Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has signed a new law that abolishes the current 75-year age limit for presidential candidates.
Museveni, who is two years off the cut-off age at 73, is now eligible to run a sixth elected term in 2021, having served since 1986.
“He assented to the bill after the speaker wrote to him. It’s now law,” presidential secretary Don Wanyama said Tuesday.
Wanyama announced the new law’s signing Tuesday, but said it was ratified by Museveni last week, local media stated.
The law was passed by Uganda’s parliament on December 20, with the majority of lawmakers voting in favour.
According to local media, Museveni called supporting legislators “liberators of Uganda.”
“I salute the 317 MPs who defied intimidation, alignment, and blackmail and opted for a flexible Constitution to deal with destiny issues of Africa,” Museveni said in a statement.
Uganda’s parliament recently made the news after a brawl started during a discussion on removing presidential age limits.
Opposition politicians say the law is “unconstitutional,” and some lawmakers had threatened to resign if it was passed.
“It sets a bad precedent for the country, what Ugandans need is not a life presidency,” Livingstone Sewanyana, executive director of Kampala-based Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, said. “We are not surprised by his assent to the bill because it was largely his scheme.”
President Museveni defended the move, saying that the new law will help ease the “leadership crisis in Africa”, saying that “age limits prevented the population from choosing their leaders”.
