WHEN Pakatan Harapan (PH) won the 14th general election in 2018, one of its key promises was to institute term limits for the offices of prime minister, chief minister and menteri besar in which they were to serve only for the maximum of two terms.

The bill to limit the prime minister to two terms was tabled in December 2019 but was subsequently withdrawn by the new government after the fall of the PH government following the Sheraton move in 2020.

The term limit agenda once again surfaced when Ismail Sabri became the prime minister in 2021 and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with PH in which one of the agreed items was to impose a term limit of 10 years for the prime minister.

The bill was supposedly ready to be tabled in 2022. However, the parliament was then dissolved to pave the way for the 15th general election.

During the election, the 10-year term limit for prime minister, chief minister and menteri besar was one of the promises in PH’s manifesto. So far, no bill to limit the tenure of prime minister has been tabled by the unity government yet.

At the state level, currently only Penang has enacted the two-term limit for its chief minister back in 2018.

The GRS-led Sabah government had announced in September 2022 and again in October 2023 that they planned to amend the state constitution to limit the chief minister to two terms.

However, as of today, this is yet to be done. Interestingly, Sabah actually once had a term limit of two terms for its Yang di-Pertua Negeri which was enacted by the PBS state government in the 1990s.

However, the Warisan-PH state government did away with it in 2018 when they came to power after GE14, which was ironic considering the PH promise of term limits in the election.

Yang di-Pertua Negeri Tun Juhar Mahiruddin, who had sided with Warisan-PH in the post-election power struggle in which both Shafie Apdal and Musa Aman were sworn in as chief ministers, was subsequently reappointed as Yang di-Pertua Negeri for the third term and is currently serving his fourth term.

While term limits on public political offices have not yet been widely adopted, one silver lining is that there are actually many political parties in Malaysia that impose term limits on their top leader.

DAP was the first party to do so in 2003 when it amended the party constitution to enact a limit of three terms (three years in each term) for its secretary-general, which is the top position in the party.

This was followed by MCA in the same year, which similarly imposed a limit of three terms for its president.

The three-term limit for party president was subsequently adopted by MIC and PKR in 2009 and Gerakan and SUPP in 2014.

However, SUPP did away with the term limit in 2022, which led to its current president Dr Sim Kui Hian being re-elected for the fourth term in 2023.

One key observation of the history of term limits in Malaysian political parties is that many of them adopted the term limit after a poor showing in elections as an attempt to rejuvenate the party.

DAP adopted the term limit following its poor performance in the 1999 general election in which its prominent leaders such as Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh were defeated.

MIC similarly was at a low point when they adopted the term limit in 2009 following their disastrous result in the 2008 general election.

Gerakan and SUPP were also in similar positions in 2014 following their poor showing in the 2013 general election (and also the 2011 Sarawak state election in the case of SUPP).

However, the fact that SUPP later did away with the term limit after it had revived its fortunes showed that the lessons probably did not stick with them.

Another observation is that many of these parties adopted term limits following a long rule by a party leader (such as Lim Kit Siang, Ling Liong Sik, Samy Vellu and Lim Keng Yaik) to ensure that such a long reign will not be repeated in the future.

It is clear that the memory of being ruled by the same leader for decades could be a powerful catalyst which provides groundswell for the demand to limit the tenure of future leaders. This probably explains why currently there is no sense of urgency felt to enact term limits for heads of governments.

For a long time, we have not had leaders such as Dr Mahathir Mohamad (in his first premiership) and Taib Mahmud, who led governments for decades.

The incumbent prime minister, premier, chief ministers and menteris besar all have served for less than eight years.

This is, of course, a good development but we could not take it for granted that this situation will stay as it is.

Let’s hope that term limits could be enacted before the next election so we would not have another Mahathir and Taib Mahmud again. – April 29, 2024.

* Rayner Sylvester Yeo is a member of Agora Society. He was born in Sabah and is currently residing in Kuala Lumpur. Having grown up in a mixed-ethnic, multi-faith family and spent his working life in public, private and non-profit sectors, he believes diversity is the spice of life.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.