{"id":208145,"date":"2010-01-21T10:37:08","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T15:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skyscrapercity.com\/showthread.php?t=1050611"},"modified":"2010-01-21T10:37:08","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T15:37:08","slug":"good-bye-presidential-elections-dos-santos-tightens-controle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/208145","title":{"rendered":"Good bye Presidential elections&#8230;  Dos Santos Tightens Controle ."},"content":{"rendered":"<div><font face=\"Arial Black\"><font size=\"5\"><font color=\"Black\">Angola abolishes presidential polls in new constitution  <br \/>\n <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin:20px; margin-top:5px; \">\n<div class=\"smallfont\" style=\"margin-bottom:2px\">Quote:<\/div>\n<table cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td class=\"alt2\">\n<hr \/>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<font face=\"Arial Black\">President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for three decades <br \/>\nAngola&#8217;s parliament has approved a new constitution which abolishes direct presidential elections.<\/font><\/p>\n<p>The head of state will now automatically be the leader of the party with the parliamentary majority. <br \/>\n<font face=\"Arial Black\"><font size=\"3\"><br \/>\nThe main opposition, UNITA, boycotted the vote, accusing the government of trying to destroy democracy. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p>President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for more than three decades and the next polls are not expected until 2012. <\/p>\n<p>The oil-rich nation is recovering from a long civil war which ended in 2002. <\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Arial Black\"><br \/>\n JOSE EDUARDO DOS SANTOS <br \/>\nIn power since 1979 &#8211; Africa&#8217;s second-longest serving leader<br \/>\nJoined the MPLA&#8217;s guerrilla army at the age of 19<br \/>\nTrained in oil engineering and radar technology in the former Soviet Union<br \/>\n<\/font><\/p>\n<p>\nThe change was approved by 186 out of the 220 members of parliament, and drew loud applause and chants of &quot;Angola, Angola!&quot; from MPs in chamber, AFP news agency reports. <\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s Louise Redvers in the capital, Luanda, says <font face=\"Arial Black\">under the new constitution, a president can only serve two five-year terms but he would start from scratch in 2012, meaning Mr dos Santos could remain in office until 2022. <\/font><\/p>\n<p>Our reporter says the vote on the new constitution had been expected in March. <br \/>\n<font face=\"Arial Black\"><br \/>\nAngola is currently hosting the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament and some say the government deliberately rushed through the vote in a bid to avoid wider public debate, she reports. <\/font><br \/>\n<font face=\"Arial Black\"><br \/>\nThe new constitution also abolishes the role of prime minister, allowing the president to chose his own deputy to take on that role.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p>The extension of the president&#8217;s powers has come in for criticism. <\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Arial Black\">&quot;The ruling MPLA says the constitution will increase democracy, but by abolishing the presidential ballot and concentrating all the power on the president it will do exactly the opposite,&quot; <\/font>political analyst Fernando Macedo told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angola abolishes presidential polls in new constitution Quote: President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for three decades Angola&#8217;s parliament has approved a new constitution which abolishes direct presidential elections. The head of state will now automatically be the leader of the party with the parliamentary majority. The main opposition, UNITA, boycotted the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}