Uganda’s parliament announced plans earlier this week to summon the country’s defense minister and military chief to clarify recent statements attributed to them that seemed to threaten a military takeover of the government.
In addition to reputed warnings by Defense Minister Crispus Kiyonga and military chief Gen. Aronda Nyakairima that the military was monitoring legislators’ actions and might take control if they did not make sufficient progress, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni reportedly warned members of parliament that the military would not allow “confusion” in parliament to continue.
In an email interview, Adam Branch, a senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, told Trend Lines Museveni’s warning of a potential military takeover was an attempt to quell dissent from within the ruling National Resistance Movement party and intimidate the opposition, but that it seemed to have backfired, with military figures themselves speaking out against it.