 To basically lay the background, I'm sure we, you know, we all know it's very common knowledge now that democracy requires legitimate elections and fundamental element for elections to be seen as legitimate tools. I think a key component is what political scientists call losers consent. So the losers must accept their fate, essentially, and and losers can only accept the outcome of elections, if the elections are seen as credible. And what constitutional designers then have to do is find ways establish the institutional mechanisms to ensure that elections are actually seen as credible. And there are three key design options. Two are quite common. And one is rare. And that is what we're talking about today. The first one is that most countries, generally increasingly in the constitution, but also through other legislation, establish independent electoral management bodies. They can have different names, but their purpose essentially to take the management of elections out of the government to ensure credibility of elections. The second element is term limits term limits, their principal purpose to guarantee alternation of power, but they also ensure that the incumbent is withdrawn regularly from elections, and that then also enables the credit credibility of elections. The third one and what we find is it's practically rare. But but but actually, as fascinating is the practice of forcing incumbent presidents in the case of in some countries, and in Bangladesh incumbent governments, it's not the case anymore and and we'll hear more from the good But these essentially withdraw or they remove the incumbent president or government to ensure a level playing a level fill a level playing field and this has been. It actually originated can almost simultaneously in Bangladesh in Madagascar and Cape Verde. It was first constitutionalized in Madagascar and Cape Verde, and subsequently in Bangladesh, but it arose around the same time around what what is often considered at the third wave of democratization. But increasingly interestingly it didn't really catch the wave. It's only happened in these countries and hasn't been exported hasn't really migrated to other parts of the world. And you know, you know what, why that's the case and all and the potential this this represents naturally the main advantage essentially is to create, you know, a level of credibility of the elections. But at the same time it could also create a possibility of a political vacuum, the challenge of transitions of multiple multiple transitions. So what we want to know today and also what we want to discuss with the participants is, is why incumbents in particular, why would they accept a rule like this or why should they accept a rule like this, that's one. And secondly, what has the consequence of that been, particularly in the context of the, in the context of Madagascar and Bangladesh. In the context of Cape Verde, unfortunately, we don't have a speaker from from from Cape Verde are briefly not that and then and pass the the better known to other panelists. So Cape Verde is one of the countries that is considered as a democracy in Africa. It is, it is a small island of the cost of the Western cost of the continent. And interestingly, they've had this rule and there has not been any debate in terms of removing it or abolishing it. But at the same time, it has managed to to to credit in combination with other factors and accepted credible electoral process, but it has it has never witnessed a situation where the incumbent has actually lost. And if you look at Madagascar and Bangladesh incumbents have actually lost, and partly because of this this requirement. So I would end here, and and and invite first Professor Ramos say, essentially to tell us the origins of the rule in Bangladesh in Madagascar, how it's it's fared how it was removed and came back, and why that was the case. Some of the advantages and challenges that the rule has faced in in in Madagascar and perhaps also some of the lessons for for countries across the world. Thank you very much and welcome Professor Ramos say you have seven minutes. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the floor and thank you for idea to invite me to discuss about the cases of Madagascar. I will share my, my screen. So the my presentation will be in four parts I will talk about concern history of Madagascar does just to make a brief presentation of the context, then about the region of the resignation of the incumbent. And then in the third part, I'll talk about the what are the goal of the interim president and the caretaker governments and what are the implication for the Madagascar. So first of all, what we know about Madagascar constitutional history so there was. So for republics in Madagascar and also during this for republics are as being several constitution. So the first republics from 1960 to 1970. So there was the first constitution and then after that republic there was a second republic with another constitution. And then in 1991 and then in the third republic from 1993 to 2009 there was three constitution. So the constitution of 1992 1998 and 2008. So it will be with the first constitution of that republic that will be that rule for the incumbent, we have to resign before the election. And now we are in the fourth republic with the 2010 constitution with the same rule for the incumbent president. So now the second one, what was the origin of the that rule. So the, the original the rule was came from the ff cam so the ff cam is the Council of Christian Church Madagascar. So what we have to know is the church have played an important role during the end of the second republic with the transition. So they were the main drafter of this constitution. So why did they introduce that rule for the incumbent to resign, because the ff cam wanted to regulate the terms and condition of the president election. And they wanted to do it strictly because as we have seen in the past so there was the second republic. It was a republic can be characterized with an autocratic regime. So they wanted to the president to the incumbent to resign before the election. And that was also explained by there was no independent electoral commission. So it was something important to have a fair and credible election without, and also to try to avoid the state versus abuse from the, from the president, and also to avoid some electoral manipulation. So if that few years later, with the new constitution in 1998 and 2007, the position, the provision was with go from the, from the new constitution. And then it was reintroduced in the new constitution for the, of the fourth republic. So you can see the article 46 of the new constitution, and it was also the same with the constitution of 1992. So they have to resign before the date of the campaign or, or with the new constitution it was 60 days before the, the election. And for the first time for the election in the 2018. So the president of the republic have to resign. So it was around the 7th of November. So it was well seen by all the political actors in Madagascar. So then we see that when he had to resign, the president of the Senate asked to replace him as an interim president. So there had been a handover of that took place on September 12, 2018. So the president