[ti:The Problem with Long-Term Leaders] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]Many countries place limits on the amount of time a leader can serve in office. [00:04.96]The need to change leaders after a limited number of terms in office [00:09.87]is written into the laws of a number of countries. [00:12.72]This is often because many people believe that leaders with [00:16.96]too much power for too long become corrupt. [00:20.64]Limiting a person's time in office is seen by many as a way to improve governance. [00:27.50]Some leaders, however, do not agree. [00:30.72]There are leaders who go so far [00:33.33]as to change their country's constitution to remain in power. [00:38.16]A wealthy Sudanese businessman, Mohamed Ibrahim, [00:42.68]thought of a way to influence leaders to willingly give up power. [00:47.48]He promised a reward of $5 million for any African leader [00:53.56]who led his country well and who observed term limits in the interest of democracy. [01:00.00]Since 2007, only four presidents have received what is known [01:06.44]as the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. [01:11.80]A number of leaders of African countries have been in power for generations. [01:18.16]Paul Biya of Cameroon is the longest-serving leader in the world. [01:23.25]His 42 years as either prime minister or president [01:28.60]have been marked with election fraud and human rights abuses. [01:33.52]Biya spends a lot of time in Switzerland at the Hotel InterContinental in Geneva. [01:41.56]He has been criticized as one of the world's worst dictators. [01:46.52]He also convinced the National Assembly [01:49.76]to change the Constitution to remove term limits. [01:53.76]The BBC reported in 2012 that Biya spent a vacation in France [02:00.24]three years earlier in which he spent $40,000 a day on 43 hotel rooms. [02:08.04]Teodoro Obiang Nguema became the president of Equatorial Guinea [02:14.00]in 1979, after deposing his uncle. [02:18.60]At every election, with or without an opponent, [02:22.29]Obiang wins over 90 percent of the vote. [02:25.98]Last year, he appointed his son, Teodorin Obiang, as the vice president. [02:33.76]In February 2012, French police raided a mansion in Paris belonging to Obiang [02:41.44]and they discovered luxury goods inside worth millions of dollars. [02:46.88]In July 2012, the French issued an arrest warrant for Obiang. [02:52.96]Police seized the mansion, and Obiang was found guilty of money laundering, [02:59.28]although he was not present for the trial. [03:02.93]Long-serving leaders are not only in Africa, however. [03:07.36]Nursultan Nazarbayev has been the president of Kazakhstan for 33 years. [03:15.84]In May 2007, the Parliament of Kazakhstan approved a constitutional amendment. [03:22.68]The law permits Nazarbayev to seek re-election as many times as he wishes. [03:29.40]This amendment applies only to Nazarbayev. [03:33.68]It states that the first president [03:36.64]will have no limits on how many times he can run for office. [03:41.72]Subsequent presidents, however, will be limited to a five-year term. [03:47.27]Opposition members often claim he has hidden more than $1 billion in a Swiss bank. [03:55.80]Kim Il-sung was the leader of North Korea from 1948 until 1994, [04:02.64]serving as either a prime minister or president. [04:06.56]He passed power to his son, Kim Jong-il and then to his grandson, Kim Jong Un. [04:14.76]These three generations are considered responsible [04:18.48]for creating a "cult of personality" in the country. [04:23.24]However, North Korea's economy has declined in the last 50 years. [04:29.04]United Nations experts on North Korea say this economic weakness [04:36.05]led to a four-year famine in the mid-1990s [04:40.68]that caused the deaths of up to 3 million people. [04:45.69]Leaders who serve without limits are often called dictators. [04:50.00]They often attack opposition members. [04:53.19]Another result of having an unlimited leader [04:56.72]is that often economic and technological development slows. [05:01.44]For this reason, many western democracies [05:04.88]have put limitations on their leaders, including the United States. [05:10.12]America's 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, [05:14.88]was elected to four presidential terms, [05:18.20]serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. [05:24.00]After the death of the only American president to serve more than two terms, [05:30.92]the U.S. Congress approved the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. [05:37.32]The amendment says "no person shall be elected [05:41.20]to the office of the President more than twice." [05:45.44]I'm Susan Shand. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM