The leader of opposition in Parliament, Betty Aol Ochan has expressed disappointment about the failure by Parliament to effect constitutional amendments that would reduce the president\u2019s powers.<\/p>\n
She notes that the government has been dragging its feet on putting in place a constitutional review commission which is why the opposition came up with a constitution amendment bill to effect a number of changes.<\/p>\n
The Bill which is a private members bill fronted by Ndorwa west MP Wilfred Niwagaba was gazetted last year in December as No. 33 \u201cThe Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bill which is cur\u00adrently on the order paper for the second reading having been scrutinized by the le\u00adgal and Par\u00adlia\u00admen\u00adtary Af\u00adfairs com\u00admit\u00adtee, had sought to re\u00adin\u00adstate the Pres\u00adi\u00adden\u00adtial term lim\u00adits, re\u00admove army rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion from Par\u00adlia\u00adment, re\u00adstrict the num\u00adber of min\u00adis\u00adters to 21, per\u00admit po\u00adlit\u00adi\u00adcal par\u00adties to chal\u00adlenge the Pres\u00adi\u00adden\u00adtial elec\u00adtions and change the name of the Uganda Po\u00adlice Force to Uganda Po\u00adlice Ser\u00advice.<\/p>\n
It also sought to\u00a0re\u00adpeal the of\u00adfice of the Res\u00adi\u00addent Dis\u00adtrict Com\u00admis\u00adsion\u00aders (RDC), re\u00adpeal the of\u00adfice of the Prime Min\u00adis\u00adter, in\u00advolve the Ju\u00addi\u00adcial Ser\u00advice Com\u00admis\u00adsion in the ap\u00adpoint\u00adment of mem\u00adbers of the Elec\u00adtoral Com\u00admis\u00adsion, and es\u00adtab\u00adlish a panel of Speak\u00aders among other key changes.<\/p>\n
However, a number of these proposals have been rejected by the committee in its report which is yet to be tabled on the floor.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Pearl Fm in an interview, Ochan however contends that the constitutional amendments are necessary to reduce the powers of the president who has become all powerful and is utilizing constitutional powers to exercise his wide-ranging mandate to consolidate his grip on power.<\/p>\n
She argues that the removal of term limits and the age limit restrictions were grave mistakes by parliament that need to be corrected.<\/p>\n
She has castigated the government for deliberately failing to put in place a constitutional review commission that would address some of the issues with regard to presidential powers.<\/p>\n
Ochan in addition asserts that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected efforts by the opposition to come together and deliberate on the possibility of a joint opposition presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
She also believes that the pandemic has been manipulated by the state to give more power and control to RDCs in order to popularize the person of the incumbent president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni as the country heads into the general elections next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The leader of opposition in Parliament, Betty Aol Ochan has expressed disappointment about the failure by Parliament to effect constitutional amendments that would reduce the president\u2019s powers. She notes that the government has been dragging its feet on putting in place a constitutional review commission which is why the opposition came up with a constitution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3635,"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions\/3635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spicemedia.ug\/spicefm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}