Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni appears set to extend his 30 years in office after preliminary election results showed him with a sizable lead.
Elections officials are scheduled to announce the results Saturday.
With more than half of the votes counted, unofficial results showed the incumbent with 62%, according to the election commission’s website.
His closest competitor, opposition leader Kizza Besigye, had 34%. The opposition party is contesting the results and releasing its own numbers showing Besigye in the lead.
Opposition leader under house arrest
As the nation awaits the official results, Besigye’s arrest and the deaths of two people at his opposition campaign office added to the tension Saturday.
Besigye was put under “preventative arrest” at his home in Kampala on Friday, along with six officials from his party, police said.
Authorities detained the officials because they planned to announce unauthorized results tallied by the opposition, police spokesman Patrick Onyango said.
Under law, only election officials may announce results, he said.
The offices of the opposition party, where two people died following violence, had been besieged by police and military forces, the Red Cross said.
Incumbent in power since 1986
Museveni, 71, has been in office since his rebel group seized power in 1986. In 2005, the constitution underwent changes to allow him to extend his term.
As he tries to maintain his grip on power, experts emphasized the difficulty of unseating incumbents in Africa.
“A re-election for Museveni would signal the persistent advantages incumbents have in controlling the political process, making it very difficult for opposition parties or candidates to compete with national structures, finance and support from partisan government institutions,” said Magnus Taylor, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Besigye, 59, is one of eight candidates running for President this year. He is also Museveni’s former doctor and served as a minister in his Cabinet.
This is not Besigye’s first attempt to unseat his former boss. He lost presidential bids in 2001, 2006 and 2011.