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.
Ciudadanos has presented this motion to the right-wing PP-led government, but stresses it is not aimed specifically at stopping Rajoy getting back into power.
“We're not thinking about Rajoy; we're thinking about Spain,” says the party, even though the amendment would mean that in two years and 10 months, Rajoy would automatically be ceased as leader of the country – whether or not he called an election.
This effectively means Rajoy's 11 months as 'acting' president, when Spain was without a government due to two inconclusive elections, still counts towards his eight years.
And despite calls for him to stand down and make way for new blood and a more modern outlook for the PP, Rajoy was determined to hang onto leadership at any cost.
Ciudadanos' proposal came at the same time as a requested amendment to the Law of Criminal Judgment (LECrim) and Law of Judicial Power (LOPJ) for the 650 or so MPs, senators, Royals and government members who enjoy diplomatic immunity to be released from this and be tried in the same way as any ordinary civilian.
As the law stands at present, any criminal case against the diplomatically-immune goes straight to the highest contentious court in the land, the Supreme Court, bypassing smaller tribunals.
But as former minister of justice Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón (PP) admitted, this apparently privileged status is in fact a handicap: with all cases going straight to the top, the 650-plus figureheads effectively have no right of appeal against any sentence.
