Jump to navigation

Uganda

Oppositionist Bobi Wine plans next move with party supporters after court orders military to end house arrest

Government keeps close watch on youthful opposition movement as discontents surge after elections marred by state violence

After a High Court ruling on Monday (25 January) ordering police and army officers to leave Bobi Wine's home, which they had surrounded since election day on 14 January, his National Unity Platform is mulling its response to what it says is President Yoweri Museveni's stolen victory at the polls. On 26 January, Wine told a press conference the army had pulled back from its occupation of his compound but was continuing to harass him and his family, sometimes buzzing his house with military helicopters.

Last week, the electoral commission declared Museveni the winner with 59% of the vote against Wine's 35% giving the veteran incumbent a sixth term.

Wine is seeking all legal means to challenge the result. The High Court ruling is the first, albeit small, step towards a wider legal challenge (AC Vol 62 No 2, Iron fist carries the day). If those legal means of challenge include the mobilisation of Wine's supporters in mass protests in support of his claims about the elections, the government's response is likely to be fierce.



Related Articles

Iron fist carries the day

Brutal suppression of the opposition and voter intimidation won President Yoweri Museveni another term of office

Although President Yoweri Museveni won the presidential election with 59% of the vote on a 57% turnout according to the electoral commission, over a dozen of the ruling...


USA joins fight against LRA

In yet another bid to destroy Kony’s militia, President Obama sends in the Special Forces to help local armies

The Lord’s Resistance Army, based in Central African Republic since it was pushed out of Garamba, Congo-Kinshasa, faces a new threat with the arrival of 100 United States...


Age cannot weary him

The President is mobilising his supporters to remove the age limit so he can stay in office

As memories of February's much-criticised election fade, attention turns to the next challenge facing President Yoweri Museveni: his age. Under the 2005 constitution, the upper age limit for...


Watering down the wine

The failure of oppositionists Bobi Wine and Kizza Besigye to agree an alliance boosts President Museveni's electoral chances

The country's opposition parties are divided over tactics and local rivalries ahead of national elections next year. The hopes that the political sensation Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine,...

READ FOR FREE

Other infernos

The government isn't winning and can't afford its wars in the west and north

The systematic killing and burning of more than 700 Ugandans by the leaders of a bogus Christian cult in mid-March generated some sympathy for President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni's...