{"id":29350,"date":"2016-10-12T02:45:25","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T02:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ivory-coast-parliament-approves-new-constitution\/"},"modified":"2016-10-12T02:45:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T02:45:20","slug":"ivory-coast-parliament-approves-new-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ivory-coast-parliament-approves-new-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivory Coast parliament approves new constitution draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Ivory Coast&#8217;s parliament has approved the draft of a new constitution that removes age limits and erases nationality rules for the presidency.}<\/p>\n<p>Backed by President Alassane Ouattara, the text scraps the requirement that both parents of presidential candidates must be native-born Ivorians.<\/p>\n<p>The clause barred Mr Ouattara himself for running for the post in the past.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents say the changes will help him to stay in power. The text will now go to a popular vote on 30 October.<\/p>\n<p>The question of national identity has long been a source of tension in Ivory Coast, and the nationality rule was resented by many in the north, where families have ties to neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n<p>A maximum age of 75 for candidates was also removed.<\/p>\n<p>Some civil society groups and opposition politicians have called the changes &#8220;undemocratic&#8221;, as they will allow Mr Ouattara, who is 74, to run in the next election, expected in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Other revisions included the creation of the post of vice-president and a senate, a third of whose members would be nominated by the president.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15663 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91771236_cc892dcb-4d2b-4099-81eb-aa232ae76dcb.jpg\" alt=\"Critics say changes will help Mr Ouattara to stay in the presidency\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Ivory Coast&#8217;s parliament has approved the draft of a new constitution that removes age limits and erases nationality rules for the presidency.} Backed by President Alassane Ouattara, the text scraps the requirement that both parents of presidential candidates must be native-born Ivorians. The clause barred Mr Ouattara himself for running for the post in the [&hellip;]<\/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-29350","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\/29350","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=29350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29350"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29350"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}