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Comment by virtuexru | Hacker News Reader

> If the 62-year-old Merkel wins, it'll be her fourth term in the post. And if she were to serve a full term, she would tie with Helmut Kohl as Germany's longest serving post-war chancellor (16 years).

Very interesting; is there no limit to consecutive terms in the German government? Wonder what the pros and cons are to this approach (I'm posting from the US where the limit is two consecutive terms).

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Generally, the rationale of term limits seems to be to prevent a dictatorial or monarchistic system from emerging.

However, consider the rise of the National Socialists in Germany: In 1930, they first got a result > 3% in a federal election. By the end of 1933 all other political parties were banned. No practical term limit could have prevented this dictatorship, even though they never got more than 44% of the vote in a federal election, i.e. never enough to really change the constitution by democratic means. So we definitely know that term limits are not a completely reliable measure.

> Generally, the rationale of term limits seems to be to prevent a dictatorial or monarchistic system from emerging.

In Brazil, we didn't had reelections in the executive branch. 20 years ago the president bribed the Congress to change the Constitution so he could be reelected.

It has been a disaster!

The person in power would use all the government machine for his/her reelection. The election of a second term becomes almost a plebiscite of yes/no if the person must continue.

The renovation of the elected politicians has come almost to a halt. The emergence of new politicians were stifled. A real mess.

In Canada we don't have limits to consecutive terms in office for the Prime Minister either, voters usually take care of that :)

I think the norm is not to have term limits, but I could be wrong.

To quote Lord Acton here: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men,..."

I guess this is one con argument for non-limited consecutive terms.

The pro being the moment you're elected to your final term you lose all accountability to voters. Only the other government people can get rid of you, typically with a much higher bar than what would be needed in an election.

There is not even a limit to non-consecutive terms in Germany.

On the other hand, while the chancellor is the most powerful position in Germany it's still less powerful than the president in the US.

For most of US history we didn't have term limits either, it was just a tradition after Washington didn't run for a third term. It wasn't until 1951 that it actually became law.

In Germany the president is limited to two 5 year terms. Neither the president nor the chancellor are not elected directly, but by a majority of the members of parliament. This majority can shift during one election period if coalitions change. This could also lead to a new chancellor without a new election.

The president is elected by the Bundesversammlung[1] which consists not only of members of the parliament but also of an equal amount of representatives of the states.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Convention_(Germany)

Minor nitpick: it's not just consecutive terms, the US president can only serve two terms ever (plus up to one half of an additional term if they came into office because the elected president was removed somehow).

One argument for a non-limited number of terms is to avoid the 'lame duck president' or a 'hyper-active president' - both acting like being unconstrained from the need to win the next election.

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