TOKYO, July 15, 2024—Americans are feeling fatigue with Joe Biden digging is his heels to stay on for another 4 year term as the U.S. President for another terms. Yet he’s very junior when compare him with Vladimir Putin, who’s been the Russian president for 14 years since as far back as 2000, and Xi Jinping of China for 12 years since 2012.
But the longest serving head of state in the modern era is, as widely known, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian president who was executed by firing squad together with his wife on the Christmas Day of 1989 after keeping the former communist country under his dictatorship for 15 years (Add up 9 more years as communist party top, he effectively reigned over the country for 24 years.)
We should not forget Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years until 2011, (Colonel) Muammar Gaddafi, the Lybian leader that kept an iron-fist tight grip of Libya for 32 years until 2011. Perhaps there were more dictators that ruled their countries longer than those post-WWII types.
Though undeniably shorter, Shinzo Abe of Japan served as prime minister over 15 years before he was gunned down.
Other Asian countries also are seeing longer tenures of heads of state. Cambodia’s Hun Sen has been prime minister on-and-off for 26 years since 1998. And don’t forget North Korea. The current leader, Kim Jong Un has been around for ‘only’ 13 years since 2011 and at age 40, expect a long and even more gripping reign.
In the Mideast, Syria’s Basha al-Assad has been ruling his country since 2000.
In Africa, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 81, thrust himself to power in a 1979 Equatorial Guinea, keeping the presidency for 44 years of the country known as the African North Korea. Paul Biya, the world’s oldest elected leader, at 90 years, of Cameroon, has ruled the country for 41 years since 1982, despite allegations of election fraud.
Asian countries also are seeing longer tenures of heads of state. Cambodia’s Hun Sen has been prime minister on-and-off for 26 years since 1998.
In the Mideast, Syria’s Basha al-Assad has been ruling his country since 2000.
Even without doing math, one can tell that the longer the tenure of a head of state, the greater he/she (so far he) becomes an autocrat/dictator. The consequence is that those countries at a glance look strong and maybe even stable because of their leaders’ ruthless governance. No guarantee, however, the condition will continue long – as clearly proved by Romania’s Ceausescu, or the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos who was ousted in a 1986 coup.
The current world is flush with leaders that may be vulnerable to similar fates.
At the other end of the spectrum may be a shortening of tenures. In recent years, the leader who made herself known for staying in office the shortest in the country was Liz Trust who served as prime minister for 45 days in 2022. Japan’s Sosuke Uno might be known as second for having served 69 days in 1989 as prime minister. Both countries are known as island countries surrounded by sea, so the leaders’ fate might have been pre-destined.
The drawback or shortcoming of leaders’ short terms seem to reflect political impasse of their countries, which indeed was the case for Japan at the time and is so for the U.K. now.
This analogy seems to apply by and large the same to private entity organizations, including businesses. In Japan, CEOs are literally squatting on their posts of some leading companies – such as Akio Toyoda of Toyota Motor who has been in his post for 15 years, dangerously matching that of the late Shinzo Abe. Shinetsu Chemical, Oriental Land, Nihon Densan, and dozens of other leading companies also have long-serving CEOs in perhaps varying settings but in retrospect, many if not all cast shadows of potentially becoming zombies over the coming decades.
###