China approves ‘President for life’ change

DPA, 11th MARCH, 2018-The Chinese parliament on Sunday scrapped presidential term limits, paving the way for President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely over the world’s most populous country.
Out of 2,963 delegates at the annual session of the National People’s Congress, 2,958 voted yes to changing the constitution.

Three abstained and two voted against, the parliament announced.

The results were shown on a blue screen inside the cavernous Great Hall of the People. The delegates voted using paper ballots, which they filled out and dropped inside red ballot boxes.
“We all support it, and I think no one will oppose it because it’s an advanced law, and it’s correct,” said Chai Wenlong, a delegate from Heilongjiang province, minutes before voting began.

“We support everything as long as it will benefit the people,” added Pan Ping, a delegate from Guangxi province, who donned a blue traditional costume of the Zhuang minority, as is common for representatives of ethnic minorities. She “absolutely” hopes Xi can rule indefinitely, she said.

The constitutional amendment package, which was announced only two weeks ahead of Sunday’s voting, came as a surprise to Chinese intellectuals and observers. It marked a stark reversal in the direction of Beijing politics, which in the past 30 years has followed a “collective leadership model” in order to prevent the unilateral - and sometimes catastrophic - decision-making that occurred under communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong.

The Communist Party has rotated its leadership every decade since former leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982 abolished “lifelong leadership tenure.”

But after Xi, 64, became president in 2013, he quickly consolidated power and swept away his opponents in a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign.

Xi’s power play was also foreshadowed at the twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress last October, when the party appointed five new members of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, none of whom was young enough or had the credentials to become Xi’s successor.