Chinese leader Xi Jinping elected president for the third time

Chinese leader Xi Jinping was elected president for the third time with the unanimous vote of the delegates, as the only candidate at the Chinese National People’s Congress.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was re-elected to a third term. In the 1st General Assembly of the 14th term of the Chinese National People’s Congress (CNC) in the capital Beijing, Xi was elected as the head of state for the third time with the unanimous vote of the delegates, in the voting in which he was the only candidate.

At the congress, Han Cing was elected as the vice president and Cao Lici was elected as the speaker of the parliament.
Xi, Cao, and Han took the oath and began their duties.

Xi, who was elected president twice in 2013 and 2018 and served for 10 years, was re-elected for a 5-year term, becoming the first person in the history of the People’s Republic of China to hold the presidency for the third time.

COMMANDER OF THE ARMY

Xi was also re-elected as the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, maintaining his position as the commander-in-chief at the head of the army. The sign that Xi will continue his presidency in the third term was given with the 2018 amendment to the Chinese Constitution. With the amendment, the rule that limited the term of office of the head of state to two terms was abolished, thus paving the way for Xi’s third term.

FIRST NAME ELECTED FOR THE 3rd TIME AFTER MAO

Xi, 69, was elected party general secretary for the third time at the 20th National Congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2022, becoming the first leader to hold the party leadership for more than two terms since the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zidong. .

In China, where there is a single-party government and the party and state administration are intertwined, high-level state duties are seen as an extension of party power and are carried out by the same officials.
Xi will be the first leader to serve more than two terms in the presidency established by the 1982 Constitution in its current form.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the presidency was established for the first time in the 1954 Constitution under the name “PRC Presidency”. The country’s founding leader, Mao, handed it over after serving for 5 years in 1954-1959. However, due to the political strife and purges in the years of the Cultural Revolution, the post remained vacant or was maintained by proxy.

While the PRC Presidency was abolished with the Constitution adopted in 1975 after the Cultural Revolution, the authority of the party over the state was re-emphasized.

After Mao’s death in 1976, the “Presidency of State” was restructured with the 1982 Constitution, in pursuit of preventing the concentration of power in one hand. In this period, when Ding Xiaoping was accepted as the “high leader”, it was aimed to prevent the concentration of power by separating the party secretary general, the head of state, the prime minister and the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, which administers the army.

AUTHORITIES COMBINED IN A SINGLE HAND IN 1989

However, the internal political crisis created by the protests in Tienanmin Square in 1989 brought about a regrouping of party, state and army leadership. In this period, when the policy of reform and opening up was followed and the tendency of institutionalization in the administration came to the fore, imposing a two-term limit on the presidency was seen as a formula that would ensure a conflict-free transfer of power.

Before Xi, Jiang Zimin from 1993-2003, and Hu Cintao from 2003-2013, left the state and party positions after serving two terms as president.
The Chinese leader’s transfer of power to the third term, unlike the recent practices, is seen as a sign that Xi’s “one man” position has been consolidated in the new period.
Xi’s ideas, called “Socialism with Chinese Character in the New Era”, were included in the Party Statutes and the Constitution, and in the CCP’s decision on party history in 2021, Xi was defined as the “thought-founding leader” along with Mao and Ding. .
At last year’s CCP Congress, while names close to Xi were elected to the party’s senior management cadres, it was emphasized that with the amendment made in the Party Statutes, Xi was the “core leader” of the party and that his thoughts would guide the CCP government. (AA)