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China has approved the removal of term limits for its president, effectively allowing sitting President Xi Jinping to remain in office for life.
The constitutional changes were overwhelmingly passed by China’s annual sitting of the National People’s Congress on Sunday.
Out of 2,964 delegates, two voted against the change and three abstained.
China had imposed a two-term limit on its president since the 1990s.
Xi, who would have been due to step down in 2023, defied the tradition of presenting a potential successor during October’s Communist Party Congress.
Instead, he consolidated his political power as the party voted to enshrine his name and political ideology in the party’s constitution – elevating his status to the level of its founder, Chairman Mao.