A few weeks ago, reports circulating in the media indicated that there were ongoing proposals to amend the constitution to enable the President to be voted for by the parliament.
However, reports in a local newspaper indicated that the President over the weekend clearly shunned the move saying that “he doesn't support it and won't support it because it narrows the legitimacy of the president,” hence the need for the general population to vote for the president.
In her comment to this, Olive Najjuma, The Fatboy Show host said that the President is intelligent enough to avoid being in such a risky situation.
“If parliament has the right to choose their President, it means they also have the right to throw him out and it puts him in a very precarious position.”
James Onen aka Fatboy, resonating with Olive, envisioned that the President would become a puppet of the parliament instead of it being the other way, which he ultimately prefers. “He would essentially have to give in to the demands of the parliamentarians or risk censure or removal,” Fatboy said.
Olive then gave an example of where the system works such as the UK with Prime Ministers being ousted and fixated at the will of the parliament.
“For decades in the UK, parliament has been removing leaders like Teresa May who served for a term; and then Gordon Brown who served for two and was deposed. Even in the past, after Churchill, the parliament removed Edward Heath and then replaced him with his predecessor Harold Wilson. So I don't see how the President would allow himself to be in such a position.”
Fatboy, in addition, said that the division in the NRM would make legislators use their power to take advantage of the President to get everything they want.
However, considering that the Attorney General Jackson Kafuuzi made public revelations that the Government already had a plan to lobby for funds to make nationwide consultations for the change of the voting arrangement of the President, the two Presenters wondered if this wasn't a trick being played by the highest office.
“There’s a theory of politics called the AB testing in which a politician might send hints of what he hopes to do. But it will be framed in such a way that if the public reaction is non-receptive, he rejects it and says that he was misunderstood, sticking to what aligns with popular opinion,” Olive commented.
She further contended that if the Attorney General wasn't merely over zealous, the President might have given the decision further thought and saw it as sketchy, causing him to rebuff it.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, Sarah and Lesham every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.
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