# Two-term limits: what the evidence says, and where Spain should apply them

> Spain has no term limit for its Prime Minister, and the regions that legislated limits for their presidents mostly repealed them. Democracia 21 proposes a two-term limit for all public offices. The evidence supports limits for executive heads, who concentrate power and patronage, and warns against limiting legislators: in US states, term limits shifted power from parliaments to governors and lobbies, and studies from Brazil and Italy show last-term officials behave differently. The radical-centre answer is a two-term limit for prime ministers, regional presidents and mayors of large cities, with stronger audits in the final term and no limit on MPs.

- URL: https://www.radicalcentre.eu/en/articles/two-term-limits-what-the-evidence-says
- Language: en
- Publisher: radical centre / centro radical
- Published: 2026-10-26
- Topic: Democracy & institutions
- Author: radical centre
- Licence: CC BY 4.0

## Key points

- Spain has no term limit for its Prime Minister. Murcia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha legislated limits for their presidents and later repealed them; Castilla y León keeps an eight-year limit from 2016.
- Democracia 21 proposed on 10 October 2026 a two-term limit for all public offices.
- Portugal limits mayors to three consecutive terms (Law 46/2005), Italy limits most mayors to two, and France has limited its president to two consecutive terms since 2008.
- In US states, legislative term limits shifted power towards governors, agencies and interest groups; in Brazil, mayors who could not run again were more corrupt.
- Our position: two terms for prime ministers, regional presidents and big-city mayors; tighter audits in the last term; no limit on members of parliament.

Miriam González put the two-term limit near the top of her list when she launched Democracia 21 in Madrid on 10 October. Infobae reported it as a two-term limit for all public offices; The Objective as a maximum of two terms, eight years. It belongs to the same family as her line that people come into politics to serve and leave. We've [mapped the whole speech](/en/articles/democracia-21-miriam-gonzalez-proposals-radical-centre) already. Here we look at one question: what happens when you actually limit terms?

Spain has tried, on a small scale. There is no limit on how many times a Prime Minister can be re-elected. Ciudadanos made an eight-year limit for the head of government a condition of its 2016 pacts, first with the PSOE and then with the PP, and registered a bill in Congress in 2017. It went nowhere. In the regions, Extremadura passed a limit in 2014 and Murcia in a law of the same year; both later repealed them, and Murcia's repeal took effect on 1 May 2022. Castilla-La Mancha did the same: its 2019 law says the limit on the regional president will be whatever the Constitution sets for regional presidents, which is none. The preamble adds that term limits have no precedent in Western parliamentary systems. Castilla y León still has an eight-year limit in its 2016 law on senior officials.

That pattern says something. Leaders pass limits when they arrive and remove them once they're in office.

## What Europe and the evidence show

Elsewhere in Europe, limits mostly apply to executives. France changed its Constitution in 2008 so that no president can serve more than two consecutive terms. Italy introduced a two-term limit for mayors with direct election in 1993, partly to balance the new powers of directly elected mayors and to prevent clientelism; since 2024 smaller towns get three terms and the smallest have no limit. Portugal's Law 46/2005 limits the heads of local executives to three consecutive terms. It applied from 2013, and in 2021 it forced 38 mayors to stand down.

The research is more interesting than either side of the debate usually admits.

In Portugal, a 2017 study for the Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos found that mayors barred from re-election tend to record lower spending and revenue per inhabitant, mostly through lower capital spending, and smaller election-year increases in spending. Limits seem to calm the electoral budget cycle. In Italy, Dalle Nogare and Hessami studied 106 cities between 1998 and 2010 and found that electoral incentives tend to distort mayors' behaviour: pork and spending rise before an election when the incumbent is eligible. On that reading, a mayor who can't run again has less reason to buy votes.

The evidence from Brazil points the other way on a different outcome. Claudio Ferraz and Frederico Finan used random federal audits of municipalities and found significantly less corruption where mayors could still be re-elected. A mayor in a final term has less to lose. The effect was stronger where local media and courts were weaker.

