Answers: Political Dynasties
The fall of the Rajapaksas in Sri Lanka amid a crushing economic crisis has led to this quiz on political dynasties, a phenomenon cutting across democracies and dictatorships as well as the developed and developing world.
Answers
1) With the Rajapaksas falling from grace, a key contender to be Sri Lanka’s president is a political dynast who is the son of an assassinated former president. Who?
Sajith Premadasa, son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was president from 1989 to 1993. More on the assassination of Ranasinghe Premadasa here and here.
After I posted the question, Sajith Premadasa pulled out of the presidential race, backing Dullas Alahapperuma who in turn lost to Ranil Wickremesinghe as MPs chose the new leader.
2) Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba has been serving as the commander of his country’s land forces. His father has been president since 1986. This year speculations about the son’s political intentions have intensified, after he announced he was retiring from the military. His birthday was celebrated with a nationwide series of public events. Which country? (Hint: the Rajapaksas have been accused of making illicit investments in this country)
Uganda. Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba is the son of Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president since 1986. More about Museveni here and here.
More about the son, Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba here, here and here.
March 2024 update: President Museveni promoted his son to military chief.
Kainerugaba’s name does not have any link with his father’s, which makes it difficult to work out the answer. That’s because Ugandan children are mostly given surnames associated with their clan and not the father's surname. Siblings may have different surnames, each associated with the same clan (thanks to Barbara Angopa for this input)
3) This oil-rich African country has had only three presidents since independence from France in 1960. The father took over in 1967 after the death of the first president. He remained in office until his death in 2009. The son has stayed in power since then and survived a coup attempt in 2019. Which country?
Gabon. Omar Bongo and Ali Bongo.
August 30, 2023 update: Ali Bongo was ousted by the military, shortly after he was declared the winner of a disputed election.
Another former French colony in Africa, Togo, has also been controlled by a single family from 1967. Gnassingbé Eyadéma was president from 1967 until his death in 2005. His son, Faure Gnassingbé has been the president since then. During their long tenures, Gabon’s Omar Bongo and Togo’s Gnassingbé Eyadema were major figures in France’s Françafrique policy of cosy and shadowy economic, political and military ties with the leadership of its former African colonies (Françafrique is explained in my earlier quiz on Chad, another Francophone country led by the same family from 1990). This June though, Gabon and Togo hedged their bets with an Anglophone pivot by joining the Commonwealth, which is mostly made up of former British colonies.
4) This Asian country has the longest serving prime minister in the world, who’s been in power from 1985. In December 2021 the ruling party selected his eldest son as its prime ministerial candidate once he leaves office. This March he said he will seek another term in elections in 2023. Who and which country?
Hun Sen, Cambodia. A recent Al Jazeera report below.
August 2023 update: Hun Manet has become prime minister, after parliamentary elections without any competition.
April 2024 update: Senators in Cambodia unanimously voted to approve Hun Sen as president of the upper chamber. This allows the former prime minister to be the acting head of state when the king is overseas.
Another son, Hun Many, is one of the deputy prime ministers.
5) This European political dynasty has given three prime ministers. The first PM held the post three times and founded a centrist political party. His economist son was a U.S. based academic who returned to his home country and set up a socialist political party. He was also a three-time PM. His son, who shared his grandfather’s name also became PM but resigned amid an economic disaster. Name the country and the political dynasty.
Greece and Papandreou. The dynasty began with Georgios Papandreou whose first government role was that of interior minister in 1923. He was prime minister three times including as head of the government-in-exile during the Nazi occupation of Greece. He was poised to become PM for a fourth time in 1967, when army officers staged a coup a month before scheduled elections. Papandreou was arrested. He died the next year in 1968 but not before calling for the international isolation of the military junta in a tape smuggled out of Greece and broadcast by the BBC. His funeral was accompanied by protests against the military government.
