MPs to elect new Speaker before next House sitting
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Loading... - Christine Adrisi
- 21 Mar 2022
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Article 82(4) provides that subject to Clause (4) of Article 81 of this Constitution, “no business shall be transacted in Parliament other than an election to the office of Speaker at any time that office is vacant”.
Clause 4 of Article 81 relates to incoming lawmakers taking oaths of office, and of Member of Parliament, in order to be eligible to vote, and be voted, as Speaker.
The Speaker’s office fell vacant after President Museveni yesterday confirmed that Oulanyah, a two-term deputy speaker, had passed on in Seattle, the capital of Washington state in the United States.
The Office of the Speaker is the executive head of the Legislature and the Speaker is the third top ranked in the national order of precedence.
Oulanyah, who represented Omoro County in the House, was a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party chaired by President Museveni.
With a commanding lead in the House, NRM is expected to retain the chair, which is crucial for influencing legislative outcomes and resource appropriation to achieve ruling party’s promises in the manifesto.
By dying before the 10 month in office, Oulanyah, a former Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) adherent-turned-NRM diehard, becomes the shortest-serving speaker of Uganda’s Parliament. The death also throws ajar the succession gate, with ruling party insiders saying jostling for the juicy position has been underway.
The supreme and subsidiary laws do not have an express provision about the office of Speaker being vacated by reason of death and constitutional lawyers, Mr Peter Walubiri, said the framers of the Constitution did not likely envisage a situation of a serving Speaker passing on.
“It must have been an oversight [because] there is a provision [about] what happens next in case a President dies while in office,” he said. Read More…
