The flag bearer of the National Resistance Movement, President Yoweri Museveni has won the 2011 presidential election with a convincing majority.

The Electoral Commission Chairman, Dr. Badru Kiggundu will shortly this Sunday announce the full official results, but preliminary results indicate Museveni is leading with more than 68%.

The Electoral Commission says President Museveni has 68.28 per cent of the total votes  with only 550 polling stations remaining out of a total of 23,968 across the country. Dr Kizza Besigye of the Inter Party Cooperation/ Forum for Democratic Change has 26.12 per cent of the total votes so far announced. Dr. Kiggundu says 81 districts have submitted full results while 31 have submitted partial results.

Museveni must now be writing his victory speech after a hectic campaign period although all Presidential candidates have said the elections were not free and fair and witnessed massive rigging.

But The Chairperson of the Commonwealth observer’s group Dame Billie Miller who addressed journalists at Serena Hotel on Sunday said the voting and counting at the polling station levels were conducted in a largely calm and orderly manner.

She said however, there were reports of localized disturbances, such as in Sironko near Mbale, but generally the election was conducted in a calm manner. Their teams reported that many polling stations opened late, several hours late in some instances.

Museveni campaigning

In what should be a plus to the EC, Miller said that the 2011 elections were better organized than those of 2006, although voting opened late at many polling stations, an d severe disturbances were reported in parts like Sironko district where  FDC’s Nadala Mafabi was battling with Minister for the Presidency, Beatrice Wabudeya. Mafabi has beaten the NRM candidate.

Some of the people who will be smiling at this result will no doubt be the Afrobarometer research company, whose two opinion polls gave Musevenin 65percent and 64 percent respectively. Despite criticisms from the opposition that the polls were biased, the research firm maintained their poll results were professional and the voting outcome has vindicated them beyond reasonable doubt.

Of course FDC’s Besigye doesn’t agree with this, as he believes the result Musevenin was to get was orchestrated long before, with a source in government telling him before polling day that Museveni would get 67.2%.