THE AFRICA BAZAAR STAFF
January 13, 2021
POLITICS
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni promised to hand over power and leave office if he loss Thursday Presidential election to his opponent.
He made the remarks Tuesday while speaking with award winning journalist and CNN Anchor Christiane Amanpour during a broadcast virtual interview on Amanpour & Company on Public Broadcasting Service network in America.
Asked by Amanpour if he would accept the election results if he loss in a fair election, President Museveni replied he is willing to accept the election results, even if he does not win.
“If I lost a fair election, I will accept the results of course because Uganda is not my house, President Museveni said. “I will go to my house and do my own thing ff Ugandans don’t want me to help them with their with their issues, I will go and deal with my personal issues that are happening.”
The remarks comes as Ugandans head to the polls on Jan. 14 to cast their votes in the 2021 general elections to elect the country’s next president and parliament.
President Museveni, who is also the Commander in Chief of the Ugandan People’s Defense Force, has been in power since 1986, the longest serving president of the East African country. He is seeking reelection.
During the interview, the President also addressed United Nations’ allegations of human rights violations by the government security forces and military personnels who used excessive forces against the President’s political opponent Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, the crackdown on peaceful protesters, civil society leaders and human rights defenders and election violence.
Ssentamu, also known by his stage name Bobi Wine, is a pop-star turned politician who is running under the National Unity Platform party against the President. He is favored by Ugandan youth population as well as having the supports of many African civil leaders such as Prof. Wole Soyinka who are fed up with the leadership of Museveni and believe the country needs a change in leadership.
The President as expected denied any human rights violations against Ugandan peaceful protesters or his political opponents, and was quick to gleefully noted and compared the recent riots that took place at the U.S. Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 as similar event.
“Well, I’m not a lecturer to Americans, they know what they are doing, but insurrection is insurrection, whether it is in the U.S. or in Africa, you should regard any unconstitutional actions as illegal.”
“I hear you now in the U.S. talking about insurrection and you are saying insurrection is a bad idea. This was a form of insurrection and that’s why they were suppressed because they were attacking security forces. There were others who died through circumstances which we are still investigating,” said the President.
“We have cameras all over the place. If the security force are the ones who made the mistake, it is easy to see, to capture and identify. In any case, the nobody knows more about Uganda than, than ourselves I am here. I have a lot of experience, and I can tell you, who is in the role and who is in the right. So, the U.N should just [mind its own business], it has end enough trouble spots in the world to deal with,” said Museveni.
When asked if he thinks he is above the law and whether he would handover all evidence-that may or may not prove his security and military personnels violate human rights laws if there should be an investigation by the U.N., the President said “Of course, we have no problem with it at all because there is nothing to hide. Luckily, by the way you are dealing with people who know what they’re doing, we don’t need lectures from anybody really in the world because we know what we are doing.”
Asked what he thought about the insurrection on the cradle of American democracy and the storming by radicals and insurrectionists, and his message to the outgoing 45 U.S., President, Museveni replied, “well, I’m not a lecturer to Americans, they know what they are doing, but insurrection is insurrection, whether it is in the U.S., or in Africa, you should regard any unconstitutional actions as illegal.”
*CORRECTIONS: This article has been updated and two misspelled names in the early version Christiane Amanpour and Public Broadcasting Service were corrected.
