Museveni retains presidency

President Yoweri Museveni was on Wednesday declared winner of Monday's presidential election. Museveni was elected on 69.3 percent of the valid vote, compared to 27.8 percent for his main rival, Colonel Kizza Besigye, and a tiny percentage for the four other candidates combined, Radio Uganda reported. Electoral Commission chairman Aziz Kasujja, announcing the final results at the International Conference Centre in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, said Museveni polled 5,123,360 votes from a total of 7,389,701 valid votes. Besigye polled 2,250,795; Aggrey Awori 103,915; Mayanja Kibirige Muhamad 73,290; Francis Bwengye 22,751; and Karuhanga Chapa 10,080, the commission chairman added. The chairman of Museveni's electoral task force, Moses Kigongo, said the reelected president's first task after a tough campaign was to promote reconciliation. Besigye said on Wednesday he rejected the outcome and called for fresh elections. He hinted at a legal challenge, citing "massive rigging and irregularities" in what he termed a "grossly fraudulent" process, the semi-official 'New Vision' newspaper reported. "There is overwhelming evidence and our lawyers are working on the process," the paper quoted his head of publicity, Betty Kamya, as saying. Three senior officials of the Electoral Commission had been arrested on charges of corruption linked to the disappearance of voters' cards, the independent 'Monitor' newspaper reported on Tuesday. Meanwhile, African election monitors - from South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya and The Gambia - noted some problems with the voter register, identification of bona fide voters and favouritism on state-run media, but considered the election exercise "substantially free and fair", according to the 'New Vision'.