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The short time one is allowed to strut and fret upon the stage before the brief candle is extinguished by some sudden change of circumstances is perhaps not quick enough when looking at the leaders that rule our countries these days. We might question why some people are still in the limelight and yet all hope has not been completely banished because of dictatorial taking of the powers that be in the places that were once democracies before power was grabbed and growth became the sole object, stunting the progress of the entire nation. The hope exists because there are people that have a very short-lived career in politics. Sometimes it wasn’t even worth their while spending the money to get to the place they thought was going to bring about corruption-galore possibilities of frenzied embezzlement.
Just who are those people that have had the shortest-serving stints at the heads of our countries? At least if you are unhappy with the person who gets to power some of the very short times they remained at the top are a great consolation.
Shortest-Serving Leaders
10. Khalid bin Bargash
The Sultan of Zanzibar only served 2 days at the head of the country. He became the Sultan of this island in 1896, when his cousin died. The British refused (as their empire) to acknowledge his succession to the head of the country. They demanded that he step down from his post within two days. He refused to do so and the British ended up sending ships and an armed force to the island to take possession of it again. The ensuing war (Anglo-Zanzibar War) lasted a mere 38 minutes on August 27th 1896 and as such constitutes the second record for this island in the fact that it is the shortest conflict that has ever taken place in history between two countries. Zanzibar had enough time to have 500 people killed and wounded, 2 boats being sunk and the British had one person wounded.
9. Diosdado Cabello
This president of Venezuela only managed to stay elected for I day as the leader of his country. Here today and gone tomorrow? Hugo Chavez was forced to step down from his position after a pro-Capitalist coup was carried out. Chavez [5] resigned and his vice president was automatically appointed as president of the country as the law requires. But pro-Chavez supporters fought back and reinstated Chavez. Cabello appointed Chavez as his vice president and then had to resign as a consequence to allow him to be appointed as president. As a result Cabello had only touched a glimpse of the reins of power for a fleeting 24 hours. It might be what the supporters wanted but it was hardly democratic was it. What about holding an election and seeing what the people actually wanted?
8. Ratu Tevita Momoedonu
This is the Prime Minister of Fiji that only remained in office for a just a few hours. But, that’s not his only surprising fact. He has in fact served as Prime Minister of the country on two occasions and both times were in order to get around constitutional problems that were barring others from being reelected in the country. The first time was in May 2000 and it last for a few minutes only. The second time was in 2001 and lasted two days. The first time in 2000 was when George Speight carried out a coup and took the Prime Minister hostage in the parliament building. The President was unable to assume emergency powers since the constitution only allows the Prime minister to tell the President to assume the power to run the country. The Prime Minister was not able to do that since he was held hostage. The only member of the cabinet not to be present in the building during the coup was Momoedonu. President Mara therefore dismissed Prime Minister Chaudhry and appointed Momoedonu as Prime Minister, allowing him to advise the President to assume powers of the country and as a consequence a few minutes later Momoedonu resigned. The second time that he was appointed was when in 2001 the government was declared to be unconstitutionally in power and that the state had to go back to the last government that held office (at the time of the 2000 coup). The president in 2001 did not wish to appoint Chaudhry as he did not have the majority anymore. He therefore took the last Prime minister to be Momoendonu and thus asked him to be reinstated as prime minister (he was in fact the president’s nephew). He got a lifetime pension of 20% of his ministerial salary when he resigned making way for Qarase, who was the leader of the government that had been declared unconstitutional.
7. Roger LaFontant
The Haitian [6] military president served for less than 24 hours. In 1991 the president resigned from power and the next in line constitutionally should have been the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Ertha Pascal Trouillot. She called a democratic election but LaFontant took the opportunity to stage a coup d’état and take possession of the country. Within 24 hours a counter-coup had fought back and reinstated Trouillot as leader of the country.
6. Joseph Goebbels
The Chancellor of Germany was the position held by Joseph Goebbels, for just five hours in total. As the war was seemingly coming to an end, Adolf Hitler appointed Goebbels as the next Chancellor of the Reich. It was believed that the Minister of Propaganda was the only person that would be able to carry out such a duty. Goebbels legally became the Chancellor of Germany once Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker. Goebbels then in turn committed suicide and had been Chancellor for a mere few hours.
5. Boris Yeltsin
The acting Prime Minister of Russia was the position held by Yeltsin [7] for fewer than five hours. In 1998 in the middle of a political crisis President Boris Yeltsin decided to relieve the Prime Minister of his duties. He appointed himself unconstitutionally as Prime minister of Russia and only resigned when criticized. He was forced to resign as Prime minister of the country and appointed someone else.
4. Skënder Gjinushi
This man was the President of Albania and although some are in disagreement about the length of time he was in office (between 2 or 5 hours) he is one of the shortest-serving leaders in recorded history. After the end of the Communist regime in the country it was the corrupt president Sali Berisha that governed the country. But, in 1997 due to his losing the elections he was asked to step down. He refused and continued to govern the country. The Speaker of the House, Skënder Gjinushi was appointed interim president for a few hours while the Albanian Parliament appointed the winner (Rexhep Meidani) of the elections as president of the country.
3. Carlos Manuel Piedra
The interim president of Cuba was only in power for between 2 to 5 hours also. President Fulgencio Batista resigned from office on January 1st 1959 and the vice president resigned a day later. The President of the Congress should have been appointed the President of the country but he too had resigned as Castro’s forces marched on the Havana. The constitution stated that in this case the next in line should be the oldest justice of the Supreme Court and so Justice Manuel Piedra was sworn in by the Cuban army as interim president. He promptly fled to the US embassy and sought protection. He had only been president for a few hours.
2. Siaka Stevens
The Prime Minister of Sierra Leone served for 30 minutes. He was sworn in on March 21st 1967 at the Governor-General’s Mansion but just a few minutes after reciting his oath of office rebels broke into the office and arrested him. He was however restored to power in 1968 and remained in the position until 1985.
1. Luis Filipe
King Carlos of Portugal and his son Crown Prince Filipe were both assassinated during a royal tour in 1908. The King died instantly and the Prince died a few minutes later. The Prince became King for just less than 30 minutes and died on his way to hospital from blood loss. Some have disputed this since he was not crowned. However legally speaking the monarch became the reigning monarch immediately upon the death of the predecessor. As such he is the shortest reigning leader of a country ever.
These may have been the shortest-serving leaders of the history of the world. Maybe they are not the people you might want to see up there in the lists, but it seems today that we have politicians that are descendants of politicians. They are born into families of politicians as if it were hereditary, like a disease that were transmitted from one family to another, one generation to another, from father to son and so on down the lines, each successive generation adding more wealth and ensuring the future of the pedigree. Our politicians are born into a political family that protects its own. Our leaders are long-serving leaders.
But, are they doing it for the nation?
Guess who was the longest-serving President of the United States? Who would you like it to have been?
It in fact was President Nixon [8] that notched up a total of 4,949 days (2,922 days as vice president) and that beat President D. Roosevelt by 527 days!
Who would you still like to be at the top?
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