Yoweri Museveni, the candidate for the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) was on Sunday declared winner of Uganda's Feb. 18 presidential election.
According to the official results released by the Electoral Commission, Museveni who has been in power for 25 years won the election by 68.38 percent while his closest rival Kizza Besigye garnered 26.01 percent of the 8.3 million votes cast.
The rest of the percentage was shared by Olara Otunnu, Norbert Mao, Abed Bwanika, Beti Kamya, Samuel Lubega and Bidandi Sali.
Museveni's win means that his over two decade stay in power will be extended for another five years making him one of the longest serving presidents on the African continent.
The 66 year old leader is a known military strategist who launched a five-year guerrilla rebellion in 1981 to topple the government then.
He launched the rebellion after what he called rigged elections by then president Milton Obote.
He has been involved in many military and political struggles in the East African country since the late 1960s.
With the help of the Tanzanian government, Museveni was among the Ugandans who toppled military strong man Idi Amin in 1979.
Some people see Museveni as a peacemaker following his involvement in creating regional stability. He has been involved in solving the north-south Sudan crisis, Burundi crisis and the Kenyan post election violence.
Internationally, Museveni has also been hailed for deploying peacekeeping troops in volatile Somalia.
Uganda contributes the biggest percentage of troops to the African Union peacekeeping troops in Somalia.
In response to local and international criticism at his long stay in power, Museveni argues that he should not be judged by the time he has spent in power but by what he has been able to do.
He said during the next five years, he will change Uganda into a middle income country. He anticipates using oil revenues to fund this ambitious project. Uganda has over 2 billion barrels of oil in the western part of the country. Commercial production is expected to start in two years.
Museveni also says that he will make up his mind in consultation with the NRM on whether to run in 2016 elections or not.
He says that his wish before leaving power is the achievement of the East African political federation.
He argues that if the political federation is achieved by the five East African countries, namely Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, he would go home and comfortably look after his cows.
"One of the real points for me politically is the East African federation. I can not leave this issue (federation) if I think there is a possibility of advancing it," he said.
"This is something (federation) I have been working for all my time in politics and is one of the reasons why I continue to be in power," he added.
The five countries are already discussing modalities of how the political federation can be achieved.
Museveni's critics see him as having failed to fight corruption which they claim has gripped his government.
Museveni says that fighting corruption is going to be one of his main emphasis during the next five years in power.
He argues that anticorruption laws have already been enacted to help fight the vice.