Ciudadanos proposes eight-year cap on president
Thursday, February 23, 2017 @ 11:59 AM
A LIMIT on the number of years a president can remain in office proposed by centre-right Ciudadanos would mean Spain's current leader Mariano Rajoy could not be re-elected.
Ciudadanos, led by Albert Rivera, wants to see an eight-year cap on how long any president can continue in the role, in a similar system to that seen in the USA.
Only a minor amendment would need to be made to the existing Law of Government, stating that a maximum of two terms of office, provided these totalled a minimum of eight years, would be permitted.
Oddly, this could effectively open the door to presidents choosing to call early elections in their second term, since their reign not having lasted eight years could allow them to run for a third.
Hypothetically, former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE, or socialists) could legitimately be elected again for another term if the amendment goes ahead, even though he has served two tenures: he became president in March 2004 and called elections in November 2011, choosing not to run again – but had he changed his mind later, he could have feasibly stood for president a third time.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com