FILE PHOTO: Uganda’s President and ruling party National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate Yoweri Museveni speaks during a campaign rally in capital Kampala February 11, 2016 ahead of the February 18 presidential election. REUTERS/James Akena/File Photo
December 19, 2017
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s parliament abruptly adjourned a debate over the extension of presidential rule on Tuesday after a lawmaker said soldiers had entered the building.
“There were so many, I saw them. They were in the chaplaincy,” one legislator, Gaffa Mbwatekamwa, told a local television station.
The station showed chaotic images of lawmakers and police both trying to address the cameras.
The army did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Lawmakers were debating a draft bill that would remove a constitutional age cap that bars long-serving President Yoweri Museveni from standing again. The constitution limits the age of a presidential candidate to 75 years, making 73-year-old Museveni ineligible to stand at the next election in 2021.
Museveni has ruled the oil-rich east African nation for 31 years but public anger is mounting over corruption, rights violations and poor social services.
The opposition, church leaders, and even some members of the ruling party all oppose the amendment. Police have put down protests against it using teargas, beatings, detentions and live bullets. At least two people have been killed.
A previous attempt to debate the bill in September ended with lawmakers trading punches and throwing chairs and the forcible intervention of security forces. Several legislators were hospitalized for their injuries.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Alison Williams)
