Uganda's Museveni says opposition 'lucky', asserting that vote margin would have been wider

President Yoweri Museveni told the nation on Sunday that his landslide victory in Uganda's election showed the dominance of his party.

Museveni said a day after he was declared the winner that the result gave “a good taste of the strength” of his party, known as the National Resistance Movement.

“The opposition are lucky,” he said about his victory after low voter turnout in Thursday's election. “They have not seen our full strength.”

Voter turnout stood at 52%, the lowest since Uganda's return in 2006 to multiparty politics.

Bobi Wine has option of launching legal challenge

Addressing the nation from his country home in western Uganda, where many dignitaries gathered to hear the president speak publicly for the first time since his victory, Museveni said that he believed many of those who didn't vote were members of the governing party.

Museveni took more than 71.6% of the vote while his closest challenger and Uganda's opposition leader, Bobi Wine, took 24.7% of the vote.

Wine, 43, a musician-turned-politician whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has the option of launching a legal challenge with the courts, which previously have declined opposition attempts to nullify Museveni’s victories while recommending electoral reforms.

Museveni will serve a seventh term in office. His supporters credit him for the relative peace and stability that makes Uganda home to hundreds of thousands fleeing violence elsewhere in the region.

Internet shutdown

In his speech on Sunday, Museveni accused the opposition of trying to foment chaos during voting. He urged religious leaders to reach out to young people who are likely to be misled into violence.

Uganda's election was marred by a days-long internet shutdown and the failure of biometric voter identification machines that caused delays in the start of voting in areas including Kampala, the capital.

Wine has also alleged that ballot- stuffing happened in some areas seen as Museveni's strongholds, but the government refutes these allegations.