State Minister for Planning in the Ministry of Finance, David Bahati has said that Independent legislators in parliament disturbed the ruling party, NRM during the age limit amendment in 2017.
The age limit amendment act sought to repeal article 102(b) of the constitution that would allow President Yoweri Museveni to contest for president of Uganda, even after clocking 75 years of age.
The article was later repealed with success, though it attracted a lot of opposition in parliament and in the country at large.
While speaking in Kabale town, minister Bahati said independent leaning legislators shunned to support the bill, which made their work very terrible by then.
“We spent more than two months lobbying and convincing members of parliament to accept the bill, but independent legislators became terrible with us. They disturbed us a lot, ” Bahati said.
He added that the independent legislators who claim to be NRM leaning are not clear enough and they should in that regard come to NRM officially.
Bahati said if the independent MPs who claim to be leaning on NRM party succeeded in opposing the age limit bill, then Museveni wouldn’t appear on ballot come 2021.
“Imagine if they succeeded? Where would our party be…that’s why I’m saying the thing of independent candidates disturbs us and should be made clear, ” Bahati said.
He hailed the idea of reconciling NRM members who had chosen to contest as independents after party primaries, saying it’s one of the moves to strengthen the part as well as reducing the number of independent legislators.
The NRM party is conducting a reconciliation campaign, targeting NRM members who decided to run as independents because of the dissatisfaction from the primaries.
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