China's ruling Communist Party has set the ball rolling for a rare third term for President Xi Jinping as he was “unanimously elected” as a delegate for the once-in-five-year party Congress to be held in the next few months which was widely expected to put a seal of approval for his continuation.
Xi, 68, was elected delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the party's Guangxi regional Congress by a unanimous vote on Friday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Xi was nominated by the CPC Central Committee as a candidate for delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress, scheduled to be held in the second half of 2022, the report said.
The CPC Congress of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was held on Thursday and Friday in the regional capital of Nanning.
The Congress, which is due to be held in November, has been preponed apparently as the leadership get-on with it early in view of complex and fluid national and international situation starting from relapse of COVID-19 virus in the country paralysing Shanghai and the deepening Russia-Ukraine war in which Beijing was caught in the middle with mounting US pressure to break off from close ally Moscow.
