When Yoweri Museveni took power in Uganda after a military rebellion in 1986, he said the problem of Africa was “leaders who want to overstay in power.” Four decades on, the 81-year-old is still president. He got there by removing term limits, and in January 2026 he won re-election.
A Freedom House special report published in July counts him among a growing group. In at least 36 countries, the current head of state has either changed the rules or benefited from changes that let him stay. Over 85 percent of presidents seeking to extend their time in office run countries Freedom House rates Not Free. The rest are in Partly Free countries.
The year 2025 alone saw presidents in Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, El Salvador and Guinea-Bissau clear the way to longer tenure, through revised term limits or removed barriers to re-election.
How the rules get rewritten
Constitutional amendments, controlled referendums and delayed elections are the common tools. Leaders often get help from pliant legislators and judges.
Tajikistan held a heavily manipulated referendum in 2016, and 95 percent of voters were recorded as approving the end of term limits. President Emomali Rahmon, 32 years in office and the second longest-serving leader in Eurasia, then won the tightly managed 2020 election.
In Cameroon, the National Assembly pushed through changes in 2008 so Paul Biya could run again in 2011, after his second term expired under the 1996 constitution. Biya, 93, is the world’s oldest head of state and has ruled for over 40 years. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele used a legislature packed with loyalists to lengthen presidential terms from five to six years and abolish term limits altogether.
Age caps fall the same way. In October 2025, Djibouti’s lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to scrap the age ceiling for presidential candidates, which lets Ismail Omar Guelleh, in office since 1999, seek a sixth term.
Delay, castling and a new constitution
Postponing a vote is one of the bluntest methods. A Supreme Court ruling let Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló push back elections set for November 2024 by a year, extending his mandate from February 2025 until September 2025. The military deposed him during the November 2025 election.
The report borrows a chess term, castling, for a leader who moves to another executive post when his term ends. Vladimir Putin became prime minister in 2008 to avoid breaking the two-consecutive-term limit, then returned to the presidency in 2012. In 2020, amendments he orchestrated capped presidents at two terms but said earlier and current terms would not count. That allowed him two more runs and potentially rule to 2036.
Togo took a different route. In 2024 its National Assembly replaced the presidential system with a parliamentary one. Faure Gnassingbé, who inherited power on his father’s death in 2005, became president of the Council of Ministers, a new post with sweeping authority that is unelected and has no term limit.
The cost
Freedom House argues that leaders who stay indefinitely find it easier to use state institutions to enrich themselves, prosecute enemies and silence dissent. Azerbaijan eliminated term limits in 2009, and the report says President Ilham Aliyev and his family have since deepened their involvement in corruption and money laundering.
Protests can follow. After Museveni’s January 2026 re-election, youth-led demonstrators in Uganda met violence from state security officials. In Burundi in 2015, security forces opened fire on protesters after Pierre Nkurunziza ran for an unconstitutional third term, killing dozens.
