The effect of unamendable presidential term limits in Francophone Africa

Presidents engage in overstay attempts, seeking to extend their rule beyond what term limits allow. This challenge to constitutionalism has not circumvented Francophone Africa. With a history of "imperial" presidents and life-long rule, many states in the region sought to constitutionally entrench their term limits by making them unnameable. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical framework behind such attempts, and attempts to ascertain the effectiveness of the unamendable nature of term limits in the region. This is done through a comparative analysis of three overstay attempts an the constitutional court cases which accompanied them. The three cases selected for the paper originate in Niger, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The results of the analysis indicate that while the unamendable term limits do not are not a certain barrier against overstay attempts, they do provide constitutional courts a foundation for reasoning against a specific strategy employed by presidents in the region.