of the Senate became the new president. So, but there was no change in the, the, the governance. So we can see that there was this end over at the place of the, the president. And, but we have to also know that the former president, so it was the president, he was beat. He really don't want to, to resign, but there was some pressure of the, the, all the political actors and also you have to respect the constitution to, to be a candidate for the next, the next elation. And this provision is also in, in a, inside of the electoral law. So all the, the president, but also all person holding a political mandate. And we want to be candidates have to resign. It's also the same case as the members of the government. But what are the, the goals of the interim presidents. We can see that it's the same. You have the same powers as the incumbent presidents. So it's cases continue to no more concentration of proceeding. Do we initiate before the resignation of the president of the Republic, you can see that there's been no change in the government and we can say this business as usual. There was a decision of the I courts, we say that he has the same power without some, some little ones that he cannot change the government and he cannot solve the national assembly. Then, so after the election that has been in November in 2018, so they will be a new president was elected. And then it was the transfer of the power in January 2019. So between the two, the three presidents. So the interim president, the incumbent one and the new elected presidents. So there was this that handover between the incumbent with the interim presidents, and then between the new president, the elected one, and the former president. So what were the main implications so that was important for all the political actors, but also for the citizens to have confidence in the, in the process. It was important also for the credible election. And as we have seen that they have been a articulation of power in Madagascar and the result of the election was accepted by hold the main actors, despite some little consultation. Some actors did not accept the result but then they accepted and so they can see that there was this handover of power. And I think it was important for, for Madagascar for the country and for the credibility of the election, but also for the, for the democracy. We can see that it can be a kind of constellation of the of democracy of the democratization process. So also of the culture of democracy and, and the constitutionalism. So I think for now I've, I finished my presentation we can have some question in this description to, I can have some more information about the case of Madagascar. So I would like to thank you for your attention. Thank you very much Professor very very interesting and a few points one is that the fact that the Council of Churches was with the leading actor in the drafting of the Constitution itself is quite quite fascinating something to explore further. And obviously as drafters they had the leverage demanded to impose what they thought was relevant considering the country's history. Maybe when when during the Q&A you can tell us who supported it when it was reinstated in 2010 who was the main sponsors of the idea for it to be to come back. And were there any actors that resisted it maybe you can tell us later about that. Another really interesting aspect is that the electoral has actually extended the application of the rule to anyone, not just the incumbent president anyone who wants to run for the presidency or other offices are required to resign which is very much like in in Cape Verde as well. And in came in Cape Verde has been stable. And there is even a few cases that's that's also very very very interesting. Also good to know that the interim president actually has full powers the person has all the powers that the presidency offers, which obviously avoids problems of gaps in terms of in terms of the political process. Very interesting points. I would like to thank you again, and I'll call on Professor Red Vanuil to tell us another really interesting story as well, focus primarily on the origins and the consequences and where a country is today in terms of in terms of the applicability of the rule. Thank you, and welcome Professor. Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to begin once again by thanking international idea, especially Dr. Adam Abebe for inviting me. So it's a very little time allocated. I'll try, but I'm afraid I might overtake some more time probably I'll finish by 10 minutes, not more than that. Let me share my presentation slides here, but I'll be going very quickly. So a little bit about Bangladesh Bangladesh became an independent nation in 1971 March and the independence is based on a general election in the then Pakistani state, which was the first election ever in Pakistan. After its independence from the British in 1947. This is very ironic. Then the constitution of Bangladesh came into force on 16th of December 1972. And under the constitution, the first ever elections under the constitution were in March 1973. At that time, Bangladesh didn't have enough number of political oppositions or a major opposition party. It was the Bangladesh army league that spearheaded the independence and that was the major party for the 1973 elections. So, but by now Bangladesh is basically a bipartisan parliamentary parliamentary system. Then Bangladesh, Bangladesh avoided or Bangladesh abdicated parliamentary system in 1975 through a constitutional amendment. And it it translated to autocracy to one party presidentialism. This is very interesting because that was introduced by the very political party that led the country to independence. And as a consequence, the father of the nation was brutally assassinated in 1975. And since then, and down to 1990, there was no democracy in Bangladesh. Bangladesh translated to democracy in 1991 through a general election in February 1991. And this election, which the background paper just mentions was a kind of character government, the thing we are discussing today. But for the for the for the proper perspective of a character government, I would distinguish it from the character government that was constitutionalized in 1996. It was indeed a deal between political parties in 1991 1990. It was an autocratic military ruler who was in power. And the major two political parties Bangladesh our league and Bangladesh nationalist parties are against the military dictator. So they didn't want to have an election under the then ruler or military dictator. So there was a kind of deal and because of that deal, it was possible to hold an election under the leadership of the then Chief Justice of Bangladesh. So and that's that brings Bangladesh to democracy once again. And in that election 1991 February Bangladesh Nationalist Party won the election and they translated to parliament to democracy through a political consensus. However, now we got a context for the introduction of the caretaker government out briefly calling at CTG. During the first regime of BNP in 1994, there was a crisis over the holding of an election by election in 1994. So the party came to power in 1991 through a successful and free and fair election. And in 1994, BNP wanted to manipulate or corrupt