In 1992, military officer Valentine Strasser took control of Sierra Leone at age 25 after staging a coup. Many of his fellow junta members, known as "The Boys," were also in their 20s. His brutal rule included an attempt to change the national anthem to "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"
How did they pull off their coup? They met with virtually no resistance and just found the president hiding in his bathroom. The soldiers arrested him, then realized they needed to appoint a leader, so Strasser basically became president "by accident"
This is Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now. You have probably heard this song
He had a vice chairman who was 22. After 4 years in power Strasser was then ousted, ended up living with his mom, and all these years later has become a sort of "where are they now" fable, with journalists periodically making pilgrimage to meet him
"'The children are running the country,' it was said. A photograph of Strasser at the 1993 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Limassol, Cyprus, shows a young man in sunglasses and a T-shirt, emblazoned with the words 'Sunny Days in Cyprus'"
He also held official celebrations for Valentine's Day. Not joking, that's in the BuzzFeed article. Also for Bob Marley's birthday
The world's current youngest head of state is also a junta leader (Ibrahim Traore, Burkina Faso), although he's in his 30s
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A look ahead at Peru's next presidential election, whenever that is. A mayor who has labeled himself the "Peruvian Bolsonaro" and an 81-year-old economist top polls right now.
"El Bolsonaro Peruano" guy (Rafael Lopez Aliaga) was just elected mayor of Lima last fall, and says he's not interested in running for the presidency. The economist, Hernando de Soto, says he's looking at it, while the latter name, Antauro Humala, basically declared his intent
Featuring this anecdote about why Humala was released from prison so early after his attempted takeover of a police station in 2005
In Finland, a parliamentary candidate from a far-right party claiming to be 35 years old was discovered to actually be 47. When asked about it, Sofia Kazakova claimed to be "trans-thirtysomething" with "no gender and no age" iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/e…
I am coining this now, it's called Santos Syndrome and it is a global disease
Zelensky took the occasion of his press conference with Meloni to... slam Silvio Berlusconi, amid tensions within Italy's governing right-wing coalition politico.eu/article/volody…
Berlusconi is infamous for being pals with Putin. Actually every member of the governing coalition was very Russia-friendly until the invasion last year
Specifically, this was Berlusconi recently: "Last week, Berlusconi — one of Meloni’s main allies in the Italian parliament and in the ruling coalition — criticized Zelenskyy, accusing him of being responsible for the war in Ukraine"
Support for Marcos was something the US eventually had to do an about-face on because of all the corruption, now there's a guy in office who maintains his father was not corrupt at all. It is possible that embracing the next Marcos eventually results in the same story