Define ‘winning.’
Is it a straight U.S.-style election where the candidate with the most votes wins, no matter how far from a majority they are? Or is there a runoff if nobody gets 50%? Or what?
Also – are their “nominations”? Are there political parties? Does each country put someone forward, or each continent, or something else? How many candidates?
I nominate the Dalai Lama. He could get the vote of about everyone who’s not Chinese.
Everyone 21 and older can put in their name. Let’s say there is a run-off election in one year to pick the top three, then another election a year later to pick the winner. Who will the top three be, and who will eventually win?
Edited to add: Will there be "political “parties”? Remember: This is for a single leader. This person may promise that a governing body will be established, and a political party of sorts may be built around this promise…but said promise may certainly be be broken after the election.
EDIT: just missed the OP’s new rules… but I think my post below is pretty close to fitting in, and the ultimate result would be the same.
Here’s a proposal – this fake election is announced as occurring in 6 months. It will be write-in only. That is, every adult on earth will go to some magical completely fair polling place and write down the name of their chosen candidate.
So in that 6 months, anyone who wants can announce they’re running. Political parties can do what they want, but so can any other group.
This is what I would think would happen, in the US at least: Obama and Bill Clinton would get together and hash out which one of them will throw their hat in. Probably, Bill would get chosen – he’s been out of office, so he’s probably fresher and hungrier (plus he’s probably more popular in most places around the world except for sub-Saharan Africa). This would be the mainstream American center-left candidate; and some further lefties in the US might throw someone else out there, Bill Clinton would get the lion’s share of the Democratic and left-to-center vote in the US (along with big chunks of the remaining US voters). Many conservatives and Republicans in the US would hate this, of course, so they would decide on an alternative candidate – I don’t know who, but let’s say Ted Cruz. I think Canadians would recognize that they probably couldn’t put up anyone who had nearly the chance that Bill Clinton would have, so while some fringe candidates would emerge, most Canadians would support Bill Clinton.
I don’t know what Mexico and South America would do – maybe they’d put up a Chavez-esque candidate or something (along with the many fringe candidates that would inevitably throw their hat in the ring).
Obama would campaign heavily in Europe/Australia and Africa for Bill Clinton. Putin would throw his hat in the ring and get right-wing support in Europe. I don’t know if the European left would put up a candidate – Clinton and Obama are pretty popular in Europe, so they might, grumbling, throw their support behind Clinton. I have no idea what the Middle-East would do – maybe throw up some relatively popular Muslim candidate? China would probably put up a pretty unified front, but I think India, Japan, Korea, and much of the rest of Asia might support Clinton.
Or it could be a free for all, in which case (hopefully) lesser candidates would be eliminated in each round of voting – let’s say one needs to meet a threshhold of 10 or 15% to continue to the next runoff.
In either case, I think Clinton (or Obama) would be the likeliest winner. The Chinese guy will have China, but that’s about it. Putin would have Russia and the right wing of Europe, and possibly even the right-wing in the US. But I think Clinton/Obama would get a significant majority everywhere else.
For the ‘top 3’ rule, I think the top 3 would be Clinton, Putin, and some Chinese guy. I think Clinton would win such a final election in a landslide – Chinese guy gets the adult population of China, and that’s about it… Putin gets Russia, right-wing Europe, and a chunk of right-wing USA, and that’s about it… and Clinton gets just about everyone else (including most of India!). The numbers would work out for a big Clinton win.
EDIT: maybe substitute a Muslim candidate for Putin, and replace Putin’s supporters with most of the Middle-East and conservative Muslims elsewhere, but I think the final result would still be the same.
I’d go for whoever is the current UN ambassador. He’s going be loyal to the party and would have experience dealing with foreign types. And it won’t just be the Chinese voting en masse for him. Given the amount of infrastructure that Chinese Government builds in third world countries, a lot of African Governments will tell their people to vote for Mr Liu Jieyi.
In my experience, most African people have very little trust in their government and would be unlikely to do something just because their government says so.
To expand on what Little Nemo said, this would be a world election. He doesn’t need to ‘net much of anything’ against a Republican, because there isn’t a living Republican who is a serious contender in this sort of election. But half the U.S. vote nets him half the U.S. vote relative to any foreign candidates.
Of course, he’d face the complementary disadvantage in other countries: the leading candidate from India would surely get a much bigger edge over Obama in India than Obama would get over him in the U.S.
True, but they have driven on the Chinese built roads, get their electricity from Chinese built hydroelectric dams, get their internet via a Chinese built fiber optic network etc. Given that the China has already done these things for you, would you really want to vote for an American to be in charge?
In my experience, everyday Africans are not fond of the Chinese immigrants – many see them (like many societies see immigrants) as greedy interlopers taking business and jobs away from the local people.
Further, since Obama’s election, sub-Saharan African opinions of America’s leadership have been pretty much astronomical.
Would western-style propaganda have an effect in countries like China?
I can’t see him getting a significant amount of non-US support. Sure, he’s uber-popular in other countries relative to prior POTII, but he’s still a drone-striking, extraordinary-rendering, capitalism-supporting semi-imperialist.
He’s still enormously popular in sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia (which have at least a billion people together, I believe), and I think he’s quite popular in Western Europe as well.
When you Google “Most popular world leader” guess what name pops up?
I was expecting a lot of hits for Obama, but wasn’t expecting much substantiation. But Pew said as recently as last September that Obama was still the world’s most popular leader, and they usually know their stuff.
Huh. I stand properly corrected.
Not only that, but any right-wing American candidates would have a hell of a time building up any overseas allies without disenfranchising their home base. “America First, Last and Only” would be their death knell in a campaign of this sort.
Whereas China only has junk.
The Pope would do well, I think. Maybe the Dalai Lama too. I think any Muslim religious leaders would have a very fractured support structure so they wouldn’t approach those two. I think some rich nations in the West would probably pool their resources into backing one candidate, and maybe we’d have a power struggle between hemispheres or continents. China has a good chance, but many in Asia wouldn’t want a Chinese ruler while I think those in Western Europe and North America would be fine with a ruler from one of these countries. If I had to pick, probably Obama, he’s still very respected in the US and other parts of the world, GOP obstruction notwithstanding.
I’d love to see the collective heads of the right wing blow up when Supreme Leader Obama is elected ruler of the world! 