Uganda's Besigye contests election defeat in court
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| | Uganda's Besigye contests election defeat in court 22 Mar 2006 11:42:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
| By Daniel Wallis KAMPALA, March 22 (Reuters) - Uganda's opposition leader asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn poll results that extended President Yoweri Museveni's 20 years in power last month, accusing Museveni of bribery and intimidation. Kizza Besigye, the defeated Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) candidate, appeared at the Supreme Court to mount his latest challenge to his former ally. Museveni's ruling Movement party has denounced the retired colonel as a poor loser and vowed a vigorous defence.
"The entire electoral process... was characterised by acts of intimidation, lack of freedom and transparency, unfairness and violence and commission of numerous electoral offences and illegal practices," Besigye said in his petition. It said officials and voters were bribed in the Feb. 23 poll and Museveni regularly used abusive and illegal language in the campaign, including saying Besigye was working with terrorists. That allegation led to terrorism charges which the state dropped earlier this month. Besigye was jailed in the early days of the campaign last year in what he called politically motivated prosecutions. Those cases and other concerns about democracy in Uganda caused several Western donors - who fund half of the east African country's budget - to cut aid. Besigye, who was Museveni's personal physician during a bush war that brought him to power in 1986, is also fighting a separate treaso
n trial.
He and 22 of his backers are charged in that case and due to enter pleas on April 4. COURTS, NOT GUNS In the poll challenge, seven judges will also consider responses from Museveni and the Electoral Commission (EC). A verdict is due by April 5. On Tuesday, the court heard procedural arguments before adjourning for the day. Besigye did not speak to reporters. The government argues the opposition is ignoring the verdict of international observers who largely endorsed the vote. Museveni -- who was only able to stand after parliament scrapped term limits last year -- says the polls he won with 59 percent to Besigye's 37 percent were Uganda's best ever. Its first multi-party election for 25 years was closely watched in the West as a test of African democracy and for the signal it would send to other long-serving rulers in the region. In a nation once torn by wars over disputed elections, an
alysts
are encouraged Besigye has twice now turned to the courts instead of to guns to try and overturn election defeats. He failed to reverse his 2001 loss to Museveni. Uganda's judiciary has demonstrated its independence this year by clashing with the state over Besigye's arrest and by protesting when armed police commandos were present inside the court at one of Besigye's hearings. If he wins this time, it would show how to avoid vote theft in future, Ugandan academic Fredrick Golooba-Mutebi said. If not, it would boost Museveni and clear up questions about the impartiality of every one of the country's electoral commissions, he said. "It will ensure that for once in its history the EC chairman would have survived an election with his dignity and integrity more or less intact," Golooba-Mutebi said. "That can only be good for everybody." | |
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