And legislatures are a different animal. The United States is the big laboratory, because many states limited their legislators' terms in the 1990s. Political scientist Thad Kousser told Governing that the result was a shift in power that left the legislature a less than equal branch. A survey of lobbyists by Moncrief and Thompson found influence moving away from the legislature, towards the governor, the agencies and interest groups. When every member is new, those who stay, the executive and the lobbies, know more.

## Where we would draw the line

Every tradition has a stake here. The left has long warned that power held too long by the same people breeds patronage networks and closes politics to newcomers. The right and the liberal tradition want firm, predictable limits on executive power and like the idea of officeholders who serve and then go back to private life. Donald Warren's Middle American Radicals, the voters of the [other radical centre](/en/articles/donald-warren-middle-american-radicals-explained), distrusted concentrated power wherever it sat.

The idea that fits neither camp comes from Karl Popper, whom we covered [last week](/en/articles/karl-popper-the-open-society-explained): treat an institution as a hypothesis and check it against the evidence. Applied to term limits, the evidence gives us a clear position.

Limit the offices where power and patronage concentrate. Two terms for the Prime Minister, two for regional presidents, two for mayors of large cities. These are the jobs that appoint people, hand out contracts and build networks; this is where the Italian law explicitly aimed at clientelism and where the Portuguese data shows calmer budgets. Write the national limit into the Constitution so that no future majority can repeal it on arrival, as three regions did.

Pair the final term with extra scrutiny. Brazil shows that a lame duck has less to lose, so the last term should come with a mandatory audit by the Court of Auditors and published contract data. That turns the weakness Ferraz and Finan found into a design rule.

Leave members of parliament unlimited. A Congress full of beginners hands power to the government and the lobbies, which is the opposite of what Democracia 21 wants from its other proposals. Accountability for MPs belongs in the electoral system, which is why our [piece on lists and constituencies](/en/articles/mps-who-go-home-lists-districts-accountability) proposes a preference vote. Party leaders are a matter for party statutes, and parties that want to show they mean it can limit their own.

Democracia 21's instinct, that public office is a period of service, is right. The evidence lets us sharpen it: limits on executives, audits for the last term, and parliaments strong enough to watch both.

## FAQ

### Is there a term limit for Spain's Prime Minister?

No. The Constitution sets no limit on how many times the President of the Government can be re-elected. Ciudadanos proposed an eight-year limit in 2016 and registered a bill in 2017, and it never passed.

### Which Spanish regions limit their president's terms?

Castilla y León has an eight-year limit in its 2016 law on senior officials. Extremadura, Murcia and Castilla-La Mancha passed limits in the 2010s and later repealed them; Murcia's repeal took effect on 1 May 2022.

### Do term limits reduce corruption?

Not on their own. Ferraz and Finan found significantly less corruption in Brazilian municipalities where mayors could be re-elected, so officials in their final term need stronger audits. Term limits are mainly a tool against concentrated power and entrenched networks.

### What did Democracia 21 propose on term limits?

Miriam González proposed in the party's launch speech on 10 October 2026 limiting all public offices to two terms, eight years, according to Infobae and The Objective.

## Sources

- [Democracia 21, el nuevo partido de Miriam González que busca romper los dos bloques férreos del bipartidismo](https://www.infobae.com/espana/2026/10/10/democracia-21-el-nuevo-partido-de-miriam-gonzalez-que-busca-romper-los-dos-bloques-ferreos-del-bipartidismo-se-presenta-a-las-generales-del-29n-por-madrid-y-barcelona/), Infobae (2026)
- [Ley 2/2021, de 1 de julio (Región de Murcia)](https://borm.es/services/anuncio/ano/2021/numero/4598/pdf?id=795275), Boletín Oficial de la Región de Murcia (2021)
- [Term limits](https://ffms.pt/en/estudos/estudos/term-limits), Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos (2017)
- [Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments](https://www.nber.org/papers/w14937), NBER (2009)
- [The Truth About Term Limits](https://www.governing.com/archive/Truth-Term-Limits.html), Governing (2010)
- [Term Limits for Mayors and Fiscal Policy: Evidence from Italian Municipalities](https://siecon.org/sites/siecon.org/files/oldfiles/uploads/2014/10/Dalle-Nogare-Hessami-111.pdf), SIEcon (2014)