"Imposing a term limit is like saying the American people cannot be trusted to meet the challenge of self-government," Beilenson said on the House floor Tuesday.
On Monday, some of that anger returned, as the commission debated a proposal to impose a two-term limit.
Some, including France, Switzerland and Italy, had been reluctant to impose a two-term limit on United Nations executives, saying the West was in danger of forcing out competent civil servants because of dissatisfaction with Mr. M'Bow.
Of late, he has applied that word to those who believed that, since New Yorkers had voted twice in the 1990s to impose a two-term limit on most elected officials, the voters should have been asked once more if they had perhaps changed their minds.
The constitutions of most West African states already impose a two-term limit.
The changes, subject to a national referendum, were designed to allow more competition and to impose a two-term limit on future presidents.
But imposing a two-term limit limit requires unanimity among West African leaders, and there is still a long way to go to achieve that.
Opposition and civil society activists claim Mr Wade's bid for a third term is illegal because the constitution imposes a two-term limit for presidents.
Coburn, a family physician in Oklahoma, has imposed a two-term limit on himself.
First, a bunch of super-wealthy New Yorkers cooked up the idea that the expressed will of the voters, imposing a two-term limit on important elected officials, should be nullified so that Michael R. Bloomberg might stay on as mayor.
