>>>>>On behalf of America let me thank you for your opinion. We'll take it under advisement, before swearing in President McCain.
>>>>>
>>>>>http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2360240.htm?section=world
>>>>
>>>>Is Obama to be the first democratically elected President for 8 years?
>>>
>>>Maybe in 8 years, but not for 8 years. He can only be elected to serve 4 years and then there will be another election :o)
>>
>>You doing a Dragan on me? If you say "in 8 years", by that token, it could be taken for "in 8 years' time" , ie, he won't be elected until another 8 years have elapsed.
>>
>>It's always seemed daft to me, this 8 year limit on power, and, indeed, the automatic 4 years of staying in power. Here a PM can be elected as many times as she can win, but equally can be ousted mid-5-year-term.
>
>The idea is to not have politicians worrying about elections, campaigns, and who they have to bribe/smear/destroy too often. They can plan on a 4 year cycle.

Well the 4 year cycle is rather short - thereby giving politicians worry about elections, etc., whereas ours is 5 years (5 years always seems to be time in which to see through a "plan" :-)

>
>The 8 year limit is designed to keep someone from becoming entrenched as president where they have managed to seal out the opposition. It's too bad that doesn't apply to senators and congressmen.

But if you had a mechanism for getting rid of the pres (short of impeachment), such as votes of no-confidence et al then this would not be a problem so much. Here we can even change our PM for another, of the same party, mid-term.
>
>This also follows mention in another thread about why don't we have a presidential election when a president kicks off in office. Again, the idea is to allow the government to maintain some functionality rather than stopping the presses for more campaigning.