‘I defeated Museveni in the Uganda presidential election,’ Bobi Wine claims

Leader of Uganda’s opposition party the National Unity Platform (NUP) Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, has claimed that he defeated the country’s long-serving leader Yoweri Museveni at the ballot in the country’s presidential election in January last year.

Wine went on to allege that he was however not declared the country’s president by their electoral commission due to a flaw in the entire electioneering process presumably engineered by ‘the old man with a hat,’ as Museveni regularly refers to himself.

The musician-turned-politician, speaking during a Citizen TV interview on Thursday night, cited such instances as his arrest on the day of his nomination, and the subsequent detention of members of his campaign team, as some of the pointers towards disregard for the rule of law that led to a sham election.

He further listed an internet blackout as well as the alleged no-show of election observers from foreign nations and bodies such as the United States and the United Nations, as more reasons why the election was possibly tampered with.

“I beat General Museveni, everywhere in the country. Forget that fraudulent electoral commission. There was no legality whatsoever; every legal tool and law was disregarded. This is a presidential campaign where I was abducted on the day of my nomination, on December 2020, and my entire team was arrested,” he said.

“We went to that election with the internet completely switched off, the military everywhere, all our election observers were rounded up, US and UN election observers did not show up, you cannot call that an election. But even with that, we managed to beat General Museveni.”

The NUP party chief however chose to remain coy on whether or not he will run for the country’s presidency again, noting that that was not the entire drive for his entry into politics.

According to Wine, his major aim is just to emancipate Ugandan citizens, especially the youth, so that they can wake up to their potential and ensure that their votes count.

“We’re not looking at just me running for or being president. I came into the politics of my country, not only to become president but to awaken as many people as possible. We have so many Ugandans more talented and more knowledgeable than myself, so what we want now is to push away a dictatorship, so that at the end of the day, our vote counts,” he stated.

“What would be the purpose of running again for president when I run and beat General Museveni hands down, to the extent that this time they did not rig, they just disregarded the results.”

Wine, as well as fellow opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye, are in Kenya for the two-day Uganda human rights accountability conference which ends on Friday.

On why they were not able to hold the function in Uganda, Wine stated: “It’s not just difficult, it’s impossible because human rights are something that is unheard of (in Uganda). As an opposition leader, alongside Dr. Kizza Besigye, we can’t be allowed to have a gathering.”

“We are largely seen as illegal citizens. You don’t have to ask because they won’t allow you; many times they’ve tear-gassed and disrupted our gatherings. So we thought that for us to be able to communicate to Ugandans, and the people of the world, we decided to come to Kenya where we knew that at least there was a little bit of rule of law.”

He added: “Uganda is under military dictatorship. But we know that dictators don’t only fall because of internal forces. In 1979, Ugandans had to converge in Moshi, in what is known as the Moshi Conference, to go back home and remove the dictatorship of Idi Amin. And the same thing happened in the ‘80s when General Museveni and his people worked through Kenya. We look at Kenya as a safe haven for democrats, especially we that are non-violent.”