Georgios Papandreou’s son Andreas was an economist with a PhD from Harvard University. After working as an academic in the U.S. for years, he returned to Greece & joined the government. He was also arrested during the 1967 coup and forced into exile. A flamboyant politician with a colourful personal life, Andreas Papandreou became prime minister three times after democracy was restored in 1974. He set up a socialist party named PASOK, moving away politically from his father. More here, here, here, here and here.
George Papandreou, Andreas’ son was prime minister from 2009 to 2011 when Greece’s acute financial crisis forced his resignation. More here and here. George’s brother Nick wrote about the family and their time in exile during military rule here.
While the political left in Greece was far long led by the Papandreou family, the New Democracy party on the right has also been a family fief, dominated by the Karamanlis and Mitsotakis families. Current prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ father Konstantinos was Andreas Papandreou’s main rival and PM from 1990 to 1993.
6) Except for a two-year period from 2003 to 2005 this country’s elected prime ministers since independence in 1968 have been from two families, the Ramgoolams and the Jugnauths. Which country?
Mauritius. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam led the island nation to independence in 1968 and was prime minister until 1982. Son Navin Ramgoolam, a doctor like his father was PM from 1995 to 2000 and 2005 to 2014. Their rival Anerood Jugnauth was PM from 1982 to 1995, 2000 to 2003 and 2014 to 2017. Anerood Jugnauth’s son Pravind took office in 2017 and remains PM.
7) This island was led from 1949 by an autocratic father and then the son, until the son’s death in 1988. The son lifted martial law a year before his death and named a designated successor from outside his family, ending dynastic control. Where?
Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo. The younger Chiang initiated Taiwan’s transition to democracy by lifting martial law and opening the door to an opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party, which is now in power. The younger Chiang’s designated successor Lee Teng-hui completed the island’s transition to democracy.
8) Which country was controlled by the dictators known as ‘Papa Doc’ and his son ‘Baby Doc’? The son became the world’s youngest president at 19 after his father died.
Haiti. François Duvalier (Papa Doc) and Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc). More about Haiti and the Duvaliers in my earlier quiz on the country’s long history of instability.
9) This fourth generation political dynast in the U.S. lost to Ken Paxton this May in the Republican primary race for Texas Attorney General. Who?
George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush. More here. George P. Bush was elected Texas Land Commissioner in 2015 and will complete his second term early next year. The ‘P’ stands for Prescott. His great-grandfather Prescott Bush launched the political dynasty that’s given the U.S. two presidents. The investment banker turned politician was a Republican senator from Connecticut, serving from 1952 until 1963.
10) Another oil-rich African nation now, where most of the people live in poverty. It is run by the world’s longest-serving leader still alive, the only one whose presidency dates back to 1979. His son is the vice-president. The son has been sanctioned by the UK and convicted for corruption in France. A fleet of luxury cars owned by him was confiscated and auctioned off in Switzerland. Which country?
Equatorial Guinea. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been president since 1979 after deposing his uncle in a coup. His son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, known as Teodorin is vice-president and defence minister. More here, here, here and here.
11) His maternal grandfather was suspected of war crimes and imprisoned but was released without a trial. The grandfather was a key figure in the formation of what became the country’s dominant political party in the 1950s and went on to become prime minister. His father was foreign minister during the 1980s and a contender for PM while he served as PM for multiple terms. Who?
Shinzo Abe. His grandfather was Nobusuke Kishi who was instrumental in the formation of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party in 1955. While prime minister, Kishi signed the security pact with the U.S. in 1960, which commits Washington to help defend Japan if it comes under attack. Earlier he was the Minister of Commerce and Industry during World War II. He was imprisoned by the U.S. but released without a trial as Washington bolstered conservative forces to contain communism. More on the links between Kishi and the CIA and how the U.S. covertly helped finance the LDP in the 1950s and the 1960s here and here.
Nobusuke Kishi’s younger brother Eisaku Sato was finance minister in his cabinet. Sato was prime minister from 1964 to 1972. He reached a deal with Richard Nixon for the return of Okinawa from U.S. control in 1972. Sato received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 for establishing a non-nuclear weapons policy, but his commitment to that ideal has come under question.