the electoral system to gain an incumbency advantage and the opposition our many initiated a huge protest often often often combined with bloodshed and severe political demonstrations of severe form. And it was a 22 months long revolution or struggle for the introduction of a neutral or a political caretaker government. And at one point the next election was due in 1996. Then next election was due in 1996 and an election was held that was a one party election because the opposition boycotted because the caretaker government system was not institutionalized in the constitution. However, that election or the government that came from the election was a very short government. It was only for 15 days and the ruling BNP party ultimately gave into the demand of the political oppositions. And there were three major parties, our main league party that was in power in 1990 and a Jamaati Islamic party, which is a pre independence political party. And the BNP party introduced the nine introduced the 13 amendment to the constitution. And we all know that said this caretaker government system was in a political government system, but it had its own defects because the major political parties are out of the parliament when the 13th amendment was passed. So the BNP could do its manipulation over the formation of the government. One defect was the over empowerment of the president. Anyway, another defect was the choice of the retiree of justice in chronological order. The most recent was to be the first choice is another defect because it had a toll on independence of judiciary. However, under the caretaker government system that was introduced in 1996, there were several elections in 1996 in 2001 and in 2008. However, in the in between the election was due in 2006 and that election could not be held because that then BNP ruling party wanted to manipulate the caretaker government system that it introduced in 1996 by increasing the retiring age of the Supreme Court judges. So one particular Chief Justice was in mind and that Chief Justice was a brother in law of a killer of the father of the nation, father of the nation. And the father of the nation is the father of current prime minister, Ms. Sheik Harsina. So there's a kind of personal and emotional issue embedded into the politics. So because of that, our many said that no, we won't go for election even under the caretaker government if that is chaired by the recent retired Chief Justice. And ultimately, no elections are held. And as of that, as a matter of that, the military intervened and there was a political government for two years, 2007 and 2008. However, that was the caretaker government indeed, but it extended its constitutional tenure of three months until two years. Then the next election came in 2008 and the next election was, I mean, the next election was due in 2014. But in the meantime, I'd be very brief here, in 2010, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in a very short order of three sentence, less than 100 words, declared that the caretaker government was unconstitutional. It was a short order. Then it came in 2010, but immediately after that, when the full judgment was due, wasn't yet issued or handed down, the incumbent government, this time, this is Bangladesh, our main league. It is the Bangladesh our main league which demanded the introduction of caretaker government. And in the meantime, our main league introduced 15 amendments to the parliament. And it was tabled before parliament on the day of June 25, 2011, and it was passed the same day. However, there was a committee, special parliamentary standing committee formed to look into the details of the 15th amendment. But the point I want to make here is that the 15th amendment special committee, you can see here, it acted on 29 July 2010 to May 28, 2011. And it started before the court declared non-party caretaker government unconstitutional. It acted for about a year or more than that. However, it just dealt with the evolution of the caretaker government only for one month. And toward the tenure of the commission, special committee, they favored the retention of the caretaker government. And they finalized their report on May 28, 2011. But unfortunately, they met the incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on 29 May, 2011. And they submitted their final report on 30 June, 2011. And in that report, within one day, they changed their position, the commanding abolition of the caretaker government. And immediately after that, the caretaker government system was abolished or taken off the constitution to the 15th amendment. So let me now, straightforwardly, go to the conclusion because I have taken my time. The non-party caretaker government was an innovative constitutional design and Bangladesh was the pioneer. I've seen the useful comparison between Madagascar and Cape Barty and Bangladesh. But in 1996, Bangladesh was unique and it was unlike the caretaker government system, which was used either in Madagascar or in Cape Barty because it's very much constitutional. It's not a constitutional political deal. There are stark dissimilarities in context between the introduction and the abolition of the caretaker government system. The introduction of the caretaker government system was based on a wide political consensus. Its abolition was based on a whimsical political decision by the ruling Awami League, which had an overwhelming majority in parliament to amend the constitution. And it came to power by taking the benefit of a caretaker government, which it wanted to abolish. Then, Bangladesh elections under the ruling political party show that the regime tends to corrupt the system and the administration for gaining incumbency advantage. If we look at the outcome and performance of the caretaker government system, we would see that every single time there is an alteration of the incumbent party. So in 1996, 1991, in the caretaker government system, it was BNP. In 1996 election, it was Awami League that won. In 2001 election, it was again BNP. And in 2008 election, it was again Awami League. So four times there was alteration of power between the two major parties. But as a consequence, we now see this. The system was withdrawn in 2011. And there was an election in 2014, which was boycotted by all major political parties. So the 2014 election was under a party government and it was a one party election. Then the next and the latest election was in 2018, January. And the boycotting major political parties joined the election. The election was a doctored election, engineered election, is a hugely rigged election. And honestly, the votes were cast the night before the election day. As a result, out of 300 general parliamentary seats, the Awami League got 293. And the seven seats went to BNP and its allies. So the point is that, I mean, because of the withdrawal of the non-particular government system, the country has embraced unconstitutionalism or elected autocracy once again. Now, constitutional innovation to tame the incumbents' advantage, in my opinion, and in the context of Bangladesh, where democracy is fragile, and the political parties do not trust each other, is not only a constitutional institution, it is also a constitutional impurity. It is needed for the consolidation