DJIBOUTI, (SomalilandPress) – Lawmakers in Djibouti on Wednesday approved an amendment to the constitution that paves the way for the president of the Horn of Africa nation to run for a third term.

Industrials

Djibouti’s parliament voted unanimously on the constitutional reforms which remove term limits, cut the presidential mandate to five years from six, create a senate and abolish capital punishment.

President Ismail Omar Guelleh’s second term expires in 2011 and speculation has surrounded his plans for a third mandate.

Djibouti, a former French colony which separates Eritrea from Somalia, hosts France’s largest military base in Africa and a major U.S. base. Its port is used by foreign navies patrolling busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia to fight piracy.

Dubai World has a deep-sea base at Djibouti port, which serves as the principle access point for goods entering and exiting land-locked Ethiopia. [ID:nLDE62L1LZ]

Last month, Guelleh told Reuters China would be Djibouti’s biggest investor next year and in 2012 and that he planned to make Djibouti port the biggest hub in the region at a cost of nearly half a billon U.S. dollars. [ID:nLDE62K0FE] (Reporting by Abdourahim Arteh, Editing by Richard Lough and Charles Dick)

source:Reuters

1 COMMENT

  1. African mentality, holding a grip on power just like a 'cancer' the never leaves one's body unless one cuts out, burns the cancer or dies.

  2. Djibouti's resources are very much limited, there is no way others will risk the amount he is talking about when countries such as Eritrea, Somaliland, Somalia and Kenya all have access to the sea and could create more ports than tiny Djibouti thats hot and dry.

    It's economy is limited and they cant really push the port any further than Ethiopia's own growth and demand but Ethiopia has so many other alternatives now such as Port of Sudan, berbera port, and even Mombasa.

    They need other ideas.

  3. Like the future for Rayaale and Somaliland. It's really a shame people do not know how to properly exert power and leadership. They want the best for themselves, not their country.

  4. It is these kind of reasons that the free world should recognize Somaliland. Here is a Country that has yet been recognized by any Country and yet the only true democracy in the Horn of Africa. What does this intel to reset of the world?
    What a hypocrite world.

  5. Obsiye. The world does not care about a an unrecognised third world entity. It cares and deals with power brokers and sad to say we Somalilanders are wishful thinkers who fail to take action when needed. We should invade Somalia, turn it into a Somaliland colony and force it and the world to recognise us.