Why I Am Not A Fan of Term Limits

I wonder how many people know that European countries don’t have term limits for their top government leaders.

I was discussing this with someone today and he was nonplussed.

Unlike in the American and Nigerian systems of government where there is a term limit of 8 years for the President, European countries, only with the exception of France, have no such limits.

This is the reason Angela Merkel, who started ruling in 2005, is synonymous with the Chancellorship of Germany. It is difficult for many people to recall another Chancellor of Germany because she has been in office for 15 years using four terms. In fact, in theory, Merkel who has kept the name of her first husband whom she divorced in 1982 after 5 years of marriage, could rule for as long as she lives.

But the excellent mathematics student would have 2021 as her last year in office because she chose not to stand for the elections taking place later this year.

Such is the case with other European countries. The leader can decide to keep going for elections for as long as he wants, but he will only be elected if the people want it. Check out the leading Asian countries too, they don’t have term limits. Leaders are evicted when the people consider them unfit for office.

But do long terms in office diminish democracy? Experience does not support it. Italy, for example, has had more than 20 prime ministers in the 70 years since the end of World War II. Great Britain has had 15. For Germany to have a chancellor — Helmut Kohl, and now Angela Merkel — who serves for as long as 16 years is an exceptional case in Europe.

South Korea now has a 5-year term limit, but to get to that luxury, Park Chung-hee led the country for 16 years laying the foundation for unprecedented prosperity, still considered a miracle today. And it’s the reason I called the hypocrisy of the West when it ganged up to condemn China for changing its Presidency to Unlimited 5-year terms, something already in force in many parts of Europe, Asia and the Americas. Btw, Canada, US’s next door neighbour has no term limits.

The man I consider the greatest African leader, by far, Seretse Khama, spent 14 years building Botswana from a wasteland to a prosperous country. The World Bank says that from one of the world’s poorest countries at independence in 1966, he rapidly built Botswana to became one of the world’s development success. He left only because death took him at age 59. Building a country takes time.

Yet for unlimited term limits to be effective, countries need to have the right political system to serve the people. Get the right system and give it time.

Why did I have this discussion with this fellow? Because I was discussing Obasanjo’s third term ambition. I told him that I believe it would have been difficult to have this disaster of a president we have now if Obasanjo had led for at least one more term and implemented the Oputa panel recommendations, like he promised he would.

Whether you agree he should have stayed for as long as he wanted is up to you, but recognize this: There is no country in the world whose people have been lifted from poverty to wealth that did not have the orchestrator of that scheme stay for a long time. No country develops as new leading parties jostle to render irrelevant the good works of the previous eras.

It’s never happened. Never in a democracy, military, monarchy, or any other political system you can think of. Well, may be with the exception of the United States.