Nobusuke Kishi’s son-in-law and Shinzo Abe’s father Shintaro Abe was foreign minister during the 1980s and came close to becoming PM, before the Recruit scandal forced him to take a backseat. (More on the Recruit scandal in Q20 in the first quiz I did here)
Shinzo Abe’s brother Nobuo Kishi is Japan’s current defence minister. Abe’s assassination has brought attention to the Unification Church and its long-running ties to Japan’s ruling party dating back to Abe’s grandfather. More here and here.
August 2022 update: Shinzo Abe's brother and other ministers linked to the Unification Church were removed in a cabinet reshuffle. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised to cut the LDP's ties with the church.
12) He entered the Bombay Legislative Council in 1921 at the age of 33 and stayed till 1936 as a representative of the landlords in his region. In 1934 he became a minister in the Bombay government. His efforts helped pave the way for the creation of a new province in 1936. His son became prime minister and so did one of his grandchildren. Which political dynasty?
The Bhuttos of Pakistan. Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto’s efforts helped pave the way for Sindh province to be separated from Bombay in 1936. His son Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan and so was his grand-daughter Benazir Bhutto. After her assassination in 2007, her husband Asif Ali Zardari was elected president. Their son Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari is now Pakistan’s foreign minister and head of the Pakistan Peoples Party that was founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
13) In March a political dynasty was established with the election of Serdar Berdymukhamedov as president with 73 percent of the vote. His father, who had been in power from 2006, had stepped down. The father was known for creating a personality cult in this gas-rich country, one of the most reclusive in the world. Which country?
Turkmenistan. More on the personality cult around the current president’s father and ex-leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov here, here and here. More on Berdymukhamedov the prolific author in my earlier quiz here (Q12) on Fictional Pursuits of National Leaders.
14) The Marcoses and now the Dutertes are among a group of family clans that dominate Philippine politics. Another prominent family had three generations of senators. One served in the puppet government set up by Japan during World War II and was later exonerated from treason charges. His son restored his family’s reputation but was assassinated. The son’s widow became president. Their son also served as head of state. Which dynasty? (hint: all three share the same name)
Benigno Aquino, Benigno Aquino Jr. (known as Ninoy) and Benigno Aquino III (Noynoy). More on the family here. ‘Ninoy’ Aquino, the leading opponent of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship was assassinated at Manila airport in 1983 on his return from exile. More here and here. Aquino’s widow Corazon became president in 1986 after the People Power Revolution toppled Marcos. Their son ‘Noynoy’ Aquino was also president.
15) Which dynasty’s had a member in the U.S. Congress almost continuously from 1947 until 2011 and then from 2013 to 2021?
Kennedy. John F. Kennedy started his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1947. Joe Kennedy III, grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, lost in the Democratic senate primary race for Massachusetts in 2020. His defeat marked the first electoral loss for a Kennedy family member in the state. More here, here and here
16) This country has been dominated by two political dynasties over the past three decades. One party is led by the daughter of an assassinated former president. The other by the widow of another assassinated former president. Which country?
Bangladesh. Current prime minister Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s founding leader who was assassinated in 1975. Sheikh Hasina’s longtime rival Khaleda Zia is a former prime minister. Zia’s late husband General Ziaur Rahman seized power during the chaos that followed Mujibur Rahman’s killing but was himself assassinated in a coup in 1981. More here and here.
17) Three prime ministers in this country’s independent history have come from the same family. Their cumulative tenure covers nearly half of the period since independence. Five generations of the family have served as presidents of their political party. Another member was president of the United Nations General Assembly. Which country and political dynasty?
India and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The prime ministers are Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi (the surname Gandhi is from Indira Gandhi’s husband Feroze who was not related to Mahatma Gandhi). Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv and his Italian-born wife Sonia Gandhi and their son Rahul Gandhi have all served as presidents of the Indian National Congress.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman to preside over the United Nations General Assembly.