Before Putin, there was Stalin. The Soviet dictator stayed in power in Moscow for three decades before dying in 1953. Elections during his reign went as one might expect: high turnout and 100 percent of the votes for the unopposed communist autocrat. With his victory over the weekend, Putin moved one step closer to nudging out Stalin as Russia’s longest-serving ruler.
Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad has been the president of Syria since 2000, following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled for 30 years. During his reign, Assad has brought home multiple thumping electoral “victories,” securing nearly 89 percent of the votes in 2014 and over 95 percent in 2021, all in elections widely regarded as fraudulent. Those big wins came during a devastating civil war in which Assad (with Putin’s help, incidentally) crushed multi-sided opposition, killing hundreds of thousands of people in a conflict that has lasted more than a decade.
Ilham Aliyev
Caviar all round! Just last month, Azebaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev received close to 94 percent of the vote in a tainted election in the South Caucasus. Aliyev, whose country will host the U.N.’s COP29 climate summit later this year, secured his fifth term leading a nation that is ranked as one of the least free in the world. Outside observers said the election was marred by a harsh crackdown on opposition activists and journalists.
