As President Yoweri Museveni persistently expresses his displeasure with the 1995 constitution, his motives are being questioned, with some Ugandans suggesting that he is a few steps away from overthrowing the country’s supreme law.

In the recent past, Museveni has publicly faulted the constitution for being in his way to dispense his presidential duties. In mid February for example, while addressing parliament on the controversial signing of oil deals between government and Irish oil prospecting firm Tullow, Museveni said the constitution has made decision-making difficult and that it has increased political indiscipline.

This remark came in the middle of his explanation to the legislators as to why he had hastily moved to allow the signing of the oil deals, even though aware that parliament had frozen oil activities until substantive laws that would guide the sector are enacted.
Going by the doctrine of separation of powers, Museveni, who is chair of Cabinet, ideally should have respected parliament and comply with its resolutions, but he chose not to.

“Museveni is a dictator and has never believed in the constitution,” alleges Imam Kasozi, a don at the Islamic University in Uganda, adding, “he only uses it to hoodwink the people. He is like a cult leader. His history tells it all. He calls himself a revolutionary who does not refer to any document. What he is imagining is what prevails.”

But the president’s clash with the constitution and its custodians, the judiciary, is not new. In May 2011, he told a press conference that the current parliament would amend the constitution to remove the articles that provided for the right to bail to protestors, economic saboteurs, rapists and defilers as well as those charged with treason. Museveni then laid blame for the continued right to bail by such suspects on the judiciary’s doorstep.

His discomfort with the right to bail, as enshrined in the constitution, got louder at the height of the opposition’s Walk-to-Work protests against the rising cost of living. The protests dented the image of his 25-year rule and that of the police force, which shot and killed at least nine people.

In 2004, the Constitutional Court nullified the Referendum Act 2000, and the June 2000 referendum that had given the Movement System of governance another five years lease of life. The Court had ruled that parliament erred in the process of enacting the law — hurriedly debated and passed in one day, and the president assented to it the same day — thus everything done under that law was illegal.

In a televised address a day after the ruling, an angry Museveni disagreed with the judges and said “….For someone to say the people of Uganda had no right to choose their destiny, you are getting out of your depth. You are going too far to a no-go area. Those joking can play on other areas but not this one…If the people do not have the power, then who are you the judges? You’re even less qualified.” Fast forward eight years later, constitutional lawyer Peter Walubiri believes that Museveni is slipping towards a level of openly abolishing the constitution.

If that happened, history would be repeating itself. In 1966, then president Milton Obote suspended the 1962 constitution and abolished kingdoms after a misunderstanding with the Buganda Kingdom. He then ordered parliament to pass an interim constitution. Later, a draft constitution that met his designs was presented and elaborately debated in 1967. 

Unlike Museveni, however, Obote did not publicly express his dissatisfaction with the constitution.

Museveni’s change in attitude is a surprise to many who in 1989 gladly saw him extend his term of office ostensibly to complete the constitution making process.

“One day he told me the constitution was the biggest gift he could give to this country. The only problem he had with it was the issue of land…. When the articles of the constitution started working, I heard him say, ‘to hell with the constitution. What is a constitution but a mere paper?’  I was shocked,” says Miria Matembe, former Ethics and Integrity minister in Museveni’s government.

Famously, Ms Matembe, also once a member of the Constituent Assembly that made the 1995 constitution, fell out with Museveni when he initiated the move in 2003 to remove the presidential five-year two term limits to allow him run for a third term in 2006.

Although many people are beginning to pay more attention to the issue now, The EastAfrican has learnt that Museveni’s problems with the constitution started just a year after it came into force because it introduced what critics say is unpopular with revolutionaries — the principle of separation of powers.

The implementation of the 1995 constitution meant that some powers had to go to the legislature to play the law making and oversight roles while the judiciary dispensed justice, and the executive to serve the policy making function.

The constitution has become Museveni’s source of discomfort and he has faulted it publicly on several occasions whenever his plans contradict the supreme law. At the time of the constitution making, Museveni was chairman of the then law-making arm of government, the National Resistance Council. As such he presided over both the legislature and executive. He thus wielded greater authority and did not once envisage the constitution taking it away.

“Museveni wanted a constitution, but not being a lawyer, he did not understand what it means. When it started working, he found that it is something that divides powers which he did not want. He never knew that parliament would play an oversight role,” says Ms Matembe.

Although Uganda’s Constitution is young, it has already undergone amendments, the infamous one being the removal of presidential term limits, which academia say is a symptom of a shaky democracy. Can a parliament, controlled by the ruling party do anything to stop Museveni? It is unlikely, given that the ruling National Resistance Movement has often relied on its numerical strength to overturn any position against Museveni.

“He is drifting away from the constitution and if he is not brought back to check, he will be overthrowing himself, because he is in charge of guarding the constitution,” says Wilfred Nuwagaba, lawyer and MP from the ruling party.