By John V Sserwaniko
President Museveni has this Monday chaired a cabinet meeting during which Attorney General William Byaruhanga justified additional restrictions on political demonstrations. Sources at the meeting say that, prompted by AG’s eloquent presentation calling for more restrictions, Museveni referred to “Christian Demonstrators” who annually carry out their way of the cross (Ekkubo lyo musalaba) on Good Friday which is a public holiday and nobody has ever interfered with it.
Having come under intense criticism including from the US government, the ruling NRM government has (through the IPOD forum) been promising to look into areas of POMA which have gaps police has been exploiting to act in ways that exceed what is permitted under the provisions of the same law. And now it’s clear that instead of relaxing on the very restrictive law, the ruling NRM government wants to introduce more stringent provisions legalizing/ratifying some of the police actions the opposition has been calling ultravires.
“I pity those colleagues in the opposition. They are eagerly waiting for Rukutana to relax POMA for them to continue undermining government yet in actual sense what is being done is how to give police more powers to block political gatherings. They have been saying police is to only be notified about a political activity and that POMA doesn’t give them power to allow or disallow a meeting. It’s now the opportunity to fill the gaps and make police powers less ambiguous,” an influential cabinet minister casually told Mulengera news in an exclusive interaction this Monday evening in Kampala.
In the same submission, clearly aimed at crippling Dr. Kizza Besigye and Bobi Wine, Byaruhanga even lectured Cabinet on why it’s criminal for Mr. Wine especially to use his international connections and world media channels to speak things that demonize his own country. He shared on many things clearly tipping his fellow cabinet ministers on how to defend police brutality against Bobi and Besigye supporters.
Besides restricting rallies on public holidays, the new cabinet proposals on POMA are to the effect that rallies must be restricted to the suburbs in case of Kampala and never in city center. Some ministers had guts to propose abolition of political rallies and processions even during campaign time and the resolution of the meeting was that all these suggestions should be studied further before they are finally taken to Parliament which Museveni wants to make POMA more restrictive.
Even in the upcountry areas, the campaign time political rallies should be several kms away from markets, busy streets and University campuses. Sources say that besides Museveni, the AG William Byarugaba proposals received almost unanimous support of an increasingly timid cabinet with reshuffle rumors being around the corner. It wasn’t readily clear why Ministers who were only a few years ago popularly elected as MPs would all of a sudden be very uncomfortable facing the same voters seeking a fresh mandate in 2021. (For comments, email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
