The start of the election was delayed in some polling stations because of what the electoral commission said was a shortage of election materials. Final results are expected to be announced Saturday.
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A Ugandan woman casts her vote at a polling station located at a school in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016.
Uganda’s top presidential challenger Kizza Besigye was arrested Friday for a third time in a week, as a chaotic election stretched into a second day.
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – Police in Uganda arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye at his party’s headquarters Friday after heavily armed police surrounded the building and a helicopter fired tear gas at a crowd.
“Where there was fracas and the vote was not able to continue we postponed it. As I speak to you now, voting is continuing in those polling stations”.
Provisional results released Friday morning from fewer than a quarter of polling centres gave Museveni the lead with 62 percent.
Police raided the FDC headquarters where party officials were said to be tallying results from Thursday’s Presidential elections. The government also shut down sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but using virtual private networks, many Ugandans are slowly getting back on social media.
Besigye’s supporters said the delays were deliberate and were aimed at favoring Museveni, whose rival is popular in Kampala. Voting was scheduled to begin at 7am local time, but was held up for hours in several polling stations in the capital Kampala and the surrounding Wakiso district after ballot boxes and papers did not arrive on time. More than 15 million people were registered to vote, with members of parliament also up for election as well as the president. Police said the house was a security facility and accused Mr Besigye of trespassing on government property. He is a key US ally on security matters, especially in Somalia.
The United States condemneg d his arrest with State Department spokesman John Kirby saying it called into question Uganda’s commitment to a transparent election, free from intimidation.
Besigye, 59, was Museveni’s field doctor during the war which brought him to power, and served as deputy interior minister in his first cabinet.
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With Kampala traditionally being an opposition stronghold and with many sceptical over the impartiality of an Electoral Commission run by a chairman who has presided over two previous controversial victories for Museveni, some see sabotage rather than incompetence in the election day chaos.
