Thread by @markoftec

🌍 THE GLOBAL PURGE OF INDEPENDENT LEADERS (2020 – 2022)

From early 2020 onward, a repeating script unfolded: a head of state voiced skepticism of lockdowns, PCR testing, or experimental mRNA vaccines; international agencies scolded them; chaos or “illness” struck; and within weeks new officials delivered full compliance and…

…suddenly unlocked frozen aid money. The alignment was worldwide—different cultures, same choreography.

In 🇧🇮 Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza expelled the World Health Organization from his country in May 2020, saying foreign interference was undermining national sovereignty. He kept the nation open while neighboring states imposed severe restrictions.

Merely two weeks after that decision he was dead, officially of a “heart attack,” though associates described him as being in vibrant health.

His successor, Évariste Ndayishimiye, reversed course immediately, reopened WHO offices, and signed new vaccine and funding arrangements that brought Burundi back into the international fold.

In 🇸🇿 Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini resisted extreme lockdown policies, insisting that starving citizens to stop a virus was immoral. In December 2020 he was taken to South Africa “for observation” and declared dead soon afterward.

The royal government that replaced him moved quickly to impose strict curfews, accept COVAX vaccines, and collect foreign emergency aid.

A similar disappearance occurred in 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast.

Hamed Bakayoko, the charismatic prime minister, had publicly encouraged herbal treatments and questioned the accuracy of PCR diagnostics. In March 2021 he died in Germany of “cancer,” barely eight months after his predecessor suffered a similar fate.

His passing removed the last voice questioning WHO dependence. President Alassane Ouattara’s administration proceeded to import AstraZeneca doses through COVAX, and by summer the country was being praised for its “responsible leadership.”

The next to fall was 🇹🇿 Tanzania’s John Magufuli, Africa’s most outspoken skeptic of mass testing and vaccines. He mocked the system by demonstrating that fruit and goats tested positive for COVID.

After vanishing from public view in March 2021, the vice‑president announced that he had died of heart failure.

His replacement, Samia Suluhu Hassan, promptly reversed every one of his policies, accepted a $600 million IMF “emergency” loan, reopened the gates to foreign pharmaceutical programs, and declared a massive vaccination drive before year’s end.

Then came 🇭🇹 Haiti, where Jovenel Moïse had rejected donated vaccine shipments, explaining that the country faced deeper issues of water and poverty. On July 7 2021, he was executed in his home by an armed team whose origins remain murky.

Within three weeks, Haiti received half a million Moderna doses from COVAX and enjoyed renewed flows of Inter‑American Development Bank and USAID funding. The national policy flipped overnight.

In 🇯🇵 Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe avoided harsh lockdowns and refused to make vaccination compulsory. In August 2020 he resigned citing chronic illness, a convenient exit for global interests irritated by Japan’s autonomy.

His successor Yoshihide Suga approved emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine within weeks, and after political struggles Fumio Kishida continued the same line, expanding booster programs and digital health passes.

When Abe, now a private citizen and public skeptic of global centralization, was assassinated in July 2022, the last independent conservative bastion in Japan’s establishment disappeared.

The current government invested ¥4.5 trillion—about $40 billion—in mRNA infrastructure partnerships with Western firms.

Slovakia 🇸🇰 followed the pattern in March 2021 when Igor Matovič, who had attempted to purchase Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine outside the European Union’s centralized supply, was forced out after furious criticism from Brussels.

His successor Eduard Heger rejoined the EU’s procurement framework and in return unlocked €6.3 billion in recovery funds.

Nearby, the Czech Republic 🇨🇿 saw Prime Minister Andrej Babiš lose power at the end of 2021 after refusing to maintain endless pandemic states of emergency.

His replacement Petr Fiala implemented vaccine passports and mass‑testing decrees soon afterward, bringing the nation into perfect accord with EU directives.

Austria 🇦🇹 lost Sebastian Kurz the same year.

Once a rising star who had questioned perpetual lockdowns, Kurz resigned under the weight of a corruption scandal in October 2021.

Within days his successor announced Europe’s first universal vaccine mandate and qualified the country for €4.5 billion in European Stability Mechanism funding.

In the 🇬🇧 United Kingdom, Boris Johnson’s government had ended restrictions in mid‑2021 and refused to make vaccine passports a permanent condition of daily life. The press then exploded with “Partygate” scandals over gatherings during lockdown.

Johnson resigned in 2022, replaced by Rishi Sunak, who restored Britain to full WHO cooperation and financed a £2 billion digital‑health‑ID system intended to prevent “misinformation.”

Half a world away in 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa argued that global supply sabotage and debt were worse problems than COVID. By mid‑2022 coordinated protests and economic chaos forced him to flee abroad.

Within weeks, the IMF approved a $3 billion bailout that required health‑security reforms and the adoption of digital‑surveillance frameworks under WHO supervision.

Brazil 🇧🇷 completed the second‑wave phase of this storyline.

President Jair Bolsonaro ridiculed mask mandates, called lockdowns a luxury for the rich, and questioned vaccine safety. After two furious years of constant hostility from media conglomerates and international NGOs, he lost the 2022 election.

Lula da Silva took office, rejoined WHO initiatives, and secured a $1.2 billion World Bank “preparedness” loan.

Along the African coast to 🇲🇬 Madagascar, President Andry Rajoelina had introduced his own herbal remedy, COVID‑Organics, and rejected Western pharmacology.

In 2021 an attempted coup shook the island, and under global pressure Rajoelina signed new agreements restoring WHO cooperation that same year so donor funding could return.

In Eastern Europe, cabinet members in 🇷🇴 Romania and 🇧🇬 Bulgaria who questioned opaque EU vaccine contracts were quietly removed in 2021; new administrations swiftly implemented digital health certification systems.

European Commission funds that had been on hold were released immediately afterward—€29 billion in Romania’s case and €6 billion for Bulgaria.

Even nations that avoided catastrophic leadership changes felt the same squeeze.

In 🇵🇾 Paraguay, 🇿🇦 South Africa, and 🇲🇽 Mexico, IMF and World Bank health‑contingent credit lines appeared, effectively forcing adherence to the WHO policy package. Leaders who resisted faced crippling media campaigns and civil unrest until they yielded.

From 2020 to 2022, the result was unmistakable: national autonomy collapsed beneath a synchronized agenda linking public‑health compliance to economic salvation. Countries that resisted early, especially in Africa, suffered the hardest blows—five sitting leaders dead in one year.

More powerful nations experienced subtler coups through scandal, protest, or economic blackmail, all producing the same end state.

What emerged from these parallel crises was not medical harmony but political homogenization.

Each successor declared a “renewed partnership with science,” welcomed new funding from the IMF, World Bank, or GAVI, and ushered in digital‑compliance systems that now define post‑pandemic governance.

By the end of 2022 nearly every government on Earth—rich or poor, democratic or autocratic—had been brought into alignment.

Differing flags, languages, and histories no longer prevented one shared choreography: resistance punished, obedience financed, and sovereignty quietly exchanged for a coordinated global script.