Items20The creator’s order
  1. 1George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonWashington could almost certainly have been re-elected for life. By declining a third term in 1797 and handing over to John Adams, he established that the American presidency passed to a successor chosen by election, a two-term custom that held until 1940 and became the Twenty-second Amendment in…0i
  2. 2John AdamsJohn AdamsThe election of 1800 was the first in which an American party lost the presidency to its opponents. Adams, a Federalist, was beaten by Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans after a bitter campaign, and the outcome was settled only when the House broke a tie on its 36th ballot. Adams left…0i
  3. 3Léopold Sédar SenghorLéopold Sédar SenghorBorn 9 Oct 1906Senegal's first president, also a celebrated poet, resigned voluntarily on 31 December 1980 and handed over to his prime minister, Abdou Diouf, under a constitutional succession clause. Very few African founding presidents of that era left office alive and by choice. Senghor had governed a…0i
  4. 4Julius NyerereJulius NyerereBorn 13 Apr 1922Nyerere stepped down as Tanzania's president in 1985 while still popular and handed over to Ali Hassan Mwinyi, then gave up the ruling party's chairmanship in 1990. It was a transfer within a one-party system, not a democratic election, but it established that Tanzanian presidents retire on…0i
  5. 5Mathieu KérékouMathieu KérékouBorn 2 Sept 1933A Marxist-Leninist military ruler, Kérékou faced economic collapse and mass protest in 1989 and agreed to a National Conference of civil society, which stripped him of most powers and organised elections. He lost to Nicéphore Soglo in 1991 and accepted the result, making Benin one of the first…0i
  6. 6Kenneth KaundaKenneth KaundaBorn 28 Apr 1924Zambia's founding president ran a one-party state for nearly two decades before strikes, food riots and an attempted coup pushed him to legalise opposition parties in 1990. In the October 1991 election he lost heavily to the trade unionist Frederick Chiluba and conceded the same day, with…0i
  7. 7Mikhail GorbachevMikhail GorbachevBorn 2 Mar 1931On 25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president on television and handed control of the nuclear arsenal to Boris Yeltsin. The union had already been dissolved by the leaders of its republics, and he chose not to use force to hold it together, as he had also declined to do in Eastern…0i
  8. 8Corazon AquinoCorazon AquinoBorn 25 Jan 1933Aquino came to power through the 1986 People Power protests against Ferdinand Marcos, survived several coup attempts, and in 1992 handed over to Fidel Ramos after an election under the new 1987 constitution, which limits presidents to a single six-year term. She refused to seek another term…0i
  9. 9F. W. de KlerkF. W. de KlerkBorn 18 Mar 1936De Klerk unbanned the ANC, released Nelson Mandela in 1990, won a whites-only referendum in 1992 to continue negotiations and handed power to Mandela after the 1994 election. The settlement came out of years of sanctions, internal resistance and economic decline as well as his own choices. He…0i
  10. 10Nelson MandelaNelson MandelaBorn 18 Jul 1918Mandela served one term and stepped down in 1999, although the constitution allowed two and he would have won easily. In a continent where founding leaders often stayed on, the decision mattered as much as his election. He handed over to Thabo Mbeki through a normal ANC succession and the 1999…0i