President\'s Office Term
Unlike a king, a president does not serve indefinitely, let alone for life. Thus, one of the veins of constitutionalism is the limitation of the term of office of a president.
“Some say the president is elected for three office terms. In my opinion, it [the statement] has three [meanings]. First, they wants to slap me in the face; second, they want to please me, even though I already have one. And third, they want to put me in a trap.” President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo
Amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the public sphere is filled with discourses on the planned fifth amendment to the 1945 Constitution.
One particularly hot topic is the discourse on revising the presidential term in office to a maximum of three terms. One of the fundamental differences between a presidency in a republican system and a king in a monarchy is the limitation of their term of office. Unlike a king, a president does not serve indefinitely, let alone for life.
Thus, one of the veins of constitutionalism is the limitation of the term of office of a president. Commenting on the results of the constitutional amendment, Tim Lindsey, an expert on Indonesian issues and a professor at Melbourne Law School, said: "More than any other, this amendment was a clear statement of political transition from authoritarianism.”
He firmly said that limiting the presidential term to a maximum of two terms was the brightest message that ushered in Indonesia\'s transition from the darkness of the New Order authoritarian regime.
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In the history of the United States, the country that gave birth to the presidential system, the spirit of limiting the term of office initially prevailed because of the example of leadership. The first US president, George Washington (1789-1797), had a wide open opportunity for a third term. However, with a big heart, he rejected it and gave birth to a precedent for a maximum of two presidential terms.
Unfortunately, president Franklin D Roosevelt (1933-1945) broke that tradition by winning a fourth term in 1944 despite only serving less than three months and dying of illness. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms because, after that, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution limited the presidential terms to a maximum two terms.
Since the implementation of the 22nd Amendment, there have been several temptations. Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan argued that limiting the presidential terms to a maximum two terms was contradictory to the freedom of the people to elect the president they wanted.
The constant temptation to extend the presidential term and by referring to the four Roosevelt periods, which make him almost having no distance with “imperium”, gave birth to the term "The Imperial Presidency".
Five Types of Limitations
There are five types of presidential term limits. Three of them were written by Arend Lijphart and are: There is no second term (no reelection), there can be no immediate reelection and a maximum of two office terms (only one reelection). The concept of a one office term is applied in the Philippines, which limits the president to six years and cannot be reelected. Meanwhile, the model in which the president may not be selected in a consecutive term of office is applied in Peru, Nicaragua and Dominica.
More countries have implemented the two-term maximum, including Indonesia after the 1999-2002 constitutional reform, which stipulates two five-year terms, and the US after the 22nd Amendment with two four-year terms.
Aside from Lijphart\'s concept, there are two other limitation models, namely: No limitation and the rule that allows the president to be re-elected more than once (more than one reelection). We applied the no limitation policy during the Old Order and New Order eras, which created the president "for life", while the model for reelection more than once was a model that became the entry point for the birth of a president with a maximum three terms.
Third Term-ism Pandemic
If Covid-19 started in China, then the “third term pandemic”, or the “third term virus”, spread in Africa. Between 2000 and 2015, 15 African leaders amended their country\'s constitution — only four of which failed. They removed the presidential term limits and got the third presidential term virus.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni conscientiously “bought” the Parliament to amend the Constitution in 2005, which removed the term limits and allowed him to serve three terms. The cases in Burundi and Rwanda suggest the same modus operandi, namely that the incumbent president succeeded in manipulating parliamentary support and removing the presidential term limitation in the Constitution.
More recently, Guinean President Lansana Conte amended the country’s Constitution through a people\'s referendum in 2020. Initially refusing to talk about a third term, Conte manipulated his ambitions by saying it depended on the "will of the people".
On his way, using his power network in the courts, Conte jailed opposition leaders and demonstrators who opposed his bid to serve three terms. Ironically, after winning elections and occupying a third term in office, Conte was overthrown by a military coup.
Conte\'s modus operandi was previously adopted by President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi of Egypt, who in April 2019 revised the country’s term limits through a referendum, allowing him to serve until 2030. Similarly, but not quite the same, in July 2018, President Azali Assoumani from the Comoros dissolved the Constitutional Court and Parliament, then held a referendum that extended the term of office and finally won the presidential election in March 2019.
In Africa, the “outbreak” of third-term presidencies reduces investor confidence, increases domestic tensions, encourages corruption and militarism and often leads to violence or even civil war. The third-term virus is, therefore, the biggest setback for the democratic transition and the return of an authoritarian regime (Mtembu: 2017).
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In Burundi, after a Constitutional Court ruling that allowed President Nkurunziza to run for a third term (, 2016), some 150,000 people were forced to flee to neighboring countries due to riots on 26 April 2015. The economic life of this country is among the lowest in the human development index based on World Bank data.
Learning from the experiences in Africa, it is necessary to take serious preventive measures so that the third-term virus does not spread to Indonesia.
Learning from the dangers and experiences of dealing with Covid-19, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo certainly understands the need to keep his distance from the temptations that can put him in a trap, wash his heart often and wear a "mask" so as not to contract the third-term virus, which can easily spread.
Moreover, with the absolute majority power of his coalition of parties in the House of Representatives, it is not too difficult for President Jokowi to manipulate and “engineer” the support of People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) members and pass the constitutional amendments that remove the limitation on the presidential term of office.
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Denny Indrayana
However, reflecting on President Jokowi\'s statement as written at the beginning of this article, we believe that he is already immune and has received a vaccine that increases immunity from the temptation of the third-term virus. Hopefully.
Denny Indrayana, Professor of Constitutional Law, Senior Partner of Integrity Law Firm.
This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswoko.
