Throughout all of history I don’t think any political entity has had more leaders assassinated as ancient Rome. But the point of my thread is which countries have had more than two leaders assassinated in the modern era, and for the sake of clarity, modern era is defined for the purpose of this thread as being the start of the 20th Century till now.
The United States has had four presidents assassinated, but only two since the start of the 20th century, McKinley and Kennedy. To qualify for this thread, both ceremonial heads of state such as monarchs and ceremonial presidents are allowed, as are heads of government, prime ministers , powerful presidents, absolute monarchs, dictators etc. Speakers of Parliament, senators, representatives and cabinet ministers(say foreign minister) do not qualify. Nor do leaders of an opposition party which were not in power. Only should have been top leaders in power. What DOES qualify are former presidents, prime ministers who may have been killed outside their time in office.
Assassination attempts do not count, suspected assassinations do however qualify.
Not sure if it is the answer, but I would put forward the case of Lebanon. Lebanon has one president killed while in office, Rene Moawad in 1989. Oddly enough the country has had one president elect killed two weeks BEFORE he was to take office. This was Bashir Gemayel in 1982. But it was not just Lebanese presidents, but also prime ministers who have been killed. Prime Minister Rashid Karami was killed in 1987, while Rafik Hariri was killed in car bomb in 2005, months after he left office. So one sitting president, one president elected, and one prime minister and former prime minister. All these political killings took place from 1987 till 2005, so four hits in 18 years in a small country. That is some staggering statistic.
Francisco Madero, President, 1911-1913
Venustiano Carranza, President, 1917-1920
Alvaro Obregon, President 1920-1924; assassinated as President-elect, 1928
Three presidents or former presidents in 15 years, not to mention assassinations of other major political figures like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.
Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated as a presidential candidate in 1994. As the nominee of the PRI, he almost certainly would have been elected president since at the time Mexico was effectively a one-party state.
If you count 1900 as part of the twentieth century (I know, I know) then Italy has three - Umberto I, assassinated in 1900; Benito Mussolini, assassinated in 1945; Aldo Moro (former Prime Minister), assassinated in 1978.
Romania had four Prime Ministers or former Prime Ministers assassinated - one in 1933 and 3 in 1940.
The tot for Spain is four - Jose Canalejas (Prime Minister) in 1912; Eduardo Dato (Prime Minister) in 1922; Luis Carrero Blanco (Prime Minister) in 1973; Ernest Lluch Martin (former Prime Minister) in 2000.
Japanese Prime Ministers had an ‘interesting’ period between 1918 and 1936.. Two were assassinated outright, one was severely wounded in an assassination attempt and returned to office later, and one survived an assassination attempt by going into hiding after the assassins mistook his brother in law for him.
So two in 18 years, with a couple of very close shaves as well.
Nitpick: I wouldn’t really call them “effectively a one party state” in 1994. Six years earlier the PRI only won bare majorities (51%) in both the presidential and lower-chamber legislative elections, and there have always been claims floating around (you can probably judge the credibility more than me) that they won the presidential election by fraud.
URL=“Hamaguchi Osachi - Wikipedia”]Osachi Hamaguchi, the PM you said recovered and served a second term, really didn’t. His health never recovered from the assassination attempt.
He was forced to resign shortly after and died that summer.
The OP specified former top leaders as well, so these must be included.
Itō Hirobumi, former PM, was assassinated October 26, 1909.
Takahashi Korekiyo who was assassinated in the February 26 Incident in which the prime minister escaped. Another former prime minister was targeted but managed to get away.
There is not doubt that assassination as a political tool had the most influence in Japan, where civilian democracy was essentially overthrown by militant ultranationalists
True, the PRI was gradually losing its complete dominance by that time. And there’s really no question that the dominance was preserved by massive fraud. But there’s also little doubt that Colosio would have won if he hadn’t been assassinated. His replacement, Zedillo (who was one of the few PRI politicians eligible to run, since he wasn’t in government at the time) won despite being a virtual non-entity with little charisma.
Basically, the PRI dominating the government was a response to the extreme violence of the Mexican Revolution in which almost all the major leaders were assassinated. People wanted stability above all else, and the PRI gave them that for 70 years.
What are we counting as “assassination”? Is it an assassination if the leader is killed in warfare? Does it matter if he was specifically targeted, or just caught some shrapnel from a general attack on the capital? What if he’s just out on his morning job and gets murdered by a random mugger who doesn’t recognize him?
Surely that would depend on the order in which they were killed, no? If the killings were in order of descending age, then they’d each have technically had a very brief turn as Tsar or Tsarina.
That appears to me to contrary to the intent of OP. In any case, since Nicholas II had abdicated and the monarchy had effectively been abolished by the Bolsheviks, none of his family were ever “officially in office.”
Quite apart from the fact that the monarchy had been abolished, Nicholas had renounced Alexei’s claim to the throne and the daughters had never been in the line of succession anyway.
Personally I wouldn’t count anyone from 1880 to 1910, including Mr. McKinley, since Anarchists were very busy with the Propaganda of the Deed then and slew irrationally.
Actually it just made them seriously unpopular; not just with Rulers.
However, Garfield I would count, since he was fairly randomly killed by a fully signed-up loony
Well, if he was formerly in line to a throne that formerly existed, plus the unpleasantness, would Alexi potentially count as a triple-former leader, then?
He actually beats Grover Cleveland at something. That’s a silver lining, right?
By that do you mean the civil war? I agree that is a big part of it, although Hariri’s killing occurred some 15 years after the war ended. Another factor is the Syrian military occupation of Lebanon, plus their political dominance of Lebanese affairs and their hand in assassinations from the 1970s till the present.