Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term as China’s president was officially endorsed by the country’s political elite on Friday, solidifying his control and making him the longest-serving head of state of Communist China since its founding in 1949.
Xi was reappointed Friday as president for another five years by China’s rubber-stamp legislature in a ceremonial vote in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People — a highly choreographed exercise in political theater meant to demonstrate the legitimacy and unity of the ruling elite.
He received a unanimous 2,952 votes followed by a standing ovation.
The reappointment of Xi, China’s most powerful and authoritarian leader in decades, was largely seen as a formality, after the 69-year-old secured a norm-shattering third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party last fall.
In China, the presidency — or “state chairman” in Chinese — is a largely ceremonial title. Real power resides in the positions of head of the party and military, two key roles that Xi also holds and was reappointed to at a key Communist Party congress in October.
Nevertheless, his reappointment as head of state officially completes his transition into a second decade in power.
And it comes amid a broader reshuffle of leadership roles in the central government, or the State Council, and other state organizations that further increases Xi’s already firm grasp on the levers of power. CNN