Bobbi Wine, Uganda’s opposition leader who lost last month’s election to incumbent Yoweri Museveni, announced he is seeking to overturn the election in court.
Wine, who pulled in 35 percent of the vote in the 14 January election to Museveni’s 58 percent, has been a vocal critic of what he called an intimidation campaign on election day and “cooked-up results.”
Wine, a musician, had been challenging Museveni, who has held office for 36 years. In the lead-up to the election, the country has seen its worst violence in years.
Dozens were killed in protests that were seen by outside observers as a youth movement that turned its back on the entrenched political class. The protests were sparked by one of Wine’s earlier arrests for holding a rally amid the coronavirus outbreak. Anyone who was caught wearing red – the color of Wine’s opposition party, called the “National Unity Platform” – was arrested.
Wine took to Twitter last Friday claiming that Museveni’s administration has abducted children “in the thousands” because their parents supported him. He said some of these children were tortured and murdered.
The country’s Supreme Court has already ruled three times that the irregularities in the country were not substantial enough to overturn the election, the Associated Press reported.
TREND FORECAST: We note this dispute for three essential reasons. First, the unrest in Uganda is one among many in the horn of Africa, as we have been reporting. As economic conditions continue to decline, unrest, civil wars, and regional wars will escalate and refugee problems will accelerate, thus increasing anti-immigration populist movements in neighboring nations and Europe.
Secondly, the supporters of Wine are primarily the youth, who, as we have forecast, will be the major force in creating new anti-establishment movements across the globe.
Finally, while the Ugandan election disputes are reported in the mainstream media without denouncement of the protests as alleged voter fraud – and championed as an important movement – when there were protests against allegations of a rigged presidential election in the United States, it was denounced as an outright lie by the American media.
Indeed, from the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 to the “hanging chad” Florida victory that brought George W. Bush into the White House, complaints of election fraud are riddled in American history.
There was an interesting interaction last month between Senator Rand Paul and ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. Presstitute Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton advisor, and de facto press secretary now masquerading as a fair journalist asked the Kentucky Republican to accept the fact that the election was not stolen.
Paul responded that the debate should continue and noted how these allegations of voter fraud never got their day in court. Stephanopoulos and Paul continued their back-and-forth. It culminated with the host saying there are no “two sides” to this story: you either believe the election was fair or you are wrong.
