveni casts his ballot at his home town polling station in Rusherere, some 300 kilometres west of the capital Kampala, last Thursday.
Uganda voted in its first multi-party elections with a close race expected between Museveni and his main rival Kizza Besigye. Sudden downpours soaked open-air polling stations across Uganda Thursday, but did little to dampen turnout for the country's first multiparty elections in more than 25 years.
CHEERING
Museveni supporters drove through downtown Kampala, honking horns, cheering and giving the thumbs-up salute of the ruling party.
Museveni, who has been in power for more than 20 years, lifted a two-term limit last year so he could run again. A European Union observers' mission criticised Museveni for using all the resources of the Government to win and said that the vote - although an improvement on past ballots - was marred by serious problems.
An estimated 68 per cent of the 10.4 million registered voters turned out for the election, which also chose 284 members of parliament.
The official results of Thursday's vote, based on 99 per cent of polling stations reporting, showed Museveni with 59.3 per cent of the vote, Besigye with 37.4 per cent and the other three candidates sharing a little more than three per cent.
Besigye rejected that count, saying tallies collected by his Forum for Democratic Changes party at the country's 19,786 polling stations showed him with 49.1 per cent and Museveni with 47.1 per cent.
"The FDC has taken the decision to reject the results announced by the Electoral Commission and to say we are still gathering our own information, which we hope will be complete in another day or so," Besigye said. "We shall decide on further action once we have all of the information we need."
