The veteran leader was declared on Saturday the winner of Uganda’s presidential election, cementing his position among the world’s longest-serving leaders.

The results, which have been rejected by the opposition, followed one of the bloodiest campaigns in years, with at least 54 people killed in November as security forces violently broke down opposition protests. Opposition figures, meanwhile, were repeatedly harassed and arrested, while members of the media also came under attack.

Main opposition leader Bobi Wine has dismissed the electoral process as a rigged “sham”, but Museveni, in a televised address to the nation on Saturday, said Thursday’s polls may turn out to be Uganda’s “most cheating-free election” since independence from the United Kingdom in 1962.