THE National Resistance Movement on Monday endorsed President Yoweri Museveni as its presidential candidate for the 2016 elections.
Almost certainly Museveni will now remain President of Uganda until 2021. The opposition remains divided and he enjoys the huge benefit of being the incumbent.
It is not a disaster if Museveni stands again. Uganda has been transformed since 1986.
The country has enjoyed average economic growth of six per cent annually, has much better security than Kenya, and is investing heavily in infrastructure.
However Museveni will have been in power for 30 years by 2016. He will be 72 years old. State institutions have been weakened because of his penchant for micromanagement. Corruption has got much worse in his present term of office,
The main reason for term limits is not so much to change the president as to ensure that a political clique does not entrench itself in the system to enrich itself.
Uganda needs to return to term limits for the president. It needs to change that clique at the top.
It is too late for Museveni to groom a successor for 2016. But he should groom an NRM candidate for 2021, and make a public commitment to restore presidential term limits.
Quote of the day: "We are not angels. Nor are we the devils you have made us out to be.
" - Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic went on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague on February 12, 2002.