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NRM MPs plot to lift age limit for Museveni to stay in power longer

Saturday February 14 2015
M7 NRM

A retreat of NRM party’s parliamentary caucus in Kyankwanzi allegedly planning changes to Constitution for President Yoweri Museveni to stay on. PHOTOS | FILE |

Uganda’s ongoing ruling party retreat is allegedly preparing to endorse sweeping changes to the Constitution, including lifting the presidential age limit, amid fears that this could plunge the country into political chaos.

About 300 lawmakers from the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parliamentary caucus began a two-week retreat on February 7 at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi District, central Uganda, to discuss amendments to the supreme law. The most controversial ones are the removal of the presidential age limit of 75 and extending, by two years, the five-year tenure of the government beyond its expiry date of 2016.

The proposals are not on the agenda but a source in the NRM told The EastAfrican that discussions “on these and other areas of the Constitution have taken place and the party may consider taking a position in favour of amendments.” Adoption of the amendments will delay the next general elections until 2018.

The political manoeuvres are reminiscent of the 2003 NRM conference at the same venue that removed presidential term limits, allowing the incumbent, then in the twilight of his second and last elected term, to run in 2006 and 2011.

Opposition politicians and political activists warned this week that plans to remove the presidential age limit or extend the term of the government would be resisted.

“Disaster befell Uganda when term limits were removed,” said former ethics minister Miria Matembe, who was sacked from Cabinet for opposing their removal. “But if they remove the age limit so that one man can rule forever, they won’t be able to come back and sit in our national parliament. We will block them from entering parliament.”

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Beti Kamya, leader of the opposition Uganda Federal Alliance party who also ran for president in 2011, told the Daily Monitor she would mobilise support for a referendum to kick NRM MPs out of parliament if they attempted to extend their stay in office.

“The referendum would throw them out, expose their selfishness and greed and also bar them from participating in any other election or holding any other public office,” Ms Kamya said. “For the first time, Ugandans are going to use their power to fight against dictatorship because we cannot have such people, who are selfish.”

And although NRM caucus spokeswoman Evelyn Anite dismissed talk of sinister plans at the retreat, critics remain distrustful of the ruling party, pointing out that, even at the March 2003 national executive committee (NEC) conference, removal of term limits was not on the agenda. The main item on the agenda then was the lifting of the ban on activities of political parties.

The ban had existed in substance since President Museveni and the NRM took power in January 1986, and in law from 1992. Internal agitation, coupled with pressure from Western powers to free up political space, forced a reluctant President Museveni to allow the return of multipart politics.

President Museveni appointed a committee, headed by former first deputy prime minister Eriya Kategaya, to study Uganda’s readiness for political pluralism.

Upon its tabling at the conference, the “Kategaya Report” was put to the vote after a five-minute discussion, culminating in the opposition parties’ favour as it allowed them to function again.

But unbeknown to most people, the NEC conference had a subplot: The then national political commissar of the Movement secretariat, Dr Crispus Kiyonga, had secured resolutions from district councils, whose chairpersons are part of NEC, to table an amendment seeking removal from the Constitution of the two-term limit for presidents.

“I was a member of NEC representing Western Uganda; the issue of term limits was not even on the agenda,” Ms Matembe recalled this week in an interview with The EastAfrican. “It wasn’t even part of the views that had been gathered by the Constitution Review Commission.

“But while we were at Kyankwanzi, out of nowhere, the president introduced the issue and defended it to give the impression that opening up term limits favoured everyone since political parties had been freed.”

Ms Matembe and two other long-serving ministers who roundly opposed the president’s ploy were subsequently sacked from the Cabinet.

David Pulkol, a former minister and external spy chief in President Museveni’s government, said Kyankwanzi and NRM caucus retreats held there have become the de facto law-making institution, usurping the constitutional mandate of parliament, particularly on controversial and partisan issues meant to keep President Museveni and the NRM in power.

The retreats have also bred other contentious decisions — including the expulsion in 2013 from the ruling party of vocal MPs Theodore Ssekikubo, Wilfred Niwagaba, Mohammad Nsereko and Barnabas Tinkasiimire for criticising President Museveni, the NRM chairman, and publicly speaking out against controversial party positions.

READ: Vocal NRM members a headache for Museveni

At this time last year, an NRM retreat at Kyankwanzi passed a controversial resolution to front President Museveni as the party’s sole candidate in next year’s polls, effectively putting paid to then secretary-general Amama Mbabazi’s reported presidential ambitions. Mr Mbabazi, who had earlier been sacked as prime minister, was subsequently forced to go on leave and then removed from the party position.

READ: How NRM legislators plotted Museveni’s 2016 bid

Those manoeuvres, according to Ms Matembe, marked the end of internal democracy in the party.

“I am beginning to think that there are demons in that place,” she said. “In this world, there are two powers: The godly and the evil.

“What happens to these MPs when they reach Kyankwanzi? Their decisions give our president the level of impunity to do what he does.”

Another proposal is to allow independent MPs to contest NRM primaries without resigning their seats as stipulated by the Constitution. At the official opening of the retreat on February 9, NRM secretary-general Justine Kasule Lumumba told the party chairman that the independents had been lobbying the NRM for support.

“We are waiting for the constitutional amendments… on issues to do with electoral laws, but we have our brothers, the independents, who already have proposals to do with constitutional amendments ready,” she said. “We invited the Independents to present their constitutional amendment proposals, lobby us for support, the way we have been lobbying them for support.”

It is on the basis of this that 35 of the 43 independent MPs in the ninth parliament are attending an NRM retreat, bringing into question their level of independence.

The retreat will also discuss unfulfilled presidential pledges, stalled electoral reforms, management of the presidential transition, Uganda’s international loan absorption capacity and creation of new districts.

In an interview with The EastAfrican on Friday, lawyer Dan Wandera Ogallo queried the viability of extending the term of government.

“Parliament can only be extended during a state of emergency, which makes it impossible for elections to be held,” said Mr Ogallo. “And even then, this can only be for six months.”

Removing the age limit, however, could be easier to implement, he added: “This is not entrenched in the Constitution. So, the NRM MPs caucus in Kyankwanzi can amend it and then proceed to parliament to have it rubber-stamped.”

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