of democracy, for the alteration of power between and among all parties that exist in the constitutional democracy. So thank you very much for patient hearing and I look forward to be interacting with the audience in the Q&A session. Thank you. Thank you so much, Professor Hoek, for a particularly interesting presentation, especially as referred to the political circumstances that led to both the introduction and the abolition of the caretaker government. I wonder also about the prospects for reintroduction of this caretaker government policy, which will be really interesting to discuss later on. But now I see that Professor Gabriel Negreta has joined us from the Catholic University of Chile. We're very happy that you joined. There were some misunderstandings as to the time, but we're really glad that you could make it. Professor Negreta, as I said before, will be sharing with us some reflections regarding Latin America and strategies implemented in that continent precisely to have credible elections. And Gabriel, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Kimana. Thank you for the invitation to them, to Kimana, to ID International. Okay, let me start very briefly to portray the landscape of the issue of a presidential election and incumbent president's advantage in Latin America. First of all, as you probably know, the typical mechanism to reduce the advantage of incumbent executives in Latin America since the 19th century has been the prescription of consecutive election. Relection was usually allowed, but only after one term of office. That was the typical presidential election rule, that is, alternate reelection. Now, this mechanism was criticized and subject to revision after the latest expansion of democracy in the region, particularly since the early 90s. The main argument has been that because that with the relationship between presidents and voters, and that it limits the use of elections as an instance of accountability. Of course, the debate, as I will argue, has been affected by partisan self-interest because it was mostly promoted by incumbent executives and their comparisons. There has been a clear trend toward the relaxation of turn limits since 1993, with some occasional reversals to the opposite direction. As of today, we have eight out of 18 country constitutions in LA in Latin America that enable consecutive election in most cases after one term in five cases and a few three cases without limit. Now, note that those cases that allow a presidential election without any limit, such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and very recently Honduras are all cases of either non-democratic regimes or deeply flawed democracies as Honduras. Among those that do not allow consecutive reelection of executives, six allow reelection after one or two terms and only four have an absolute prescription of reelection. So, just to be clear, as of today, most presidential reelection regimes in Latin America restrict consecutive reelection, right? Some allow reelection after one or two terms out of office, some create an absolute prescription, right, like Guatemala, like Mexico, or like Paraguay currently. There has been no debate on mechanisms such as the one that we are discussing today. I mean, certainly not in the political arena. There has been some academic debate about the need to focus more on the advantage on the incumbents rather than on restrictions to reelection per se. It has been proposed, for instance, in a recent paper by Jose Chebu and Medina, that it would be better to focus on strict regulations on campaign finance and procedures, you know, equitable distribution of public funds to be using political and electoral campaigns in order to reduce barriers to entry into electoral competition, free access to media, and so on and so forth. There is regulations that would limit the advantage without restricting the incumbent to effectively be able to run for one consecutive term. Now, the point here is that in Latin America, the main problem is not really the advantage of incumbents once they are allowed to be reelected. The main political and constitutional problem that we face in Latin America is the partisan manipulation of the legal system to extend or remove term limits by incumbents while they're in office, and the violation of the commitment to observe one term extensions once they achieve that reform. So now, let me show you very briefly this table that will illustrate my point. Can I share Kimana? Yes. Of course, yes. Okay. So if you see here, we have had since 1978, 17 reforms, legal reforms, right, either by new constitution by the enactment of new constitutions by constitutional amendments or by judicial interpretation, all of them allowed executives to be reelected for one or more consecutive terms, usually just one more term, after the reform, and they promoted this reform while in office. That has been the main political problem because these reforms are deeply controversial. They have led to polarization, and on the one hand, and on the other hand, they usually open the possibility that these reforms once enacted, particularly once they allow, when they allow just one term extension, they will not stick as it happened in cases like Bolivia, Ecuador, and most notoriously in Venezuela. So here I illustrate the different types of legal reform by a new constitution in five cases, constitutional amendment seven, judicial interpretation in five. As you can see in the last column, 12 of those reforms, that is 70% of the 17 reforms, effectively led the incumbent to be reelected. That just confirms a trend, right? Everywhere, whenever the incumbent president is allowed to be reelected, he or she usually gets reelected above 70% of the time that varies for time periods and depending on whether there was an emergency or not, but the rate is high. And that's exactly what is called incumbent advantage. As I said, I don't think that the main political problem that we have in Latin America right now is to reduce the advantage so much as how to avoid the partisan use of the Constitution, the manipulation of the legal system, the co-optation of the judiciary, most of all, in order to interpret term limits in a way that benefit incumbents. That's the main issue. And why, I'm saying this also because we do have regulations of the type, you know, that I mentioned before, like for instance, Mexico, Mexico has an absolute prescription or presidential election that has been, you know, enforced since the Mexican Revolution, and there are very, very strict regulations in order to reduce the advantage, not of the incumbent, because incumbent cannot run for consecutive relation, but in order to prevent the incumbent president to favor, you know, to bias the election in support of the candidate of the president's party, very strict regulation that really reduce the advantage of incumbent, even if the president were allowed to be reelected. And we have such regulations in many places, you know, Mexico is a typical case because Mexico has, at least until now, let's see, because now the electoral commission is under heavy attack by the government, but the electoral commission in Mexico is really strong, is really dependent, and it really provides a strong sense of impartiality and accountability. Now