Museveni joins Africa’s longest serving leaders
When President Museveni is sworn in on May 12, he will take the first step towards joining the club of longest serving African leaders who have led their countries for 40 years and are still in the bidding.
His re-election last Thursday will take Mr Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since January 1986, to 40 years in power by the next General Election in 2026.
The President, now aged 76, will be 81 by then. His party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) also won majority of seats in the next Parliament.
Mr Museveni has benefited from two constitutional amendments that came up at a time he was becoming ineligible to seek re-election by removing the constitutional limitations to his candidature.
The first amendment was in 2005 when Parliament voted to amend the Constitution to remove presidential term limits.
Without the amendment, Mr Museveni would have been ineligible to contest in 2006 elections having served the two terms from 1996.
In December 2017, Parliament again amended the Constitution, removing Article 102b to lift the presidential age limit.
The upper cap was 75 years while the lower cap was 35 years.
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