{"id":5957,"date":"2015-07-15T08:06:32","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T08:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=5957"},"modified":"2015-07-15T08:06:32","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T08:06:32","slug":"rwanda-mps-back-scrapping-presidential-term-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2015\/07\/15\/rwanda-mps-back-scrapping-presidential-term-limits\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda MPs back scrapping presidential term limits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Parliamentarians in Rwanda have voted to support a change to the constitution that would allow President Paul Kagame to stand for a third term in 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More than 3.7 million Rwandans signed a petition asking parliament to abandon two-term presidential limit &#8211; a change that will now be put to a referendum.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kagame has always said it is up to the Rwandan people to decide.<\/p>\n<p>Rights groups have accused the Rwandan authorities of silencing the opposition and stifling the media.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Pro-government Rwandan newspaper\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newtimes.co.rw\/section\/article\/2015-07-14\/190606\/\"><strong>The New Times says<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0hundreds of people turned up at parliament on Tuesday morning to watch the debate on presidential term limits.<\/p>\n<p>Those who want Mr Kagame to stay credit him with &#8220;leading the struggle to stop the 1994 genocide&#8221;, it says.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, a ruling party RPF message was circulated on social media in the capital, Kigali, urging people to take buses to parliament to support Mr Kagame.<\/p>\n<p>The small opposition Green Party has been the only dissenting voice calling for the constitution not to be altered to allow for a third term, and petitioning instead for a single presidential term to be changed from seven to four years.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, it went to the Supreme Court to try and stop the move to change the constitution, but the party was unable to get legal representation<\/p>\n<p>The party has been given until 29 July to find a lawyer to take on the case.<\/p>\n<p>In neighbouring Burundi, there have been violence clashes following a decision by President Pierre Nkurunziza to seek in a third term in elections next week.<\/p>\n<p>The RPF&#8217;s rebel movement took power in Rwanda after the genocide in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.<\/p>\n<p>President Kagame, who has won two elections, has been hailed by his supporters for driving rapid economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parliamentarians in Rwanda have voted to support a change to the constitution that would allow President Paul Kagame to stand for a third term in 2017. More than 3.7 million Rwandans signed a petition asking parliament to abandon two-term presidential limit &#8211; a change that will now be put to a referendum. Mr Kagame has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}