we have, you know, strong regulations in many other Latin American countries about, you know, incumbents not being allowed to, you know, to do certain actions, 60 days or 30 days before the election to promote, you know, new public works to, you know, get involved in the media. You know, many regulations. Now the problem is, of course, that those regulations sometimes are not enforced, right? That that is true. But yet, as I will say, you know, as I said before, I don't think, at least until now, that the main problem is a concern with the advantage. The concern is the how to prevent the manipulation of the legal system. So in my view, and I think I was invited to to to comment on this and to bring a Latin America, a Latin American perspective. I think that the caretaker government mechanism is very interesting. But I find it intriguing. Again, you know, from my perspective, and I have some questions here, you know. Well, first of all, it seems to me that the mechanism will be either unnecessary under the right conditions, and it will be useless under the wrong conditions. That is, it seems to me to be unnecessary if there are other mechanisms that exist on the one hand and are effectively enforced on the other, such as, you know, independent electoral commissions, strict regulations about the use of the media during campaigns, public funding, so on and so forth. So it will be unnecessary because if those mechanisms exist and they are enforced, then incumbents will have an unmet advantage, a natural one, as I will argue now, but it will be reduced. Now, if the conditions are not, you know, as such, if conditions are wrong, that is, if you don't have those mechanisms, or if there is an independent electoral commission or strict regulations about the use of public funding or access to the media and those conditions, those regulations are violated or not enforced, then I don't think that the caretaker government mechanism will do much to, you know, solve the problem and reduce the advantage. So that will be my first comment, you know, whether this mechanism will do something extra if other conditions are good or if other conditions are bad. Then, you know, I think it is not clear how this mechanism would work when the distribution of electoral and institutional support heavily favors the incumbent, right? Because if the incumbent resigned 60 days before the election and then the government is handed over to a caretaker team, still, you know, the chair of the Senate, the president of the assembly could be very well, you know, a member of his or her own party. So why would that reduce really the advantage, you know? And third, you know, these mechanisms and in general, I would say no mechanism that intends to reduce the advantage when it comes from the manipulation of the legal system or from the abuse of the legal system will prevent, you know, the natural advantage that exists whenever executives are allowed to run for consecutive relation, which is the bias that comes from the risk aversion of voters. So in that sense, you know, I think that no mechanism can prevent that, right? So if you had a government that was very successful in handling a crisis, a pandemic, say, given the current situation, and then, you know, the government resigns beforehand and then a caretaker government handles the election. You know, the advantage will still be there. I mean, this caretaker government mechanism would be nothing to prevent it. But again, and I will finish with this, if it's aimed at preventing legal manipulation or the abuse of the legal system, you know, pressures of the, over the judicial pressures over the electoral commission, I'm not exactly clear about how the caretaker government will address this problem, unless of course the political system is so prular and so fragmented that, you know, nobody can really manipulate the system, you know, nobody controls any of the safeguards for the credibility of elections, but then the mechanism will not be necessary, in my opinion. So these are my, they will advocate comments about the mechanism. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Professor. And these are exactly the points that we want to understand. So quick points. I think there are two ideas, and I'll pass on into the panelists. I think what Professor Negreto is speaking about is if you consider it as an alternative to what are common practices, then it may face the same challenge, maybe even worse, challenge for its effectiveness, but we could also consider a possibility of it as being complimentary to the approach that exists today. And particularly if you look at, for instance, Cape Verde and Maragascar, it is actually there, you know, initially as an alternative, as Professor Ramesh said in Maragascar, there was no independent electoral commission. So the resignation was at the time at least seen as one way, but subsequently the electoral commission was actually established. So now they exist together simultaneously. So I think this is like, whether this can be an alternative or a compliment, if it's a compliment, does it really add value? These are the two things. And the question about it being unnecessarily under the right situations and useless under the wrong situations, very interesting, and I'm sure Professor Christina Merish is here. She says the same things about force branch institutions and other institutional arrangements in general, that you can have good institutions. But if things work, you really don't need them. But if things do not work, they are very unlikely to actually deliver. So this is a challenge that's not just a character government but other institutional arrangements could face. But thank you very much for getting us to think more, and also for exposing us to the main alternatives that Latin America has resorted to. And now we can thank you very much for your patience again, the participants. So I don't know Sharon, can we make all of them panelists with one goal or should we call so that they can speak as we call them or should we identify and go ahead as such. It will have suit one by one. So maybe, yeah, you could start with one and I'll get going. Okay, perfect. So we have a few questions in the Q&A. Most of them have been addressed. But if any of the questions have not been sufficiently addressed, please either raise your hands and we can come back to it. But for now, I would go to Professor Sujit Choudhury to ask his questions. Please go ahead and mute yourself and go ahead. And also Anna, after Sujit, Anna can go. Thank you. It's good to see everybody apologize when my home guard, but I'm just having my coffee, but it's very it's very nice to see everybody so I have a question about the idea of term limits and parliamentary systems. And so the I and so here's the here's the intuition. So the intuition is that there is a bit of a, there are some ways in which the system that the different families of systems approach the problem of incumbent advantage or can approach them in the same way. Right. So the idea of resignation and caretakers conceptually could fit with both types of systems independent election systems could fit. Caretaker conventions, perhaps traditionally enforced could fit with both systems. Okay. But then that but the term limit idea seems to be