Chinese President Xi Jinping takes his oath after he is unanimously elected as President during a session of China’s National People’s Congress.Credit:AP
At the gathering,nobody voted against Xi as he was confirmed for a precedent-busting third term. The congress also voted unanimously to install former anti-graft chief Zhao Leji as the body’s new leader and Han Zheng as vice president.
Minutes after the results were announced,Li then misread his constitutional oath. Instead of saying “safeguarding the authority of the constitution,” he substituted in the word “dignity”.
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Back in 2016,Li was among the first top Communist Party officials to publicly endorse Xi as the “core” near the end of his first term as president – a designation that would pave the way for his consolidation of power. As party chief of the coastal metropolis of Tianjin a year later,Li extolled Xi’s public statements,saying they showed “thoughts,theories,emotion,charm and the highest level of a politician”.
Li has also been at the forefront of preaching loyalty to the party. He once famously said that if someone was “not absolutely loyal” to the party,that meant he or she “is absolutely not loyal.”
Bloomberg