Worst world leader of the 20th Century who wasn't a dictator?

[DimesDan]

Be they from your home nation or another nation and one who was not a dictator as we all know the answers to that question (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc). Who do you think was the worst world leader of the last century.

Going by Britain alone, it would be Margaret "destroy the unions" Thatcher or Neville "Peace in our time" Chamberlane.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Limiting it to democratic leaders makes the question tricky but my nomination goes to Berlusconi who's obviously far, far, far beyond the pale.

 

[Pingfah]

Milošević, makes Berlusconi look like a choirboy.

 

[Count Zero]

I'd go with the German Emperor Wilhelm II. An idiot with little grasp of subtle foreign policy who played a pivotal role in starting WWI.

 

[Avon]

david cameron

 

[DimesDan]

Limiting it to democratic leaders makes the question tricky but my nomination goes to Berlusconi who's obviously far, far, far beyond the pale.

I know, but if I didn't restrict it to that, it would be a contest to debate who was worse, Hitler or Stalin. My mempry is a bit fuzzy on this, but wan't Hitler "elected" Chancellor so if I had put dully elected, he probably would have come up on top aswell.

 

[Pingfah]

david cameron

Wanna take a look at your calendar there?

 

[DimesDan]

david cameron

Wanna take a look at your calendar there?

indeed, I just missed that. Dave "Hug a Hoodie" Cameron was elected in 2010 which last time I checked was well and truly in the 21st Century.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I know, but if I didn't restrict it to that, it would be a contest to debate who was worse, Hitler or Stalin. My mempry is a bit fuzzy on this, but wan't Hitler "elected" Chancellor so if I had put dully elected, he probably would have come up on top aswell.

That's debatable, depends how you look at it.
Technically, the Chancellor wasn't (and still isn't) "elected" by the people at all, the people vote for representatives in the Reichs-/Bundestag who can hold the Kanzler accountable. But in the Weimar Republic the Reichskanzler was selected the Reichspräsident who theoretically could have selected anybody. In reality that person had to be someone who has the support of the Reichstag so usually the leader of the strongest party in the parliamentary elections. And that was Hitlers's NSDAP with 33% after the november 1932 elections (which were the last democratic elections in Germany before WWII).
And a couple months later President Hindenburg made him Kanzler, which was de facto the end of democracy in Germany. So I think it's more accurate to say Hitler was legally/constitutionally elected, but not necessarily democratically - 33% is not really an overwhelming vote of confidence. And nothing that happened after his appointment to Reichskanzler was even remotely democratic.

 

[Pingfah]

david cameron

Wanna take a look at your calendar there?

indeed, I just missed that. Dave "Hug a Hoodie" Cameron was elected in 2010 which last time I checked was well and truly in the 21st Century.

And even so, I'm no Tory, but naming him the worst leader of a century would be completely absurd.

 

[Count Zero]

I know, but if I didn't restrict it to that, it would be a contest to debate who was worse, Hitler or Stalin. My mempry is a bit fuzzy on this, but wan't Hitler "elected" Chancellor so if I had put dully elected, he probably would have come up on top aswell.

That's debatable, depends how you look at it.
Technically, the Chancellor wasn't (and still isn't) "elected" by the people at all, the people vote for representatives in the Reichs-/Bundestag who can hold the Kanzler accountable. But in the Weimar Republic the Reichskanzler was selected the Reichspräsident who theoretically could have selected anybody. In reality that person had to be someone who has the support of the Reichstag so usually the leader of the strongest party in the parliamentary elections. And that was Hitlers's NSDAP with 33% after the november 1932 elections (which were the last democratic elections in Germany before WWII).
And a couple months later President Hindenburg made him Kanzler, which was de facto the end of democracy in Germany. So I think it's more accurate to say Hitler was legally/constitutionally elected, but not necessarily democratically - 33% is not really an overwhelming vote of confidence. And nothing that happened after his appointment to Reichskanzler was even remotely democratic.

Also, by the time Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the parliament had been pretty much out of the loop of the law making process for years. Since 1930, the varying Cabinets ruled by emergency decrees made by the President, using a legal loophole in the Weimar Constitution.
Theoretically, the parliament could overrule these decrees but they were threatened with new elections which would have helped the extremist parties, so at first, the Social Democrats tolerated these minority governments. Later, parties opposing the republic, namely the Nazis and the Communists gained the absolute majority of seats, at which point parliament had to be permanently circumvented because otherwise a vote of no confidence would have succeeded. This period is sometimes even called presidential dictatorship (Präsidialdiktatur).
President Hindenburg appointing Hitler as Chancellor was actually his attempt to return to a Chancellor once again backed by a parliamentary majority (in the meantime, the bourgeois and monarchist parties had been persuaded to back Hitler). One of the gravest misjudgements in history, to be sure.

 

[Myasishchev]

Thatcher, probably. Yeltsin was pretty shit, too.

 

[Avon]

no i'm sticking with david cameron. my dislike transcends time.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Was Milosevic democratically elected? If so, him.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Limiting it to democratic leaders makes the question tricky but my nomination goes to Berlusconi who's obviously far, far, far beyond the pale.

For how much I would love to agree, there was worse than him around. Much worse. Slobodan Milošević qualifies. Also, Robert Mugabe.

 

[SPOCKED]

no i'm sticking with david cameron. my dislike transcends time.

^ pure awesome!

 

[TheGodBen]

In Ireland, Charlie Haughey. While a minister, he was fired for using the aid budget to import arms for the IRA (allegedly). While leader, he took bribes from wealthy businessmen and lived like a king during a time of austerity, in 1986 he was actually endorsed by Colonel Gaddafi and he used to use his private yacht to fuck around with the British navy.

Actually, that last part was admirable. The rest, not so much.

In reality, he's small fry, but I hesitate to think what he would have done as leader of a big country.