Ali Abdullah Saleh



A week of protests across Yemen has instilled fear in the heart of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who rushed to release several human-rights activists and journalists just days after they were detained. Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years, has long been criticized for his corrupt government and is seen as a pawn in the U.S.’s counterterrorism efforts. Saleh also has a history of cutting deals with Islamic militants and insurgents of many stripes in order to keep power — a fact that the international community has been paying closer attention to since al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates mainly out of Yemen, claimed responsibility for the 2009 attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines plane en route to Detroit. Earlier this year, Yemen’s parliament gave preliminary approval to a measure that would allow Saleh, who has ruled for more than three decades, to stay in power past his constitutional mandate. The news prompted protests in the country that have intensified since the Tunisian revolt.

 Hosni Mubarak



For years, Egypt has not been on the Middle East radar of most Americans — despite the fact that Washington has been a longtime benefactor of the regime in Cairo. But Egypt, once the dominant force in the region, is at the heart of the news once again as President Hosni Mubarak struggles to cling to power in the face of unprecedented protests. The authoritarian leader has led Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Even though Mubaraks government implemented elections in 2005, true political opposition has long been stifled under his rule. The Muslim Brotherhood, a popular Islamic political group, has largely been suppressed, and the police force is notoriously brutal on antigovernment opponents. Parliamentary elections last year were widely considered to be fraudulent, and many Egyptians saw in the sham the first signs of Mubarak paving the way for his son to take over — laying the foundations of a family dynasty backed by a coterie of corrupt elites. Mubarak is now facing the most serious challenge to his decades-long rule from a populace brimming with years of pent-up rage and frustration.

Omar Hassan al Bashir



Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who came to power in Sudan after leading a coup in 1989 (he has been President since 1993), has the ignoble distinction of being the first sitting head of state for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant. He is wanted for crimes against humanity, war crimes and, as of a second arrest warrant in 2010, genocide in Darfur. The indictments are not the only challenges al-Bashir faces. In January 2011, the same month southern Sudanese voted in a referendum to secede, students in the north took to the streets to protest al Bashir’s regime.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad



His 2009 landslide re-election to a second term with more than 60/ of the vote  caused an uprising in Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s main opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and his supporters cried foul, demanding a recount and later calling for the results to be thrown out. Dozens of people were killed in demonstrations that were quelled by paramilitary forces. After a week of intense protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei declared the results to be valid and affirmed Ahmadinejad’s victory. Just a few days later, the country’s Council of Guardians confirmed that 50 constituencies had returned more votes than there were registered voters. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei clashed on several political fronts, including who would be part of the President’s Cabinet. That tension, coupled with a lingering, broad-based opposition to Ahmadinejad’s administration  including among some of the country’s clerical elite  has kept Ahmadinejad, who wields his power with the backing of the mullahs, on shaky ground.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika



The 73-year-old Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been Algeria’s President since 1999, a long-term operator within the ruling National Liberation Front — the party of socialist revolutionaries whose bloody independence struggle won Algeria its independence from France in 1962 but then rapidly transformed into a hegemonic one-party, army-backed regime. In the 1990s, the ruling regime fought a vicious war with Islamists, who had been denied their rightful place in the government after the army scrapped elections. During his tenure, Bouteflika has attempted to nurse relations with other parties and improve the country’s poor record of democracy, but political freedoms remain checked while observers point to rampant corruption among the Algerian ruling class. Despite the country’s natural-gas wealth, unemployment is high and a strikingly young population itches for greater opportunities. After a citizens’ uprising ousted Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in January, Bouteflika, whose country is considerably poorer than neighboring Tunisia, looks set to face a budding popular revolt as well. Tunisia’s rebellion was sparked when one marginalized youth set himself aflame. Seven such copycat self-immolations have taken place in Algeria since.

