Chidem Kurdas at the Thinkmarkets notes that term limits on political authorities don’t serve as sufficient protection against the concentration of political power, and points to the recent events in Russia as example.
The point of term limits is to prevent the buildup of political power by one person or group. In Russia’s ersatz version, Vladimir Putin merrily plays revolving door with his protégé Dmitry Medvedev. Mr. Putin may win the election on March 4th despite the persistent protests sparked by his latest round of musical chairs with Mr. Medvedev.
That means Mr.Putin could potentially be Russia’s president again for two terms lasting through 2024, bringing his overall reign at the top as either prime minister or president to almost 25 years…
Mr Kurdas further argues that democracy and term limits may not be compatible.
It is sometimes argued that term limits are undemocratic—why not let the voters decide whether or not they want the candidate to stay in office for another term? This is the same type of argument as those used against Constitutional checks and balances.
The Russian situation shows how very dangerous is the notion of dispensing with limits and leaving it all up to elections. If anything, term limits need to be more stringent and unconditional so as to function as an effective barrier against politicians looking to consolidate their hold. Mr. Putin’s massive power, built over the years and now giving him almost complete control over the media as well as much of the economy, may yet enable him to overstay his welcome even as many Russians take to the streets to show their displeasure. To add a postscript to the wise old adage that power corrupts—the longer the reign, the greater the corruption.
The failure of democratic check and balance on political term limits has been a very relevant issue to the Philippine political setting.
Philippine politicians in almost all levels have become quite efficient in or adept at the gaming of the system.
In contrast to Russia’s experience, local politicians mechanistically circumvent term limits by having family relatives run for local or even national elective positions, thus resulting to pervasive political dynasties.
According to Wikipedia.org, the 14th Congress of the Philippines (from July 23, 2007 to June 4, 2010 had about 75%) more than 75% of the lawmakers are members of the old political families.
Philippine politicians have done this through a mélange of tactics in the form of manipulation of the political system through laws, buying voters with various forms of welfarism and through Pork Barrel politics.
There has also been a marketing dimension in the promotion political dynasties, political debates have been reduced to personal issues (what I call as personality based politics) which has been amplified by mainstream media, and lastly, selling elections via the celebrity cult status (where politicians try to get a lot of media mileage or associate themselves with media or sports celebrities).
The failure of democracy to curb political abuse through term limits represents the proverbial tip of the iceberg. That’s because the chink of the armor of mob rule politics is mainly rooted upon the popular reliance to the political means of allocation of resources
As the great Professor Ludwig von Mises wrote,
The capitalistic social order, therefore, is an economic democracy in the strictest sense of the word. In the last analysis, all decisions are dependent on the will of the people as consumers.
For as long as people remain highly reliant on politicians rather than themselves, the political environment will be highly vulnerable to the manipulations by the political class and their allies (directly or indirectly).
Democracy only works if the system benefits individual liberties.
As US Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes one said
While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.
