COMMENT | How pleasant to discover that Pakatan Harapan intends to impose two-term limits on their heads of government.

How equally unpleasant to read immediately thereafter that Penang's Lim Guan Eng and Selangor's Azmin Ali will be exempt from this rule because: "The two-term limit begins with the 14th general election onwards so it doesn't impact Lim or Azmin."

This is most disappointing reasoning which withers under the most basic of scrutiny. The key question is this: what exactly is the point of a two-term limit?

If the reasoning is that two-term limits are good because the longest time any individual should be in power is for two terms, then what earthly sense could it possibly make to have this policy but not apply it retroactively?

This appears to be a terrible case of trying to have your cake and eat it too.

What is the logic here?

Would Harapan have us believe that a leader should not be in power for more than two terms unless that leader was elected under a slightly different coalition and before they decided that this was a good idea?

Without retroactive application, Harapan risks looking like they are going for the good guy image by talking the two-term limit talk but ultimately refusing to walk the walk.

Politicians and diapers

The logic of two-term limits is as simple as it is important. As the old joke goes, politicians should be changed as often as diapers and for as much the same reason.

Some say that term limits are bad because only one person and one person alone can achieve certain political goals.

Beyond the fact that this makes the said goals rather questionable, it does belie logic to think that one human being can achieve things that no other human being on the planet can.

More often than not, what people intend to achieve by not having term limits is a certain amount of political stability, namely, that of an entrenched establishment.

This generally involves a feudal system where the entrenched networks of patronage emanate from the top and trickle down to equally entrenched layers of feudal lords.

This is the equivalent of job security for everyone involved and what it does is to exclude everyone who isn’t in the circle or who refuse to pay homage to the appropriate feudal lords.

The other thing that the lack of term limits encourages is complacency.

When the head and all the attendant underlings get too comfortable where they are, there is less pressure to perform because a shake-up of the establishment is unlikely.

Thus leading to what all lack of meaningful competition invariably leads to - poorer quality.

What results is generally an excessive concentration of power and political stagnation.

Illogical to forgo retroactive application

In any case, it seems moot for us to write excessively about why two-term limits are good when Harapan seems to agree (there is some irony, of course, that Harapan is led by the man who served the longest ever as Malaysia’s prime minister and is now seeking to extend that record even more).

What is perplexing, however, is this failure to apply the policy retroactively.

All the points above apply to the cases of Lim and Azmin. There is nothing in Malaysia’s current political situation that is so unique as to suggest that two-term limits are good except in the cases of these two individuals.

There is really nothing to suggest that they are some sort of special cases in which the reasons why people should not remain in power too long somehow do not apply to them.

Simply put, if a head of government should be replaced after a maximum of two terms, then Lim should certainly be replaced as chief minister in the next elections, having been at his post for exactly two full terms.

It seems extremely arbitrary, self-serving and nonsensical to attempt to argue that yes, two-term limits are good, but for some people, we will only start the clock after they have already finished two terms.

This is merely putting political expediency above good principles.

Faith in next generation

The debate about term limits is certainly a relevant one.

President Xi Jinping in China is now looking to remove constitutional term limits that will allow him to stay in power indefinitely, and US President Donald Trump ‘delighted’ everyone by suggesting they should try the same approach in America.

My dad likes to quip that one is not successful until one has found a successor.

No one lives forever, and no human being is truly so incredibly unique that they are the only person on God’s green earth able to fulfil a certain role.

While all of us desire a certain amount of political stability, what is more, important is institutional stability and a healthy democracy.

Just as all of us should age gracefully as individuals, building better and better lives for our children who come after us, so should politicians see themselves as part of a larger continuum.

That being each taking their (short) turn at helping to make the world a better place and passing over the reins within a reasonable time.

Any leader who has done their job right should have more than enough faith in the next generation to build upon what is good and take us all to greater heights.

NATHANIEL TAN is most impressed by Malaysiakini’s innovative efforts in highlighting deaths in custody.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.