Categories: News

Mbabazi Takes Museveni Election Win Challenge to Supreme Court

About three weeks after Yoweri Museveni was declared Uganda’s president for his fifth term, Democratic Alliance presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi (pictured) is contesting Museveni’s election, reports the Monitor.

According to Mbabazi’s Deputy Communications Director Maggie Lukowe, Uganda’s presidential election in February violated a number of laws with its alleged late delivery of voting material, the pre-ticking of ballots, ballot stuffing, and bribery.

Lukowe added, “We have collected quite a number of affidavits. We have not yet done a census but I can say they are in thousands.”

In total, Mbabazi is challenging President Museveni’s re-election on 28 counts that fall under the categories “non-compliance with the law” and “commission of electoral offences.”

In addition to filing the petition with the Supreme Court, Mbabazi’s counsel Severino Twinobusingye and Michael Akampurira reportedly also delivered a copy of the petition to Museveni at the State House.

While Mbabazi succeeded in filing his petition on the final day of the 10-day period allowed to those who want to contest the presidential election results, main presidential opposition leader Kizza Bisigye failed to do so.

Besigye’s Campaign Suppressed

Kizza Besigye arrested by police.

After being arrested at least three times alone the week of elections, Besigye was repeatedly held under house arrest at his home, preventing the Forum for Democratic Change candidate from addressing his supporters and meeting with his campaign team.

The fact that Besigye was kept from meeting with his campaign team meant he was effectively stopped from compiling evidence on election fraud and suppression.

Besigye has contested the last three elections in the Supreme Court, though, and while the court found that election violations did exist in the respective elections, they consistently ruled against nullifying the election results.

Either way, starting Monday, the Supreme Court judges will begin hearing Mbabazi’s petition. They have 30 days to come to a decision.

Abena Agyeman-Fisher

Abena Agyeman-Fisher is the Editor-in-Chief of Face2Face Africa. Most recently, she worked for Interactive One as the Senior Editor of NewsOne, she worked for AOL as the News Programming Manager of Black Voices, which later became HuffPo Black Voices, and for the New York Times Company as an Associate Health Editor. Abena, a Spelman College graduate, has been published in Al Jazeera, the Daily Beast, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, the Grio, BlackVoices, West Orange Patch, About.com, the Source, Vibe, Vibe Vixen, Jane, and Upscale Magazines. She has interviewed top celebrities, icons, and politicians, such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, Civil Rights activist and diplomat Andrew Young, comedian Bill Cosby, Grammy Award-winning singer Jill Scott, actress and singer Queen Latifah, Olympic Gold winner Cullen Jones, international supermodel Alek Wek, and five-division world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather. Most recently, she served as the First Lady’s press reporter during President Barack Obama’s U.S.-Africa Summit, Young African Leaders Institute event, and the 2013 presidential trip to Senegal, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Tanzania. Abena is also a 2015 International Women's Media Foundation Africa Great Lakes Fellow, where she reported on women candidates and Chinese sweatshops in Tanzania for CNN and Refinery29.