They are Here to Stay… Re-election Reform Processes in Latin America 1999‒2011

Following the transition to democracy, and in a generalized fashion, the countries of Latin America imposed limits on presidential reelection in the majority of their constitutions. This tendency sought to put a stop to the ‘continuist’ behavior that characterized many governments during long, violent years of dictatorships. The actions taken to reform this clause, sometimes intended to limit and other times to later allow reelection, or vice versa, has been a common practice in Latin American constitutionalism, revealing the instability of this precept and its relationship to the interests of those leaders who sought to extend their term. Recently, the subject has again become relevant due to the new wave of reform in the early 21st century, marked by a concentrated trend in presidential leaders pushing changes to the rules in order to run for office again. This series of events, occurring in a relatively short period of time, merits a comparative study with the goal of exploring the political conditions that influenced the success or failure of political reform channeled through a variety of institutional branches. In order to study this phenomenon the following research question has been proposed: Why do presidents who attempt to change the status quo of presidential reelection —with the goal of making it more permissive—succeed or fail in achieving the reform? Between 1999 and 2011 thirteen of such processes will be analyzed, of which seven were successful and six failed. In this sense, the development of the present study will intend to fill an important theoretical gap in political sciences. At the same time, the problem at hand brings into question the discussion surrounding the characteristics and consequences of Latin American presidential systems and the democratic mechanisms followed by incumbents to reform the term limits and its regime implications.