Uganda suspends MPs against lifting of age limit

By Halima Athumani

KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) - The Ugandan parliament on Wednesday suspended 25 lawmakers amid an ongoing brawl over a controversial move by the ruling party to lift the presidential age limit.

Members of President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) party had voted on Sept. 12 to introduce a law to remove the age limit from the constitution.

On Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga named the legislators who she said, "have been suspended for the next three sittings and must exit the chambers".

She then suspended the house for 30 minutes for the sergeant-at-arms to get them out. A shouting match erupted with opposition MPs pulling out microphone stands in the house and others standing on top of the tables, and using chairs to hit at security personnel.

According to legislators, soldiers dressed up in civilian clothes were deployed in the house.

Mathias Mpuuga, an opposition legislator who was thrown out of parliament told Anadolu Agency via a text message that they "have been bundled up in several police vans and being driven at breakneck speed".

"We do not know where we are being taken," he added.

As the scuffle entered its second day, the ruling party finally included on the agenda a motion to lift the presidential age limit.

If passed, the bill and consequent amendment in the constitution, will see President Yoweri Museveni allowed to run for reelection in 2021 past the age of 75 years currently prohibited by the constitution.

In 2006, Museveni was able to win a third term in office after the two-term limit was abolished the previous year.