uniquely presidential we don't think about them in the parliamentary context but as we know and I think that, you know, I think it was in Armenia right there been there been basically there've been debates about or attempts to circumvent term limits by changing from a presidential to a parliamentary system. And basically there's no practice of term limits and parliamentary systems as we know sometimes people can be ministers for a very long time. So the question I have to the panelists and in particular I'm pointing to, you know, read the one, read the one, and also Adam, who are both from parliamentary democracies or parliamentary systems at least is can we think about. Can you think is there a way to translate the idea of the term limit into a parliamentary system and what would it look like how can we begin to think about what it would be, you know. And then related to that is the issue of the connection between, you know, rules of internal party democracy and the constitutional structure. Right. Because do they have to align in some way. So, and so I'll give you an example not for a presidential, not for a parliamentary system but from a semi presidential system so when Putin ran out of terms he became Prime Minister. Okay. And then the constitution and then he kind of came back as president, you know, and to me when I saw that I always thought well listen if the party constitution was governed by the Constitution. That wouldn't have been allowed to happen in some way there seem to be some, he hid in the party, you know, and, and so I guess that's the follow up question so so that's the that's the point I'd like to put out thank you. I think that has said something, but swana has maybe introduced term limits and South Africa's prology and as a term limited head of off head of executive. Okay, so. Thank you very much to get out allowing red one to speak. And then there's a few quite a few answers, some of some some answers to your questions on the on the chat so you can you can follow that but we'll come back to it. Please go ahead, Professor. Thank you. Very interesting proposition or question. As you have already said that there's no example of time limit in the parliamentary system. I don't think that there's a point or there is any sort of idea of introducing that into a parliamentary system like Bangladesh. It will not actually actually work. An example of Myanmar. So when Myanmar translated to democracy and the, the constitution, the military constitution, the barred on some key from becoming the prime minister of the head of the government. So, so there was a titular precedent, but actually it was on some key who was the head of the government. So something like this could happen if we want to impose time limits in a parliamentary democracy, but the function of the time limit in a parliamentary democracy is done by the government system. So it's not written in the system that the the prime minister cannot repeat next time in the election, but because of the fairness and the transparency and the and the and the process independence of the of the government as well as the election commission, make it guarantee that elections are free and fair. So if elections are free and fair depending on the performance of the party government that was there before the election. So, I mean, the prime minister or the cabinet will either return to to the house or will not return to the house. That's the kind of mechanism to prevent. I mean, the reputation of terms provided that there are popular disapproval. So this is one thing, because in the, in the special context of Bangladesh, I, I support the character government system. I do not see any alternative to the character government system until for many, many years. That's proven in case of Bangladesh, because Bangladesh is now a mixed government system. And it's, it's an electric autocracy and we, we have the same government since 2009 January and we don't have any predictable calculation of the change of government in the near future. So anyway, this is my first intervention and secondly, the connection between the party rules or relating to election of the leadership as well as the conduct of elections and the constitution. That would be fantastic. I mean, if a constitution even despite the risk of redundancy, absolutely risk of abundance of constitutional text, it could be wonderful if a constitution. The constitution could detail some basic rules about the party management, about the political party management. Bangladesh constitution is one of the many constitutions in the world, which does not say a single word about the political parties that basically run the government. Apart from defining a political party, saying that a political party would be a party for political purposes and, and, and whose formation and, and the governance would be regulated by the law. So anyway, so we do not have anything like this. And because of that, I mean, we have severe form of party manipulation in Bangladesh. So it's a kind of dynasty party. Say, for example, Bangladesh basically has got multi parties since 1991, so after 20 years of independence. And for this period, firstly, we had only one major party, our meeting, and then we had military governments. So the second party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party came into being during one of the military government regimes. But it became a democratically elected party in 1991. So we have a very short history of the culture of political parties, either. So thank you. Thank you very much, Professor. So good, good points to do it. I think we got a few answers already. So term limits are not as rare as we think, even in parliamentary systems. A lot of people, particularly in Africa, a lot of people consider South Africa and Botswana as presidential because the head of the executive is called a president. But they are actually in practice parliamentary. And I'm not exactly sure which countries, but in the Caribbean as well, some of the parliamentary countries have term limits. But it's true that in the countries in Western Europe where parliamentary systems are common, it doesn't, at least it doesn't exist as at the moment. And of course, you know, the challenge they say if you are in a parliamentary system, you can be removed tomorrow, right? You have no guaranteed terms. And that's why if you also on top of your daily vulnerability, if they have put a limitation on you in terms of how many times you can serve, that is like a dual limitation. But in the presidential systems, on the other hand, you are guaranteed a few years, but then you have term limits. So it's seen as a compromise. But again, I think, you know, there is really no, there is nothing inherently against term limits, even in parliamentary systems, I think. And even in the context of Bangladesh, we could, if you think of it, not as alternatives, but as potential complementary arrangements, we could find a way to get them going together. So is there anyone with a question? Or was it so clear that we don't need to ask any questions? And of course, Professor Amase, Professor Negreto, if you would like to come in, please go ahead. And even for those who raised questions in the Q&A, if you need a bit more explanation, you'll be very welcome. So just did