{"id":21084,"date":"2015-11-07T03:10:36","date_gmt":"2015-11-07T03:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/congo-president-hails-new-constitution-ending-two\/"},"modified":"2015-11-07T03:10:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-07T03:10:18","slug":"congo-president-hails-new-constitution-ending-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/congo-president-hails-new-constitution-ending-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Congo president hails new constitution ending two-term limit"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Brazzaville (AFP) – Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso on Friday hailed the new constitution adopted in a controversial referendum last month, which changed the law to allow him try extend his long-running rule.}<\/p>\n

“The constitution which will henceforth govern our country is that of November 6, 2015,” Justice Minister Aime Emmanuel Yoka told state television.<\/p>\n

Congo’s constitutional court earlier Friday confirmed the resounding victory claimed by the government in the October 25 vote.<\/p>\n

The court said a whopping 94.3 percent of voters had backed changing the constitution to scrap a 70-year age limit on presidential candidates and lift a ban on presidents serving more than two terms.<\/p>\n

Sassou Nguesso is 71 and has already served two consecutive seven-year mandates. He is expected to seek reelection next year.<\/p>\n

The opposition dubbed the referendum “a constitutional coup”, with the FROCAD opposition coalition declaring “the vote was neither free, nor just, nor fair, nor transparent”.<\/p>\n

The country was rocked by protests in the run-up to the referendum. At least four people were killed in clashes between opposition demonstrators and security forces in the capital Brazzaville and economic hub of Pointe-Noire.<\/p>\n

Turnout in the referendum was officially given at 71.2 percent, despite evidence of low levels of participation in some areas.<\/p>\n

Former paratrooper colonel Sassou Nguesso took power in 1979 and has been in office ever since, barring a five-year hiatus in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\"Congolese<\/figure>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Brazzaville (AFP) – Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso on Friday hailed the new constitution adopted in a controversial referendum last month, which changed the law to allow him try extend his long-running rule.} “The constitution which will henceforth govern our country is that of November 6, 2015,” Justice Minister Aime Emmanuel Yoka told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070081,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21084.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21084.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21084.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21084.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21084.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21084.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21084"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21084"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}