The late Kategaya and I don’t regret opposing Museveni’s removal of term limits, says Amanya Mushega

The former secretary general of the East African Community, Col (Rtd) Amanya Mushega has said that he and the late Eriya Kategaya don’t regret opposing the removal of term limits in 2005.

Mr Mushega made this revelation while speaking during the memorial lecture held in honour of the former deputy Prime Minister Kategaya at Mestil Hotel on Wednesday. He revealed that they opposed the motion because the genesis of their struggle was to see leaders who embrace and respect rule of law and constitutionalism.

“We wanted leaders to focus on building strategic issues and believe in the rule of law because rules must be followed at whatever cost, not just waived to serve your purpose! Even when we decided to oppose the Amendments to remove Presidential term limits, we were together with my brother Kategaya and were not embarrassed. We said it publically and advised our friend. I don’t regret it,” Amanya said.

It should be recalled that in 2005, the Parliament amended the Constitution to remove presidential term limits, allowing the incumbent (Gen Yoweri Kaguta Museveni) to run for re-election indefinitely.

After 12 years, in 2017, Gen Museveni through his party lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to repeal the presidential age limit requiring that presidential candidates be less than 75 years of age. This allowed President Gen Yoweri Museveni, age 76, to claim his sixth consecutive term in the recently concluded elections.

The repeal of the presidential age limit as well as the removal of the two-term limit was met with widespread opposition from civil rights groups, the general public, political opponents, religious leaders, and even some members of the ruling party, who saw it as unconstitutional.

According to recent surveys by Afro-barometer, 70 per cent of Ugandans say the constitution should limit their President to a maximum of two terms.

Since the amendment of the constitution to remove the presidential term limits, several voices have come out and regretted supporting such a move. In 2020, Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo also said in one of the publications that the removal of presidential term limits from the Constitution was a serious mistake.

“I don’t think this thing of age limit was a big issue, but I wept for this country for the removal of the presidential term limits. That is where we lost it. The mistake we made in the Constituent Assembly was not to entrench, not to make it difficult for anyone to amend the provisions of the term limits,” he said in 2020.

“That one, I take responsibility and anybody else who was in the Constituent Assembly; that we should have secured, entrenched that provision so that if you want to amend that particular article, you would go back to the people. We failed the people of Uganda as a consequence.”