Joe Biden, 80, who announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election on Tuesday to win a second term, is joining the select club of elected world leaders, now in their 80s or even 90s.
The oldest elected leader in the world is Cameroonian President Paul Biya, 90.
Nicknamed the “sphinx” for his taste for secrecy as well as for his intractable character, he has made Cameroon his thing in 40 years of absolute rule over this Central African country, violently silencing all political opposition.
Since a highly contested re-election in 2018, he only appears in very rare televised speeches, recorded and painfully stated.
Mahmoud Abbas, at the head of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005, after five decades in the shadow of Yasser Arafat, is at 87 the second oldest elected leader in office in the world.
Despite the expiration of his mandate in 2009 and the absence of elections since then, the irremovable leader has remained in place, seeing his popularity decline sharply over the years.
Seen abroad as a moderate, he is the main architect, on the Palestinian side, of the historic Oslo Accords of 1993, which laid the foundations for a settlement of the conflict with Israel but which, a quarter of a century later, is still being achieved. to wait for.
It is in Africa that the age (and longevity) of leaders regularly breaks records.
In Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has ruled the country since late 2017 after an army coup, is 80 years old. He is nicknamed “the Crocodile” because of his ruthlessness.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea since a coup 43 years ago, is also 80 years old. He holds the world record for longevity in power for a living head of state, excluding monarchs.
Alassane Ouattara, President of the Ivory Coast, has just turned 81. This economist led an ambitious policy of great works, but his election in 2020 on a Stalinist score for a third term damaged his image, the opposition accusing him of being a “dictator”.
At 81, Hage Geingob has presided over Namibia since 2014, a huge semi-desert country in southern Africa which was one of the last states on the continent to gain independence in 1990.
Irish Labor MP Michael D. Higgins – a former minister, sociologist and Gaelic advocate – 82 is Ireland’s ninth president. Elected by universal suffrage but without an executive function, he began his second seven-year term at the end of 2018. He is known for his taste for poetry and for his dogs who sometimes steal the show at official events.
Aged 81, the President of the Republic of Malta, George Vella, has also held an essentially honorary position since 2019. This former Minister of Foreign Affairs has emerged as a fervent opponent of the right to abortion, but a project of law should soon relax the very strict legislation of the small island.
The popular Italian President Sergio Mattarella, elected in early 2015 by indirect universal suffrage by Parliament, has blown out his 81 candles. He is the essential man to arbitrate with Olympian calm the repeated Italian political crises. He also represents Italy at the commemorations, an opportunity to castigate the mafia who murdered his brother in Sicily in 1980.
After repeating that he was not seeking a second term, he agreed in early 2022 to make himself “available” to his country for a second term.
04/25/2023 13:14:35 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
