The Gambian executive led by President Adama Barrow has agreed in principle to a two term limit of five years for future occupants of the presidency under a proposed new constitution.
A statement from State House seen by APA on Friday said the Constitutional Review Committee had met the executive arms of government on Thursday during which the proposal for presidential term limit was floated and tentatively agreed.
Since last year, the CRC has been mandated to sound out the opinion of Gambians in and out of the country about the details of a new constitution.
Under the current constitution, there is no limit to the number of terms a sitting president can serve.
Gambia’s immediate post-independence president and his successor had served several terms in office.
“There is general, broad range agreement to have a two-term limit of five years for the President” Cherno Jallow, the Chairperson of the Constitutional Review Commission told local journalists shortly after emerging from closed-door talks with members of the executive led by President Barrow.
“We discussed matters relating to the office of the President: what should be the qualification of the President, what can the President do or cannot do…for example, should the President engage in running of business, what sort of latitude should the President be allowed…,” Jallow said.
The CRC’s meeting with the executive is part of a wider national consultations which took its members around the country and the Gambian diaspora over the past six months.
The CRC is tasked with recording the opinions of Gambians anywhere they may be with a view to providing the details that will lead to a new constitution, the first since the 1996 blueprint which came two years after the dawn of a new dispensation led by Yahya Jammeh.
“We have to recognize that in as much as we want ensure that we have a transparent presidency, within that, we must factor a presidency that takes into account broad range issues of governance. This is not just about Gambia today but also about the future. So it is important that we factor everything into account without necessarily creating an imbalance in the good governance structure,” the CRC head pointed out.
WN/as/APA