Kampala: Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni extended his three-decade rule on Saturday after winning a fifth term in polls rejected as fraudulent by his closest rival who was under house arrest.
The veteran 71-year-old won 60 percent of the vote in the sometimes chaotic elections, far ahead of the 35 percent garmered by detained opposition leader Kizza Besigye, whose house was surrounded by dozens of armed police in riot gear.
“The commission declares Yoweri Kaguta Museveni the elected President of the Republic of Uganda,” Election Commission chief Badru Kiggundu said as he read out results.
Large numbers of police and troops have been deployed on the streets of the capital Kampala. US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday urged Museveni to “rein in” his security forces.
“The outcome of an elections can either tear or build a country... as Ugandans let us be prepared to exhibit more tolerance,” commission chief Kiggundu said. “We love this country and you Ugandans love your country.”
Besigye’s party has decried results as “fraudulent,” but Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) party swiftly issued a statement celebrating the win.
“The result confirmed that our opponents failed to offer any alternative,” NRM spokesman Mike Sebalu said. “Behind their vague claims of change, there were no policies and no chance of progress — and people saw through these empty claims.”
Ugandan police chief Kale Kayihura also warned that celebrations after results required police permission.
“We anticipate that candidates who have won in the elections intended to hold celebratory activities... To protect public order, all candidates planning celebrations must first discuss and get clearance,” he said.
The election on Thursday was disrupted in Kampala by the late arrival of ballot boxes and papers and angry demonstrations by voters that the police quelled using tear gas.
At nearly 28,000 other polling centers voting passed off smoothly, but the ballot was extended for a second day in 36 places after delays that Commonwealth election observers called “inexcusable” and that “seriously detracted from the fairness and credibility of the result.”
European Union election observers on Saturday said that “voting was conducted in a calm and peaceful environment in the vast majority of the country.” But the observers also voiced criticism over the “lack of transparency and independence” of the electoral commission.
Ex-prime minister Amama Mbabazi, a former ruling party stalwart, was trailing in a distant third with just over one percent of the vote.
Uganda’s Museveni wins fifth term: election commission
Uganda’s Museveni wins fifth term: election commission
Venezuela’s acting president calls for oil industry reforms to attract more foreign investment
- In her speech, Rodríguez said money earned from foreign oil sales would go into two funds: one dedicated to social services for workers and the public health care system, and another to economic development and infrastructure projects
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez used her first state of the union address on Thursday to promote oil industry reforms that would attract foreign investment, an objective aggressively pushed by the Trump administration since it toppled the country’s longtime leader less than two weeks ago.
Rodríguez, who has been under pressure from the US to fall in line with its vision for the oil-rich nation, said sales of Venezuelan oil would go to bolster crisis-stricken health services, economic development and other infrastructure projects.
While she sharply criticized the Trump administration and said there was a “stain on our relations,” the former vice president also outlined a distinct vision for the future between the two historic adversaries, straying from her predecessors, who have long railed against American intervention in Venezuela.
“Let us not be afraid of diplomacy” with the US, said Rodriguez, who must now navigate competing pressures from the Trump administration and a government loyal to former President Nicolás Maduro.
The speech, which was broadcast on a delay in Venezuela, came one day after Rodríguez said her government would continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro in what she described as “a new political moment” since his ouster.
Trump on Thursday met at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro. But in endorsing Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, Trump has sidelined Machado.
In her speech, Rodríguez said money earned from foreign oil sales would go into two funds: one dedicated to social services for workers and the public health care system, and another to economic development and infrastructure projects.
Hospitals and other health care facilities across the country have long suffered. Patients are asked to provide practically all supplies needed for their care, from syringes to surgical screws. Economic turmoil, among other factors, has pushed millions of Venezuelans to migrate from the South American nation in recent years.
In moving forward, the acting president must walk a tightrope, balancing pressures from both Washington and top Venezuelan officials who hold sway over Venezuela’s security forces and strongly oppose the US Her recent public speeches reflect those tensions — vacillating from conciliatory calls for cooperation with the US, to defiant rants echoing the anti-imperialist rhetoric of her toppled predecessor.
American authorities have long railed against a government they describe as a “dictatorship,” while Venezuela’s government has built a powerful populist ethos sharply opposed to US meddling in its affairs.
For the foreseeable future, Rodríguez’s government has been effectively relieved of having to hold elections. That’s because when Venezuela’s high court granted Rodríguez presidential powers on an acting basis, it cited a provision of the constitution that allows the vice president to take over for a renewable period of 90 days.
Trump enlisted Rodríguez to help secure US control over Venezuela’s oil sales despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term. To ensure she does his bidding, Trump threatened Rodríguez earlier this month with a “situation probably worse than Maduro.”
Maduro, who is being held in a Brooklyn jail, has pleaded not guilty to drug-trafficking charges.
Before Rodríguez’s speech on Thursday, a group of government supporters was allowed into the presidential palace, where they chanted for Maduro, who the government insists remains the country’s president. “Maduro, resist, the people are rising,” they shouted.
