A mild protest broke out at Parliament which convened at Serena Conference Center for the reading of the 2016/17 National Budget, as Members majorly from the Opposition side interrupted President Yoweri Museveni’s Budget speech, demanding for the release of FDC former Presidential candidate Col Dr Kizza Besigye.
Besigye is on remand in Luzira on Treason Charges, after he declared himself winner of last February’s Presidential elections.
Unlike in the recent State of the Nation Address at the same venue, where only three MPs rose in pretest, this time dozens of them stood up and brandished placards demanding for Besigye’s immediate release.
“One placard went in Kiganda dialect, “Ggundi tta Dr. Besigye.” The protest broke out immediately after the President took to the podium to address the House.
This was in spite of an earlier declaration by the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga that the President’s speech would this time be heard in silence.
President Museveni, as the members chanted in chorus, “Release Besigye,” decised to seek help from the Speaker to reign in on the protesters.
He then told them, “I have no powers to release Besigye. It is the courts which release people. I therefore seek the Speaker’s Protection.”
Evoking Rule 10 of the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, Speaker Kadaga ordered the protesting MPs to sit down and be quite which they did moments later, letting the President proceed with his speech.
A few members however, kept waving their placards silently on their seats, while a few walked out including Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze.