Museveni cleared for sixth term run
KAMPALA - The Constitutional Court in Uganda has cleared the way for President Yoweri Museveni to stand for a sixth term if he wants to.
It upheld a constitutional amendment, approved by parliament in December, to scrap the presidential age limit of 75. Museveni, who is 73, has led Uganda for more than 30 years, having been in power since 1986.
One of the judges said that citizens still had the power to vote him out. It is not yet clear whether President Museveni will seek re-election in 2021.
There was formerly a limit of two five-year presidential terms but this was removed by parliament in 2005.
The court ruling prompted a lawyer for a group of opposition leaders to warn that President Museveni, is heading for a "life presidency."
"The court has entrenched a life presidency - one man rule," said human rights lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuzi who represented the coalition seeking to have age limits reinstated. "I think our judges lacked the courage to tell the president he's been around long enough." A majority of the constitutional court judges, sitting in the remote city of Mbale, some 225km east of the capital Kampala, ruled in favour of lifting the age cap for presidential contenders. But the justices struck down lawmakers' efforts to extend their terms of office from five to seven years which would have pushed elections back to 2023, with one judge describing their bid as "selfish."
The judges also decided that an attempt to reintroduce presidential term limits - scrapped with the reintroduction of multiparty politics in 2005 when the constitution was last amended - breached parliamentary procedure. They ruled the bid invalid, paving the way for a Museveni to rule indefinitely.
Museveni, who seized power at the head of a rebel army in 1986, once said leaders who "overstayed" were the root of Africa's problems. However while running for a fifth term in 2016, he said it was not the right time for him to leave as he still had work to do.