{People in Senegal have voted to cut presidential mandates from seven to five years from 2019, according to the results of Sunday’s referendum.}<\/p>\n
The move comes at a time many African leaders are trying to cling on to power by extending their time in office.<\/p>\n
The electoral commission said 63% had approved the changes proposed by President Macky Sall. Turnout was 38%.<\/p>\n
The opposition have criticised Mr Sall for failing to cut his current tenure – the changes take effect in 2019.<\/p>\n
{{More on this and other African news stories}}<\/p>\n
The leaders of countries such as Burkina Faso, Burundi, and Congo sought to extend their rule last year.<\/p>\n
Such moves have triggered violent protests in Burundi and Congo.<\/p>\n
The new constitution proposes 14 other changes, including:<\/p>\n
Limits the age of presidential candidates to 75 and allows independents to run
\nReaffirms the limit to two presidential terms<\/p>\n
The opposition leader will have a status recognised by the constitution and will enjoy official benefits<\/p>\n
Local councils get more powers<\/p>\n
New rights for citizens – to a healthy environment and over natural resources and land ownership<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{People in Senegal have voted to cut presidential mandates from seven to five years from 2019, according to the results of Sunday’s referendum.} The move comes at a time many African leaders are trying to cling on to power by extending their time in office. The electoral commission said 63% had approved the changes proposed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","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":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","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":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24114","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=24114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24114"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24114"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}