Adam Taylor
By Adam Taylor
The huge protests that rocked Burkina Faso last week had one key issue at their core. Protesters wanted Blaise Compaoré, their president since 1987, to cancel his plans to extend his term limits. He had already been president for 27 years; why did he need more time?
In the end, the protests succeeded and Compaoré stepped down.
It may seem strange for Western readers, who tend to live in countries with strict term limits (such as the United States) or entrenched party politics that make it difficult for any one politician to hold onto power (the United Kingdom). But around the world, there are many leaders who have clung to power for decades.
Power isn’t always defined by the position held, of course. Russia’s Vladimir Putin shifted from president to prime minister and back to president. Some leaders have small gaps in their terms in office. (For example, there were two days in 1999 when Sam Hinds technically didn’t lead Guyana, but we didn’t count them). African leaders, many with autocratic (or semi-autocratic) tendencies, are well represented, especially those from the oil-rich areas of central and southern Africa. Also high on the list is Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate political and religious authority in the country and ranks above the democratically elected presidents, who are indeed constrained by term limits.
Putin, himself nominally subject to term limits (though he got around them by briefly retaking the prime minister’s office), is one of a number of post-Soviet leaders. However, his relatively modest 15 years in power isn’t much compared to Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev or Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, both of whom have led their countries since Soviet times. Cambodia’s Hun Sen, who emerged as a political leader after his time as a fighter with the Khmer Rouge and subsequent defection to neighbouring Vietnam, has held high office since 1985, at one point briefly sharing power with Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
Writing in The Washington Post earlier this year, Thomas E Cronin, a professor of American institutions and leadership at Colorado College, looked abroad when arguing for the continued use of term limits in the United States.
“The principle of rotation is a check against the notion that any single leader is indispensable,” Cronin argued. “It was the assumption of indispensability that led Hugo Chávez to campaign for the end of term limits in Venezuela and Robert Mugabe to rig his tenure in office in Zimbabwe. It led other national liberation leaders such as Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Kim Il Sung and Muammar Gaddafi to become lifers.” WP-BLOOMBERG
By Adam Taylor
The huge protests that rocked Burkina Faso last week had one key issue at their core. Protesters wanted Blaise Compaoré, their president since 1987, to cancel his plans to extend his term limits. He had already been president for 27 years; why did he need more time?
In the end, the protests succeeded and Compaoré stepped down.
It may seem strange for Western readers, who tend to live in countries with strict term limits (such as the United States) or entrenched party politics that make it difficult for any one politician to hold onto power (the United Kingdom). But around the world, there are many leaders who have clung to power for decades.
Power isn’t always defined by the position held, of course. Russia’s Vladimir Putin shifted from president to prime minister and back to president. Some leaders have small gaps in their terms in office. (For example, there were two days in 1999 when Sam Hinds technically didn’t lead Guyana, but we didn’t count them). African leaders, many with autocratic (or semi-autocratic) tendencies, are well represented, especially those from the oil-rich areas of central and southern Africa. Also high on the list is Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate political and religious authority in the country and ranks above the democratically elected presidents, who are indeed constrained by term limits.
Putin, himself nominally subject to term limits (though he got around them by briefly retaking the prime minister’s office), is one of a number of post-Soviet leaders. However, his relatively modest 15 years in power isn’t much compared to Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev or Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, both of whom have led their countries since Soviet times. Cambodia’s Hun Sen, who emerged as a political leader after his time as a fighter with the Khmer Rouge and subsequent defection to neighbouring Vietnam, has held high office since 1985, at one point briefly sharing power with Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
Writing in The Washington Post earlier this year, Thomas E Cronin, a professor of American institutions and leadership at Colorado College, looked abroad when arguing for the continued use of term limits in the United States.
“The principle of rotation is a check against the notion that any single leader is indispensable,” Cronin argued. “It was the assumption of indispensability that led Hugo Chávez to campaign for the end of term limits in Venezuela and Robert Mugabe to rig his tenure in office in Zimbabwe. It led other national liberation leaders such as Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Kim Il Sung and Muammar Gaddafi to become lifers.” WP-BLOOMBERG
