JURIST - Paper Chase: Uganda opposition launching legal challenge to election results

[JURIST] The main opposition party in Uganda [JURIST news archive], Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) [party website], said Tuesday that it plans to contest the country's election results in court. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni [BBC profile] won last Tuesday's election with 59 percent of the votes amidst allegations of fraud [JURIST report] and intimidation of voters. Protestors in support of losing FDC presidential challenger Kizza Besigye [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], who held 37 percent of the votes, flooded the streets Saturday after the final election numbers were announced, but riot police broke up the crowd using tear gas.

Museveni is calling Besigye's camp "bad losers" and has warned FDC leaders against any future violence in protest of the election results. The Democracy Monitoring Group, however, has released a preliminary report concluding that the elections did not meet standards for free and fair elections [Daily Monitor report]. The group, which monitored polls around the country, said that there were "cases of massive vote rigging" in some polling stations. Reuters has more.

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