Sir Edward Mutesa II, KBE (November 19, 1924 - November 21, 1969), was the thirty-sixth kabaka (king) of Buganda from 1939 until his death, and the first President of Uganda from 1963 to 1966, when he was deposed and forced into exile by the Prime Minister, Milton Obote. Earlier, the two men had formed an alliance that swept them into power in the 1962 election. A year later, when Uganda became a republic, Mutesa was appointed non-executive President. After 1966, Obote, who appointed himself President, assumed more or less absolute power. Earlier, from 1953 until 1955, Mutesa had been exiled when the British tried to place his older half-brother on the throne. Mutesa was demanding an independent Buganda, which endangered British plans to grant Uganda's independence as a unitary state including Buganda. Now immensely popular, more than he had been before the exile, the British had no choice but to negotiate terms for his return.