Presidency Bill to take Uganda to the old days

Bipartisan opposition is growing to a constitutional amendment that would ensure President Yoweri Museveni clings to power even as his popularity dwindles.

Although Ethics Minister Dr James Nsaba Buturo has said that the Bill on the proposals is yet to come before the Cabinet, The EastAfrican has learnt that a draft is now before Cabinet that seeks to remove age limits on the presidency and excise the requirement for an absolute majority before one can be declared president of Uganda, replacing it with a simple majority.

Legislative sources further say that another fundamental effect of the amendment would be to remove the need for presidential candidates to directly contest elections, automatically handing the presidency to the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in parliament — the very system that was in operation before the 1995 constitution came into force.

Coming as President Museveni approaches 70 and with his popularity margin slipping from 75 per cent of the vote in 1996 to 59 per cent in the last polls — a figure the electoral commission later revised downwards to 58.3 per cent — observers suspect that the amendments are a plug designed to ensure Museveni stays in power in any event.

“We know that the Attorney Generals’ Chamber is handling the Bill right now, but many feel the president has gone too far this time around,” said a ruling party legislator, speaking on condition he not be named.

“Although the Bill will most likely pass, some of us will have to go on record as opposing it and the Hansard will bear us out,” he added.

Under the current law, leaders of political organisations are supposed to retire after attaining the age of 75 and are thereafter ineligible to stand as presidential candidates.

A growing minority of ruling-party legislators now say they will attempt to block the Bill once it comes to the floor of parliament by allying with opposition ranks. 

But they are still smarting from an about-face in 2005 that saw supposedly anti-third term National Resistance Movement MPs vote for lifting terms limits after receiving inducements from party agents.

“We shall continue to oppose these unconstitutional amendments, but we may end up having a farce like the one at Mosa Courts Apartments -the venue where ruling party legislators were each allegedly given Ush1 million ($2,550) to vote for lifting presidential term limits. There has been talk within the corridors of parliament, but we shall not be surprised if our colleagues from the ruling party subvert the interests of the public for selfish reasons,” said FDC legislator Abdul Katuntu, chairman of parliament’s Local Government Committee and also shadow Attorney General.

With only 78 opposition Members of Parliament in a house of 330, the opposition will have a tall order mustering enough defections to stop the ruling party in its tracks.

It is a measure of the sensitivity of the matter that no ruling party official was willing to go on record about the Bill although it is understood to be making steady progress. Deputy Attorney General Freddie Ruhindi expressed ignorance about its existence, saying it was this reporter’s imagination going into “overdrive.” 

However, a source close to the Attorney General’s chambers confirmed efforts to introduce a number of amendments to the constitution.

Since 1996, President Museveni’s winning margin in elections has been steadily declining — from 75 per cent in 1996 to 69 per cent in 2001, and finally 58.3 per cent in 2006. 

“They are fearing that should the next election go to a second round, it would be difficult to win because the opposition parties would just need to unite and edge him out in the second round. So, the Movement cannot afford to go into a second round,” said the chairman of the Interparty Co-operation, Muhammad Mayanja Kibirige, who is also the president of the Justice Forum Party.