PARIS, July 21, 2026 — The ancient Athenian agora, where citizens once debated the limits of power, might seem a world away from the Kremlin or the presidential palace in Minsk. Yet the same question echoes across centuries: how long should one person be allowed to rule? Against this backdrop, a growing body of research shows that term limits — those constitutional guardrails meant to prevent a “president for life” — are facing systematic erosion, particularly in Africa and the post-Soviet space.
Term limits are not a modern invention. In classical Athens, many public offices were capped at a single term; council members could serve twice, though the influential post of strategos had no limit at all.
The Roman Republic imposed a single term on censors and barred annual magistrates — tribunes, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls — from immediate re-election. The dictator could hold power for only six months, a restriction that successive commanders weakened until Julius Caesar made himself perpetual dictator, ending the Republic altogether. Medieval European republics, including Novgorod, Pskov, Genoa, and Florence, also relied on term limits.
But the first modern constitutional example came from revolutionary France. The Constitution of 1795 established five-year terms for the Directory and banned consecutive service.
Napoleon swept that aside in 1799. After a brief revival in the Constitution of 1848, his nephew Napoleon III abolished the limits again.
Post-Soviet patterns
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many of its successor states adopted five-year presidential term limits, hoping to avoid the concentration of power that had defined the Communist era. Russia’s president is constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms. But a 2020 constitutional amendment reset incumbent Vladimir Putin’s term count, allowing him to serve two additional terms — a manoeuvre that critics argue empties the rule of meaning.
Belarus offers an even starker example. The presidency was originally limited to two terms, but that limit was abolished in 2004 under Alexander Lukashenko, who has remained in power ever since.
In the corridors of Minsk, the debate over term limits is effectively closed.
An increasingly global challenge
A 2025 research project found that attempts to circumvent term limits have become markedly more frequent in African states since 2000. Before that year, such efforts were rare. According to a 2020 analysis, nearly one in four incumbents who face a term limit try to get around it — through constitutional amendments, judicial reinterpretation, installing a placeholder to govern in their stead, or simply cancelling or delaying elections. These strategies are often made possible by repression of political opponents, electoral manipulation, and foreign support.
What is at stake is not merely a procedural rule. Term limits in presidential and semi-presidential systems are designed to curb authoritarianism and limit executive power. When they fail, the wider
