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AFP
Uganda's main opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who has lost to President Yoweri Museveni in three elections, is to resign as the leader of his party, an official said Friday.

"It is confirmed that he will step down. It has been presented and accepted by the party's national committee," Alice Alaso, the secretary general of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change party, told AFP.

Alaso said that the exact date for Besigye to quit was yet to be fixed, but that it would be in "the not too distant future."

"We are working on transitional arrangements to help with the hand-over to a replacement," Alaso said, explaining that Besigye's resignation will not however bar him from running again for the presidency in the 2016 polls.

Besigye, Museveni's former physician, is seen as the only opposition politician who can muster a credible challenge to the president's 25-year-rule.

Besigye has been repeatedly arrested and arraigned in court since launching protests last year against the rising cost of living.