Uganda tense as poll goes ahead

KAMPALA - Guerrilla leader, turned president, Mr Yoweri Museveni, said troops had been deployed nation wide in case of trouble…

KAMPALA - Guerrilla leader, turned president, Mr Yoweri Museveni, said troops had been deployed nation wide in case of trouble as thousands of Ugandans yesterday voted in the first presidential election in 16 years. The election has been haunted by Uganda's bloody past under now exiled rulers Idi Amin and Milton Obote in the 1970s and 1980s, with Mr Museveni and his ruling National Resistance Movement warning the East African nation would plunge back into chaos if he lost.

Mr Museveni, who fought his way into the presidency in 1986 after a five year bush war, is the frontrunner but faces a stiff challenge from veteran politician Paul Ssemogerere. At a polling station at Nakivubo primary school in Kampala, hundreds of Ssemogerere supporters grabbed three men they accused of attempting to rig the ballot for Mr Museveni had handed them over to police.