Uganda’s Leader Defends Plan to Remove Presidential Age Limit

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said removing an age limit for the top job, a move that would allow him to seek a sixth term.

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda during his meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May.

Photographer: HANNAH MCKAY/AFP
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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said removing an age limit for the top job, a move that would allow him to seek a sixth term, could help ease what he called a leadership crisis in Africa.

Maintaining the age limit of 75 would deny the East African nation the constitutional right to choose its leaders, Museveni told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, according to a statement on his website. The committee is studying a proposal to amend the charter, which would clear the way for the 73-year-old, who took power as a rebel leader in 1986 and won a disputed vote last year, to seek re-election in 2021.