Of current "strongmen", we are quite taken with Yahya Jammeh, president of Gambia since a coup in 1994, and leader of the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction – a name which might usefully be borrowed by whatever chaotic multi-party coalition emerges from next week's electoral imbroglio in the UK.
Nikolic desired to run again but was stopped from doing so by his own Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which instead endorsed the current prime minister, strongman Aleksandar Vucic.
But he does quote the Rwandan strongman and current president Paul Kagame as calling his military intervention "self-sustaining," and cites an estimate that the Rwandan Army and allied businesses reaped some $250 million in Congolese minerals profits at the height of the second war.
This bold and risky move comes on the heels of a "general amnesty" for 14,600 prisoners who were freed last week by the military strongman and current president Thein Sein.
But if the momentum unleashed by these resisters is to have lasting impact, it must drive a progressive agenda that will reverse the current regression toward misogyny, scapegoating, and "strongman" rule in both the family and state.
For earlier, in the same courtroom, Mr. Milosevic, the jailed former Serbian strongman, and Stjepan Mesic, the current Croatian president, spent the morning sparring.
"China's current problem is that it has no strongman, and no democratic decision-making system," either of which could confer legitimacy, said the researcher, whose specialty is Communist Party history.
Throngs of protestors disenchanted with the regime took to the streets, burning tires and chanting "Freedom," and "Oh Mubarak, Saudi Arabia awaits you," a reference to the current hiding place of Tunisia's ousted strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Guinea was plunged into its current political turmoil after Lansana Conté, 74, its strongman ruler for 24 years, died Monday with no publicly announced plans for a successor.