House of Saud



With 25% of the world’s oil reserves, accumulating wealth and powerful friends  principally the U.S.  has not been hard for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. But while he and his estimated 7,000 royal family members thrive, enjoying his around $20 billion in wealth, 1 in 7 adults in his country cannot read. Unemployment has topped 10% for years. Censorship is pervasive. Criticizing the government, royal family and the police, who enjoy absolute power, is not allowed. Women have precious few rights and are largely excluded from the workforce. The ruling family has enjoyed absolute power for the better part of 100 years, despite never having been elected. Opposing political parties are simply not allowed. While Abdullah is aligned with the region’s other autocrats  he welcomed Tunisia’s exiled leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and has thrown his support behind Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak a popular uprising in this restrictive but relatively affluent state seems less likely than elsewhere in the Middle East. Still, the House of Saud’s grip has two weaknesses: the family’s refusal to create a democratic system, even while Saudi society itches to be more liberalized, and the continued presence of networks of Islamist fundamentalists that threaten to destroy Abdullah’s credibility as a figure of stability abroad.

Alexander Lukashenko



Often described as the "last dictator in Europe," Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled this East European country for 16 years. To prop up his rule, opposition voices are routinely stifled and there is little to no independent media. Political opponents are often monitored by Belarus’ secret police, still known in this former Soviet republic as the KGB. Lukashenko’s control over the country began in 1996 when the parliament considered impeaching him. He promptly disbanded it. Lukashenko then handpicked the succeeding parliament and took control over the country’s judiciary branch. Last December, the dictator was re-elected with 80 / of the vote, but many independent observers reported widespread fraud. Since then, Lukashenko has led a brutal crackdown on political opponents, including some who ran against him in the presidential election. The international community has imposed sanctions against Belarus for his actions.

Robert Mugabe




Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since the nation achieved independence in 1980. Over the course of more than 30 years as Prime Minister and then President, he and his Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front have violently repressed opposition and been more concerned about maintaining power than improving the well-being of the country’s citizens. Despite strongman tactics, the people’s discontent was made clear in 2008 when Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change received more votes than Mugabe did for President. Violence preceded the runoff, however, and Tsvangirai did not participate. Mugabe subsequently entered into a power-sharing deal with the opposition; he remained President, while Tsvangirai was made Prime Minister.

Kim Jong II



As supreme leader of one of the world’s most isolated states, not much is known of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il apart from the exalted, often absurd declarations made by the communist regime’s official mouthpieces. Things like he once wrote six operas in two years, "coached" his country’s World Cup team using invisible cell-phone technology (which he also invented) and scored a 38 under par in a game of golf (making him the greatest golfer of all time). While these feats of skill are dubious, the extreme poverty in North Korea is clear. As Kim has built one of the world’s largest standing armies, aid agencies estimate some 2 million people have died since the mid-1990s as a result of food shortages due in large part to economic mismanagement. Kim’s totalitarian regime has been accused of torture, public executions, slave labor, forced abortions and infanticides, and an estimated 200,000 people are held as political prisoners.

North Korea’s only glimpse of a hope may lie in the ailing Kim’s death. In choosing to name his son Kim Jong Un, an inexperienced 20-something, as his successor, Kim created a less certain future as other powerful members of his family jockey for the top spot. That uncertainty, some say, could bring about a change of the guard or even a putsch led by dissatisfied military officers.

Emomali Rahmon



Since 1992, just a year after its independence, the small Central Asian state of Tajikistan has been governed by Emomali Rahmon. The former Soviet apparatchik came to power at the onset of a bloody civil war in the country, pitting a faction led by Islamists against a ruling bloc of more secular, Russian-backed forces, among them Rahmon. Tens of thousands died, but Rahmon came out victorious, and, as with leaders of other regimes in Central Asia, he has justified his authoritarianism in part as a hedge against the threat of extremist radicals. But experts describe Rahmon’s Tajikistan as poor and lawless and a key conduit for opium from neighboring Afghanistan. After the financial recession hit the wealthier nations of Russia and Kazakhstan, tens of thousands of Tajik workers  whose remittances form the lifeblood of the Tajik economy went home to poverty-racked villages. In this climate, observers report the revitalizing of a long-dormant Islamist insurgency, backed in part with the arrival of fighters who once dwelled in Pakistan’s tribal areas. All the while, Rahmon continues to govern Tajikistan as his personal fief, his family the beneficiaries of years of graft. His government may still stand, but dark clouds hover over the future of Rahmon’s Tajikistan.

 


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