Kampala: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was on Saturday officially declared the winner of the east African nation's first multi-party elections since 1980.
Museveni extended his 20-year hold on power by taking 59.28 percent of Thursday's vote in an overwhelming victory over his main rival, opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who won just 37.36 percent, the Electoral Commission said.
"The commission declares Yoweri Kugata Museveni the elected president of the Republic of Uganda," chairman Badru Kiggundu said.
Museveni had won 4,078,911 votes compared to Besigye's 2,570,603 in Thursday's election he said, as cheers from the president'supporters erupted around the capital.
Museveni's third straight election victory has delighted his supporters but raised disturbing questions about the future of country's nascent pluralistic democracy, analysts said.
His resounding defeat of the strongest-ever challenge to his 20 years in power underscores anomalies that many African nations face as they struggle to achieve political maturity after colonial rule or conflict, they said.
Thursday's elections were Uganda's first multi-party polls since 1980 following the repeal in a July referendum last year of a ban on parties that Museveni had himself imposed on coming to power in a 1986 coup.
But the results have aroused fears that Uganda's new-born pluralistic democracy may not allow for peaceful political change and could become cover for yet another African president for life, the analysts said.
Despite the fact that Museveni had actively campaigned to reverse the "no-party democracy," his National Resistance Movement (NRM) retained control over local, regional and national administration and the security forces.
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