There is a very famous saying , " Power tends to to corrupt , and absolute power corrupts absolutely . "
Here , we look at the lengths of dictators' reigns before they were overthrown by their own people ............
Muammar Gaddafi - Country : Libya , Time of Power before overthrown : 1969 to 2011 ( 42 Years )
Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi - 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. He was initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, but he came to rule according to his own Third International Theory.
A highly divisive figure, Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality. He was decorated with various awards and lauded for his anti-imperialist stance, his support for Arab and then African unity, and for significant improvements that his government brought to the Libyan people's quality of life. Conversely, domestically his social and economic reforms were strongly opposed by Islamic fundamentalists and he was internationally condemned as a dictator whose authoritarian administration violated the human rights of Libyan citizens and financed global terrorism.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi
Antonio Salazar - Country : Portugal , Time of Power before overthrown : 1932 to 1968 ( 36 Years )
António de Oliveira Salazar -28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a Portuguese politician and economist who was Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. Salazar founded and led the Estado Novo ("New State"), the corporatist authoritarian government that ruled Portugal until 1974.
After the Portuguese coup d'état of 28 May 1926, Salazar entered public life with the support of President Óscar Carmona, initially as finance minister and later as prime minister. Opposed to democracy, communism, socialism, anarchism and liberalism, the ideology of Portugal was conservative and nationalist in nature under his rule. Salazar also promoted Catholicism, but argued that the role of the Church was social, not political, and negotiated the Concordat of 1940. One of the mottos of the Salazar regime was "Deus, Pátria e Familia" (meaning "God, Fatherland, and Family").
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar
Alfredo Stroessner - Country : Paraguay , Time of Power before overthrown : 1954 to 1989 ( 35 Years )
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (Spanish pronunciation: [alˈfreðo strosˈner]; November 3, 1912 – August 16, 2006) was a Paraguayan military officer who served as President of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. He ascended to the position after leading an army coup in 1954. His 35-year-long rule, marked by an uninterrupted period of repression in his country, is the longest in modern South American history. Stroessner's rule is ranked 20th-longest among other non-royal national leaders since 1870, and made him one of the world's longest-serving non-royal heads of state.
In 1954, he ousted Federico Chávez, becoming president after winning an election in which he was the sole candidate. A staunch anti-communist, Stroessner had the backing of the United States for most of his time in power. His supporters packed the legislature and ran the courts, and he ruthlessly suppressed all political opposition. He kept his country in what he called a constant "state of siege" that overruled its democratic constitution, enforced a cult of personality, and used torture against political opposition. Membership in his Colorado Party was a prerequisite for job promotion, free medical care and other services. The constitution had to be modified in 1967 and 1977 to legitimize his six consecutive elections to the presidency. In 1988, he won an unprecedented eighth term on a majority, according to official figures, of between 90 and 98 percent of the registered vote.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner
President Saddam Hussein - Country : Iraq , Time of Power before overthrown : 1969 to 2003 ( 34 Years )
Ṣaddām Ḥusayn was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.[8] A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism—Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup (later referred to as the 17 July Revolution) that brought the party to power in Iraq.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflicts between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions.[9] Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatus of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were mostly filled with Sunni Arabs, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein
Mobutu Sese Seko - Country : Zaire Africa , Time of Power before overthrown : 1965 to 1997 ( 32 Years )
Mobutu Sese Seko born 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was the military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which Mobutu renamed Zaire in 1971) from 1965 to 1997. He also served as Chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity in 1967–1968.
Once in power, Mobutu formed an authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence, while enjoying considerable support from the United States due to his anti-communist stance.
During the Congo Crisis, Belgian forces helped Mobutu in a coup d'état against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to rule the government. Lumumba was the first leader in the country to be democratically elected, but he was subsequently deposed in a coup organised by Colonel Mobutu and executed by a Katangese firing squad led by Julien Gat, a Belgian mercenary.[1] Mobutu then assumed the role of army chief of staff,[2] before taking power directly in a second coup in 1965. As part of his program of "national authenticity", Mobutu changed the Congo's name to Zaire in 1971 and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972.
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko
