In Summary
Contention. Mr Benjamin Alipanga, argues that Mr Museveni, who is 71, will not be qualified to serve a full five-year presidential term from 2016 because he will be past the constitutional age limit of 75 years
The latent contest between President Museveni and former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has taken another twist, with the latter’s supporter petitioning court to bar Mr Museveni from contesting for President in 2016 on account of advanced age.
Mr Benjamin Alipanga, largely seen as a proxy of Mr Mbabazi, filed the petition in the Constitutional Court on Wednesday last week. Mr Alipanga argues that Museveni, “……. will not be qualified to serve a full five-year presidential term from 2016 because he will be past the constitutional age limit provided for in the Uganda Constitution”.
The Uganda Constitution bars any person above 75 years from becoming President. Mr Museveni is 71 years old. Should he be re-elected in 2016, he will turn 75 years in 2019, two years away from the end of his five –year term.
Article 102(b) of the Constitution states that a person is qualified for election as President if that person is not less than 35 years and not more than 75 years of age. However, the article is silent on when a President turns 75 years while still serving his current term. It is this lacuna that Mr Alipanga wants the Constitutional Court to interpret.
He is represented by Mugisha & Company Advocates, Akampurira & Partners Advocates & Legal Consultants, Muwema & Company Advocates & Solicitors, and Twinobusingye Severino & Company Advocates.
According to the petition, Mr Alipanga wants court to issue a permanent injunction stopping the Electoral Commission from accepting nomination of Mr Museveni as a presidential candidate in 2016 unless and until the petition on the controversy is disposed of.
The petitioner also wants court to stop Parliament from “amending or in any way tampering or trying to tamper with” the cited provisions of the Constitution which are now before the Constitutional Court for interpretation.
The more than 200-member NRM parliamentary caucus is already meeting at the National Political Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi where sources say lifting of the 75-year age limit from the Constitution is among a host of constitutional amendments the party is considering at the ongoing retreat.
Mr Alipanga has also asked the Constitutional Court to declare that President Museveni’s purported sole candidature arising from the February 2014 Kyankwanzi resolution is illegal, unconstitutional and undermines democracy in the party.
“The (Kyankwanzi) resolution is unconstitutional in as much as it goes against competition within the party, ring-fences the position of the party chairperson and party presidential candidate and is a bar to civil liberties and the fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms of access to positions of leadership at all levels as well as people’s choice of who should govern them and how they should be governed,” he states in his affidavit.
Referring to posters around Kampala and other parts of the country announcing President Museveni as the NRM’s sole candidate among other things, Mr Alipanga wants court to compel the EC to stop Mr Museveni from using State resources, “for his presidential campaigns as he is not eligible for President in 2016 on ground of physical and constitutional incapacity of age”.
Recently, The Observer newspaper wrote that Mr Museveni had so far spent more than Shs70b in trying to defuse Mr Mbabazi’s political threat. Although this could not be independently verified, the President gave NRM MPs un-quantified amount of money to popularise his “sole candidature project” ahead of 2016 polls.
The NRM Secretary General, Ms Justine Kasule Lumumba has, however, denied that the removal of age limit in the Constitution is on the agenda at Kyankwanzi.
Last month, Mr Alipanga petitioned the same court, seeking an injunction to block the appointment of the new leaders at the NRM secretariat until court disposed of his main petition. Court dismissed his application for the injunction but ordered that his main petition challenging the appointments be heard and disposed of expeditiously.
Mr Alipanga also wants the court to declare as unconstitutional the NRM Kyankwanzi resolution in February 2014 which endorsed Mr Museveni as the party’s sole candidate for 2016 presidential election.
He is also seeking annulment of the report authored by a committee chaired by Wakiso Woman MP Rose Mary Sseninde on NRM parliamentary elections. He says “the said NRM Parliamentary Caucus usurped the powers of the mainstream organs of the NRM as provided under the NRM constitution”.