Besigye to challenge poll results in court

Ugandan opposition leader Kiiza Besigye on Tuesday said his party had decided to contest the re-election of President Yoweri Museveni because of "widespread irregularities and falsification of results". Besigye, the leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), said he had assembled a team of lawyers to petition the results in court within the next 10 days. "The main thrust of the petition is that our supporters were disenfranchised; the falsification of results, of which we have a lot of evidence; and bribery," he told a press conference at FDC headquarters in Kampala, the capital. "We have set up a political and diplomatic committee to intensify local and international campaigns for constitutional, legal and administrative reforms," Besigye said. "[These] are essential to an equitable democratic dispensation, peaceful coexistence and sustainable development," he added. The FDC decided to challenge the outcome of the 23 February ballot after evaluating tallies from polling stations and reviewing reported irregularities. Besigye, 50, mounted the strongest challenge yet to Museveni's 20-year rule, but won just 37 percent of the vote. Museveni, a 62-year-old former guerrilla leader, won 59 percent, according to final results released by the Ugandan electoral commission on Saturday. "Our tally put him at 51 percent, without the results from areas where we got a good result," Besigye said. Museveni's party, the National Resistance Movement Organisation, said the election was "free, fair and democratic".