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World leaders no one voted for?

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Just interested to know how many world leaders there are in power who are in that position but no one voted for them?

Gordon Brown of course tops my list, anyone else?
I think South Africa's leader is also someone no one voted for ..

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hu Jintao?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hu Jintao?

    Yeah ... he is the Chinese leader. Plus you have Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), Kim Jong-il (North Korea), Than Shwe (Burma), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan), King Abdullah (Saudi Arabia), Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenistan), Seyed Ali Khamane’i (Iran) and Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Equatorial Guinea) amongst others..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Much of the Middle East and a few places in Asia and elsewhere would be a good bet.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG wrote: »
    Just interested to know how many world leaders there are in power who are in that position but no one voted for them?

    Gordon Brown of course tops my list, anyone else?
    I think South Africa's leader is also someone no one voted for ..

    Every British Prime Minister ever? We don't vote for a leader, we vote for the political party. Prime Minister =/= President. He is simply the leader of the government which is elected by the people, but it's up to that political party to decide which MP they want as the leader.

    I did start a thread saying maybe we should have a president as well, but it was met with mixed reactions.

    Also, Israel? Benjamin Netanyahu's party Likud only got 21% of the vote yet he is the prime minister. Not sure if 1 in 5 people counts as an elective majority especially since Kadima got 22% of the vote.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    George Bush in 2000?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Very few that no-one's voted for. Royalty. Leaders of coups. That's about it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teagan wrote: »
    ...Kim Jong-il (North Korea), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan), King Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)...
    I wonder if Gordon is proud to be in the company of such people?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    But the Labour party were elected. There is a difference.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Colonel Ghaddafi.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You could kind of add Dubya to the list. While some people did vote for him in the 2000 election, they weren't enough to secure a victory, yet the cheating bastard was declared the winner. That's arguably worse than somebody who was never planned to get in by voting in the first place.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The Pope? :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You mindreader! ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    The Pope? :p

    Elected by the College of Cardinals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_conclave
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    This whole "Gordon Brown wasn't elected" thing does my head in. There's tonnes to criticise him about, but that's really scraping the barrel. Find me one person who voted for Labour without knowing that Blair intended to step down and tha Brown was pretty much nailed on as the man to replace him. The Tories even did a marketing campaign entitled "Vote Blair, Get Brown." And then when people did vote Blair and got Brown, they started moaning that Brown wasn't elected. :rolleyes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Elected by the College of Cardinals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_conclave

    Ok then, Jesus :p

    But as others have said, we don't vote for a leader, we vote for a government which chooses it's own leader. Like I pointed out, the same system in many other countries (Israel, many European countries) where it's even worse because the prime minister might be someone from any of the coalition parties, so you could vote for one party and they 'win' but another party forms a coalition and you get a prime minister who only one in ten voted for their party.

    A presidential system would be intesting and even good in the UK. But the pace of change of politics in the UK is far, far too slow for there to be anything other than the current system in the next 50 - 100 years.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    This whole "Gordon Brown wasn't elected" thing does my head in. There's tonnes to criticise him about, but that's really scraping the barrel. Find me one person who voted for Labour without knowing that Blair intended to step down and tha Brown was pretty much nailed on as the man to replace him. The Tories even did a marketing campaign entitled "Vote Blair, Get Brown." And then when people did vote Blair and got Brown, they started moaning that Brown wasn't elected. :rolleyes:

    Well as you say they were moaning this was going to happen before the General Election so its hardly a suprise they continued to moan when it happened. You could claim its hypocrisy as they did the same with Thatcher and Major, though its also hypocritical of Labour who wanted an election then (and just to be even handed the Lib Dems when they were in power as the Liberals didn't have an election when they got rid of Asquith and replaced him with LLoyd-George)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teagan wrote: »
    Saparmurat Niyazov

    Uhh, he died in 2006.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well as you say they were moaning this was going to happen before the General Election so its hardly a suprise they continued to moan when it happened. You could claim its hypocrisy as they did the same with Thatcher and Major, though its also hypocritical of Labour who wanted an election then.

