In its Opinion on the Draft Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Venice Commission stated that “in a country with a presidential (or sometimes semi-presidential) system, power tends to be concentrated on the President, while that of the Legislature or the Judiciary is relatively weaker. Therefore, the regular change of office holder through the process of election is the very method to prevent too strong a concentration of powers in the hands of the President.” Considering that “Azerbaijan, the Constitution of which provides for a Presidential system of Government, is undoubtedly a country where the President concentrates extensive powers in his hands, given the few checks and balances which exist, it was … logical that the original text of the Constitution of Azerbaijan provided for a two-term limit.” The Commission stated that as a rule, it can be said that the abolition of existing limits preventing the unlimited re-election of a President is a step back, in terms of democratic achievements. Here the Commission referred to the constitutional referendum held in 2009 in Venezuela and in 2004 in Belarus. Conversely, the subsequent introduction of such limits in the Constitution goes in the right direction. Here the reference was to the United States and France. Coming back to Azerbaijan, the Commission emphasized that “explicit constitutional limitations on the successive terms of a president are particularly important in countries where democratic structures and their cultural presuppositions have not yet been consolidated.” The Commission concluded that the elimination of the present limitation in Article 101(V) of the Constitution may therefore appear as a serious set-back on Azerbaijan’s road to a consolidated democracy.