you raise your hands again? I did, because I didn't want there to be an uncomfortable silence. So I actually have a question for Gabriel. But I don't want to jump the queue if there's someone else. Go ahead, because Gabriel actually wants to speak as well, I think. So maybe he can address it together. Okay, so Gabriel, my question is about these Latin American judgments. So I'm thinking about Nicaragua, but there's others, and Ecuador, where the courts have been abolishing term limits on the basis that they either deny their unconstitutional by infringing popular sovereignty or the democratic rights of the actual president. And what I'm wondering is, is there any way to check that? Because that's quite unexpected. And it's the exact obverse of what we saw in Colombia with Uribe, of course. And this, and it's a bit of a, it's sort of, it really raises in my question, in my mind, the limitations of courts as potentially hedges against executive advertisement. So I'm just wondering if you could speak to that in particular. Thanks, Sujit. Yes, yes. There are some perplexing rulings in the last, you know, 10 years in Latin America regarding channel limits, that is rulings by constitutional courts or constitutional justices. And, and as you said, yes, in the, in some cases, you know, like Costa Rica, the decision in 2003 of the constitutional court to abolish the term, the, the prescription on on on election, because it was against the sovereign decision made in 1949 kind of makes sense. It fits within the general logic of the constituent power, if you will, doctrine, and within the limits of a constitutional democracy. Even if you might not agree with the constitutional power doctrine, but it kind of makes sense, because what it said is that the reform made in the 60s transgressed the decision in 1949, when the Constitution was enacted to allow the re-relection of presidents after two terms out of office. Now, this stands in contrast to what, you know, to what the constitutional court decided in Nicaragua, because in Nicaragua there was a decision in 1987 to, you know, to, yeah, well, they kind of imitated the idea, but the fact is that in Nicaragua there was an agreement by the two main parties at the time to revise, you know, the 1987 Constitution in order to restrict the re-relection, the re-relection of the president, that is to allow it only after one term out of office, and it also declared that this was against, you know, the decision made in 1988. 1987, sorry. Now, I was confused, sorry. The case of Nicaragua is similar in form to the case of Costa Rica. The case that really, really, it's odd and asks the question that then brings to the question that you asked, Sujit, is the case of Bolivia, because in Bolivia, the Constitution of 2009 restricted the re-relection of the president to only one term, then the president failed to get an amendment passed by a popular referendum, and still the Constitutional Court declared that the restriction was against not the sovereign power expressed in the 2009 Constitution, but it was against a human rights treaty signed by Bolivia, in particular the Costa Rica Human Rights Treaty. So, yeah, the case of Bolivia shows you that, you know, I don't think there is any possible limit to this kind of outcomes by constitutional judges that are either strategic or by the regime, you know, as it was the case in Bolivia. In a recent research that I have done on executive re-relection reforms, what I find is that what really matters and what really makes a difference, you know, to understand why in some countries the presidents abide by the term limits under which they were elected or why they abide or are unable to lift, you know, the term limits that exist is related to institutional legacies. That is, only in those countries where, you know, restrictions on executive re-relection have been enforced, have been effectively implemented and enforced for long periods of time is where you find that either reforms are not being proposed in order to extend or lift term limits or if they are proposed, they fail. So, and that's what happens when you make a contrast between Colombia, where the constitutional court finally said, you know, more than a one-term extension will be a transgression of the basic structure of the 1991 constitution and the case in Ecuador, you know, where the Supreme Court said that an indefinite re-relection in 2015 was okay and was congruent with the existing constitution. And I think that a lot is explained by the fact that in Ecuador, there was a long tradition of very weak constraints on the executive, whereas in Colombia, in spite of the rise of Riva, you know, president for the Chilean inclinations, even a populist discourse and so on, in fact, was unable to push through this second reform. So, I think that legacies matter a lot and in Latin America in particular, you find that these legacies are very diverse, right? And that explains, I think, why we find few cases with unlimited re-relection in Nicaragua, in, in, in, in Bolivia, and in Venezuela, and we have cases where nobody has ever proposed, you know, a reform not even to extend for one more term, you know, term limits like in Chile, you know, or in Uruguay, you know, never. I mean, even in the case of Tava Revasquez, a very popular president, his co-partisans in 2008 proposed, you know, to reform the constitution in order to, for the president to get re-elected, he had approval rates above 80% and he himself, you know, rejected the proposal. And I think that a strong tradition of restrictions on the executive that were enforced over time explains that. Now, I had one question at him before. Well, not one question, one comment, in fact, about this divergence between, you know, presidential and parliamentary systems in, in, as regards executive term limits. And I think many people are starting to question this, you know, more and more. But the historical reasons are very clear, you know, and, and, and in presidential systems, the reason why term limits became so important, and not so much in parliamentary systems is that in presidential systems, power is personalized, you know, in the executive, which is, you know, a universal office, basically. You know, so even, even under democratic conditions, you know, people, constitutional design has always seen the need for some sort of restriction and, and the fact that, you know, the continuity of the citizens will lead to corruption manipulation. And of course, you know, the bias in of election in favor of incumbent over time. Now, but this is questionable of questionable of course in parliamentary system where power is also personalized, you know, sometimes and I think it's an intriguing question for which we have historical answers. But, but I think this is a debate that might probably become more important, you know, in the in the next few years. Thank you very much, Professor, I see Christina has raised her arm, her hands. Maybe, I'm going to abuse my position and bring in a professor of my say and maybe you can go after that question Christina if you don't mind. Professor of my say, can you tell us the context within which the rule was being stated in 2010. In 1991 it was the Council of Churches in 2010 who was pushing for it and whether anyone pushing against