    I wouldn't say it's hypocritical, I would say it's just wrong. Labour were voted in with everyone knowing that Brown would become Prime Minister, so to say no-one voted for Brown is BS. Everyone who voted for Labour knowingly voted for Brown.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    But if Brown was shot dead today, and someone else became the leader of the labour party and prime minister, that still would not be grounds for a re-election, because it is still the labour party that is in government. We don't have a presidential system. We don't vote for a person. People knowing it's likely there will be a change of leadership isn't a requirement in any sense as far as I understand the british political system.

    I would be all for a presidential system btw, something like France where they have a parliament and a president. Then you have the leader of the country, elected, and the representatives of the people, elected, rather than just electing the representatives and letting them choose their own leader.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MrG wrote: »
    But the Labour party were elected. There is a difference.
    By about 21% of the electorate in the 2005 General Election, yes. So not exactly a legitimate government.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    By about 21% of the electorate in the 2005 General Election, yes. So not exactly a legitimate government.

    But still elected.

    So really what you are trying to say, if that we look back, every government we have had for a long while is illegitimate.

    Hey its not my fault people cant be arsed to vote.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    When I said Hu Jintao, I chose him in particular over say Ghaddafi, because he potentially can change our lives in democratic countries whereas Ghaddafi can't.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I wonder who is the most powerful unelected man in the world? Perhaps Rupert Murdoch?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Its JimV
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    By about 21% of the electorate in the 2005 General Election, yes. So not exactly a legitimate government.


    because the alternative then, as it is now is a Tory government.

    As bad as you think Labour are, the Tories are worse, at least Labour are trying to provide for the people. You know as well as I that the Tories are all about themselves and big business but get in on the back of social reforms.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    As bad as you think Labour are, the Tories are worse, at least Labour are trying to provide for the people. You know as well as I that the Tories are all about themselves and big business but get in on the back of social reforms.
    I'm not sure where this idea comes from that I have sympathies or support for the Tory Party - indeed, I referred to Call Me Dave as a "dishonest cunt" back in June. Generally speaking, I hate both of the main political parties.

    Labour don't provide for people, they only provide for themselves. Evidence? The gap between rich and poor has actually widened with New Labour in charge. If they wanted to provide a good education for people, they wouldn't pursue vicious and spiteful policies against private and grammar schools. More recently, there is the problem of serial liar and psychologically flawed Prime Mentalist Gordon Brown telling us the Tories would "do nothing" to help people through the recession. Most of the "help" offered by the government has turned out to be next to useless. They've been more than happy to help the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland and Fred Cuntwin, however. Shows you where their priorities are. Labour - they're the party of the rich, and never more so than today.

    Not that I expect Tory muppets to do anything much different. They'll scrap ID cards, but there's little difference between them otherwise.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thars fair enough, although you do give off the impression of being a Tory supporter.

    As for the recession, as badly hit as we've been, the damage has been nowhere near as bad as in other countries, especially the USA.

    We might be losing tens of jobs here and hundreds of jobs there. In the USA its tens of thousands at a time. Why that is I don't know, I'm no economist. I think it speaks volumes about the state of the country though, we seem to be weathering it a lot better than most.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    As for the recession, as badly hit as we've been, the damage has been nowhere near as bad as in other countries, especially the USA. We might be losing tens of jobs here and hundreds of jobs there. In the USA its tens of thousands at a time. Why that is I don't know, I'm no economist.
    Partly because the US population of nearly 300million is considerably larger than our population of approximately 60million. If an industry is having trouble, it affects far more people than it does here, hence why so many more are being made redundant.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Even comparitively speaking though we aren't the worst off out of the G8 countries. I think that's Japan. USA, Germany, France are worse off than us relatively speaking. But obviously we're no spring peach either atm.
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