Thursday, April 15, 2010
The parliament voted generally on the constitutional reforms which remove presidential term limits, cut the presidential mandate to five years from six and also create a senate and close down capital punishment.
President Ismail Omar Guelleh’s second term ends in 2011; speculation has surrounded his tactics for a third mandate.
Mr Guelleh yesterday urges the Djiboutian peoples to allow for him to stand the third term.
The president told Djibouti National TV that this would be a demand from our people and promised them to see the outcome during next year elections, the earlier constitution read that the president can only be elected for two terms of six years each.
Guelleh is the second president of the Horn of Africa nation, after independence in 1977 from France. He was re-elected in April, 2005, for his second term.