Term Limits - a thron as push for constitutional change sweeps across East Africa

By JOINT REPORT The East African

In Summary

Besides Tanzania, which is reviewing its Constitution, and Kenya, where the opposition Cord and a section of Governors are separately calling for a referendum, the focus is on the supreme law in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

To change or not to change the Constitution? That is the question in all the five East African Community member states. Besides Tanzania, which is reviewing its Constitution, and Kenya, where the opposition Cord and a section of Governors are separately calling for a referendum, the focus is on the supreme law in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

In Uganda, Western Youth MP Gerald Karuhanga and the Centre for Constitutional Governance lobby last year started drumming up support for restoration of presidential term limits, dropped from the Constitution a few years ago.

Mr Karuhanga handed Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga a motion to table a Private Member’s Bill to restore term limits but the Bill is yet to find space on parliament’s Order Paper. He says several MPs, including those who voted for the removal of term limits, support him.

It now remains to be seen how this will be played out since, in 2005, MPs were induced with cash payments to vote for the removal of term limits, for paving the way for a possible life presidency for Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. In Burundi, a push to change the Constitution to enable President Pierre Nkurunziza run for a third term when the elections are held next year remains ambiguous.

In March, the National Assembly rejected the revised constitution that the president had submitted for adoption. However, the statement from the president’s office said the presidential term issue was not part of the draft constitution and that the Arusha Agreement that gave President Nkurunziza two terms was intact.

In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame early last year encouraged his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) party members to start debate on “a transition formula,” a move that was interpreted by some as the beginning of possible constitutional amendments to enable him to seek a third term in office.

Reported by Fred Oluoch, Julius Barigaba, Emmanuel Rutayisire, Edmund Kagire, Christopher Kidanka and Havyarimana Moses