Uganda's main opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Friday
condemned a police crackdown on opponents of a plan to scrap
presidential age limits to allow incumbent President Yoweri Museveni to
run again.
A proposal by ruling party lawmakers
National Resistance Movement (NRM) to table the constitutional amendment
has sparked outrage from opposition politicians, civil society groups
and students who protested at a Kampala university for a second day
Friday.
Mr Besigye, the leader of the opposition Forum
for Democratic Change (FDC) party, said Museveni's regime was a
"military junta" that had seized control of the state.
"What
we are seeing happening in the country today has been in the making
since Museveni took the oath as president in 1986 and began embarking on
a programme to construct a presidential monarchy," Besigye said.
A ruling party MP had been set to table the motion Thursday but it was delayed without explanation.
Presidential age limit
The amendment would scrap the presidential age limit, currently
set at 75, to pave the way for Museveni — 73-year-old — to run for a
sixth consecutive term in 2021.
Besigye said the age
limit was the last constitutional check on presidential power left after
term limits were removed by parliament in 2005.
"This age limit provision is the only way Museveni can be forced to give up power peacefully," he said.
On
Thursday, Besigye had been prevented from leaving his home while
another senior opposition figure, Kampala mayor Erias Lukwago, was
arrested.
Police said the mayor was planning an illegal
demonstration and that they had "pre-empted the planned activities" by
arresting him. Lukwago said Ugandans were living under a "reign of
terror".
Students at the country's main Makerere
University in the capital played cat-and-mouse with armed police firing
tear gas on Friday as they protested the arrest of some of their leaders
during the Thursday's demonstration.
After his release
student leader Ronald Ainebyoona claimed to have been "tortured" by
police. "They used gun butts to hit us to extract confessions", he said.
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