it. But before you answer I'm going to give Christina a chance maybe the question also is for you please go ahead Christina. I don't know that my question is quite related to that. But I was, I suppose I'll pick up Adam and what you said right at the beginning that I'm a bit of a cynic on constitutional design, and that is true. We don't know how much we can do through design. But I suppose in this context I would go for a kind of belts and braces approach and say whatever you can get is worth trying, because when we draft a constitution we really don't know how it's going to play out. So that would mean term limits and possibly caretaker governments. If you can get it. And one of the speakers I've now mentioned party regulation. I know that's often manipulated. But again, I think these things all bring things that finally become discussed in the public. So it brings issues out into the open having these things, even if they don't work. So that's sort of. I'm in the background of where I would come from but in this caretaker government thing there's clearly resistance to it and I mean both these stories tell that both the Madagascar and the Bangladesh story tell it for obvious reasons. And in the handful of cases which I've been involved in which we've sort of tried to get a caretaker government accepted. It's been resisted. So there are hard sell as Adam you already have indicated. It made me think especially triggered a little bit by a comment sujit made. You know, should we not be looking a little bit more at breaking them down and all the bits. So there's quite a, I think sujits and you'll know this and other people from Westminster systems will know this better than I do. There's quite a, an entrenched convention of a limited level of caretaker government prior to elections. So one of the things and in fact we tried this when we were in Fiji that one might think of is trying to break down the elements of a caretaker government and try and get one or another as many as you can possibly into a system and that would go to what appointments can be made before an election. What budgetary things can be done before election the South African government tried to build lots of houses for people in, you know, and all that stuff that we all very familiar with. Are there ways of doing that it's not a solution to incumbents it's not going to necessarily change the election outcome, but it may contribute in a tiny way to leveling playing fields. And it all depends to go back and going back to Gabrielle's point, you know who knows what else works and doesn't work. What other things have to work to make any constraint work, including an electoral commission for that matter. There are also almost always imperfect. So, but if cynicism there but also wondering whether one should take this idea and unpack it a bit and offer a sort of raft or menu of different things that might be able to slowly be edged into constitutional practice. Very much very useful points and I that actually remind me of a point I wanted to ask Professor I must say about as well. How come because the Constitution says the Senate the speaker the president of the Senate actually becomes the interim president, but at the same time the Constitution also says the president appoints the president of the Senate. Right. So, what was the thinking behind that basically I think if I understand Christina was she saying that we have to look deeper into what kind of powers they have. Also the the arrangements in other respects including for instance how the person who will succeed the president is appointed to make sure that the president does not actually exercise power through through the backdoor. Thank you for the questions. So what were the the region in 2010. I think they wanted to take the good practices of the former constitution of 1992. And there was some opposition from the some political actors, because the decision was adopted during the transition following the coup that happens on on March 2008. So they were not really accept the new constitution. Then there was the election in the first election with that constitution was in 2013. But there was not the resignation of the incumbent. It was only during the last election in 2018. So I think the main explanation was to take the good practices with the first condition of the Third Republic. And what we said about the president of the Senate is not appointed by the by the president of the Republic, what is elected by the by the Senate. But the president of the Republic have to choose some members of the Senate. And of course, the president of the Senate will be one of the appointees by the president of the Republic. And he has to someone who is close to him. So it was the leader of his political party. But before to that we have this. And to change at the head of the state. There was a kind of a crisis in Madagascar in before the election, because the government wanted to change the some electoral laws to have better advantage and to have a way to manipulate the the election. But I think it's a good thing to to have this kind of proposition because as we've seen in Madagascar, all the elections so when we look in 2001. There was an election following followed by a crisis during six months. So I think it was one of also of the reason to reintroduce this provision in the new constitution. Thank you very much. No, we definitely think, you know, we don't propose it's adoption. That should be considered. And I think that that is what we're trying to do now essentially making sure that we have multipliers of knowledge and unfortunately we have essentially people from all what is called longitudes from all time zones from Chile to to Hong Kong. Ana is with us as well. Ana, you had you had a question or did I, did I see the wrong name. Okay, now so so so. So we still have three more minutes if there's any very, very important question we can take it. Otherwise, Kimana, it's all over to you. Thank you very much again, especially especially the panelists. And from my side, Adam, well, I have to say is a big thank you to all of you for having, having made the time to join us in this webinar and to the fantastic panelists as Adam was just saying also to Adam for such engaging discussion. I do still welcome any comments you may have on the draft that my colleague Adam presented to you today. And he sent via email and we will review and update that note and share it with you as we uploaded and on our dedicated website constitution that that work. I hope you enjoyed the discussion and also hope to see you all very soon in our next constitutional design innovations webinar. And that would rest to say is have a nice evening afternoon or day ahead. Thank you so much. Thank you very much Kimana one more thing, if you think there are innovations that we are not picking up. Because I like what what we are hearing from Armenia sounds like really interesting stuff. So if there are any ideas that you think we should cover. Hi Harold. Thank you for all the notes. So if there's anything from all of you that you think we can, we can, we can not promote or at least bring into light will be very, we'll be very grateful. Thank you very much again and a good day good evening. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you so much.