Real democracies – those in which is there is no majority of slaves without rights as was the case in ancient Athens, or where blacks were denied voting rights as was the case in America; those is which women, the young and those who don't hold property have the right to vote, those where there is no double vote for university graduates, as there was in Great Britain until 1948 – are a relatively new phenomenon in the world and have only existed for around 150 years.
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For thousands of years, omnipotent kings ruled over subjects, not citizens. The fact that kings exploited the treasures of the kingdom for their own personal benefit was not considered corruption as there was no boundary between the economy of the palace and the economy of the state. But democracies as well were subjected to the callousness of leaders, even if they gained office through elections and not because they were part of some royal dynasty.
The power placed in the hands of decision-makers in democracies is great, and if they hold on to their position for too long, they may lose a sense of proportions, and come to feel that "L'État, c'est moi" It was the British Lord, Baron Acton who coined the immortal phrase "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Democratic leaders who remain in power too long tend to conflate the interests of the state with their own interests, and from here, the path to corruption is a short one. Over the past decades, various institutions have been invented to counter this tendency: Among them the State Comptroller's Office, parliament, the courts, and a critical media. But even so, democratically elected leaders may succeed in weakening these elements and presenting their opponents as the opponents of the state, claiming they are traitors operated by foreign elements who seek to undermine the state, and so on. Over the past 80 years as democracies one after the other which were replaced by one form or another of tyranny, and this has led to an effort to counter the overreach of democratically elected leaders.
From 1992 to 2001, The Basic Law: The Government limited a prime minister's term in office to eight years. This is a reasonable timeframe in which a democratically elected prime minister should be able to realize his vision and that of his party. The fortunate amendment of this law, which was known as the direct election law, brought with it, unfortunately, the annulment of the term limitation. The move to reinstate this limitation is part of the ongoing effort to ensure that even as the powers of the prime minister expand thanks to the National Security Council Law and following the appointment of various advisors who did not previously exist – and who increased their power in various fields – a prime minister's term in office is restricted in time, even if in other parliamentary regimes such a limitation does not exist.
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