Abolition of term limits for leaders of an African nation

Faustin Archange Touadera can run for a third term in the Central African Republic and more if he so chooses thanks to the country’s new constitution.

The results of a referendum held in July in the Central African Republic were upheld by the country’s constitutional court, extending the president’s tenure from five to seven years and allowing him or her to run for office as frequently as they choose.

The court declared on Monday that the proposed constitutional revisions had received 95% of the vote, among other measures allowing President Faustin Archange Touadera to seek a third term in office in 2025. The vote-counting percentage was 57%.

According to the new constitution, which also increases the size of the supreme court from nine to eleven justices, dual citizenship holders are no longer eligible to run for president. The position of vice president, to be chosen by the president, is also introduced.

The Central African Republic, following Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, the Republic of Congo, and the Ivory Coast, is the most recent African nation to modify its constitution to let the president to run for office again.

Under the two-term limit of the previous constitution, Touadera, 66, was elected for the first time in 2016 for a five-year term and then re-elected in 2020 for what was to be his final term in office. Last year, the president suggested making revisions to the document because he felt that it did not adequately reflect the aspirations of the people.

He established a committee entrusted with creating a new charter, which the nation’s Constitutional Court later found unconstitutional and revoked. Later, Touadera fired Daniele Darlan, the court’s president, early this year, drawing condemnation from his detractors.

The court’s endorsement of the referendum’s outcome has been criticised by the political opposition, who claims that Touadera will receive a “life presidency” as a result of the constitutional amendments. The same issues have been raised in opposition to the modifications by civil society organisations.

Human Rights Watch had issued a warning in July that the referendum represented a threat to democracy in the nation, which has a population of just under six million and is a former French colony with a long history of political unrest and warfare.

The group claimed that while the government cracked down on opposition parties and civil society groups protesting the constitutional amendments, demonstrations by the president’s supporters were permitted.