Court to rule on Museveni’s eligibility in Uganda’s polls

The East African Court of Justice will on Wednesday rule on a challenge to a decision by Uganda’s supreme court to uphold a constitutional amendment that removed the age limit for presidential candidates.

The 2017 amendment eliminated the requirement that candidates vying for the presidency be under 75 years old.

It allowed President Yoweri Museveni, who is over 75 years old, to run for another five-year term in the January 2021 general elections. He has been in power since 1986.

Lawyer Male Mabirizi went to the East African Court, based in neighbouring Tanzania, to challenge the supreme court’s verdict. He wants the clause on an age limit for presidential candidates reinstated.

He said in court papers that the constitutional amendment was done “through violence and deployment of military police in and outside parliament”, the Daily Monitor newspaper reports.