Uganda goes to presidential polls

Millions of Ugandans lined up to vote today in the east African nation’s presidential ballot pitting the country’s long-serving president against his former ally and personal physician.

Opposition threats of street protests and the looming start of oil production have raised the stakes in the vote – just the second multi-party election to be held in Uganda in 30 years.

President Yoweri Museveni, who is vague about his age and says he is 66 or 67, faces a record seven challengers.

A US ally, Mr Museveni predicts a “big win” and most analysts agree he is likely to claim a fourth term. He faces his stiffest competition from a former ally and personal physician, 54-year-old Kizza Besigye.

Most polling stations in Uganda opened on time, said John Mary Odoy, the director of a local election observer group, the Democracy Monitoring Group.

About 14 million people are registered to vote for the presidential and parliamentary races.

Mr Odoy said, however, that delays have been experienced throughout the capital Kampala. He said materials were delivered late and there were reports of officials not having vehicles to transport the ballot boxes.

Paul Bukenya, a spokesman for the Electoral Commission of Uganda, downplayed the problems in Kampala.

Security has been heightened around Kampala and at the nation’s nearly 24,000 polling stations.

Beyond potential election violence, police and embassies warned of possible terrorist attacks. Last July twin suicide bombings in Kampala claimed by the Somali militant group al-Shabab killed at least 76 people.

Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba said last night the situation in the country had been generally calm with only isolated disturbances.

Mr Besigye has already called the election “fundamentally flawed”, pointing to the incumbent’s control of the electoral commission and the failure to give new voters identity cards as proof that the president will rig the vote.

Mr Besigye, the candidate for the Inter-Party Cooperation coalition, lost to Mr Museveni in 2001 and 2006, and failed to get the results overturned in court despite proof of widespread intimidation.

This time he plans to release his own tally of results and has ruled out launching a court challenge. Instead he has threatened street protests and insists that, 25 years after Mr Museveni seized power as the head of a rebel group, Uganda is ready for an Egypt-style popular revolt.