----- Original Message ----- 
From: George Okurapa 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 1:41 AM
Subject: Binaisa opposes third term


From The Monitor, October 17, 2003

Binaisa opposes 3rd term
By Emma Mutaizibwa
Oct 17, 2003


      KAMPALA - Former President Godfrey Binaisa says the term limit on the presidency should not be lifted.

      But another former leader, Mr Milton Obote, says he has no problem with the term limit being lifted - as long as free and fair elections are organised.

      The two former leaders differed on the matter while appearing on the popular Andrew Mwenda Live talk show on 93.3 Monitor FM on Wednesday night.

      The two had not spoken since 1979 and greeted each other warmly with Binaisa in the Monitor FM studio and Obote speaking by phone from Lusaka, Zambia, where he has lived in exile since 1985.

      But talk soon turned to politics - and the contentious term limit clause, which Cabinet wants lifted from the Constitution.

      "I don't think that we have room now in this day and age, in this third millennium to have a life president," Binaisa said.

      "I don't know why Museveni is interested in removing the term limits," he added.

      Binaisa said there is "no room for a life presidency" in a republic like Uganda.

      "How can they turn around all of a sudden that they think that they could lift the presidential terms yet they enacted the Constitution in 1995?" he said.

      But Obote, who ruled twice, between 1962-1971 and 1981-1985, had a different opinion about the term limits

      "If Museveni wants to remove the two terms, I agree I would also go for it. But why does he want to do it under a one-party state? Let us open a multi-party state," he said. 

      Short of free multi-party politics, Obote said: "Ugandans who are nationalists and in Parliament should block the lifting of the presidential term limit. They should not allow a terrorist dictator to be life president."
     



© 2003 The Monitor Publications

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