Top 10 Longest Serving Leaders Of All Times

People are born and people die yet life goes on. But in this everyday normal things of life, sometimes, people who have a different  ability to influence a whole lot of other people are born.  The world has seen many great leaders in all the parts of the world. But this list is not about the great leaders rather about the longest serving leaders. We take into consideration here only the fact that these few were longest serving leaders and not whether for good or bad.

10. Joisp Broz Tito

Josip Broz born on 7 May 1892 and died on 4 May 1980, commonly known as Tito was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980.  He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. He gained international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Moment, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia. He served for a period of 36 years 157 days.

9. Paul Biya

Paul Biya born on 13 February 1933. Paul Biya was born in the village of Mvomeka'a. A native of Cameroon's south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime Minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982.  He succeeded Ahidjo as President upon the latter's surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983–1984 fake attempted coup where he eliminated all his contestants. Paul Biya is the current president of Cameroon, a title he has held for 37 years.

8. Gnassingbye Eyadema

Gnassingbé Eyadéma, original name Étienne Eyadéma (born December 26, 1935—died February 5, 2005) was soldier who became president of Togo after a military takeover in January 1967. He joined the French army in 1953. He has also served in Indochina, Dahomey, Niger, and Algeria. On returing to Togo in 1962 he attained the rank of sergeant. He participated in two successful military coups, in January 1963 and January 1967, and became President on April 14, 1967. He was  President of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005. Eyadéma’s long rule brought a measure of stability to Togo, and his nationalization of the country’s phosphate industry in 1974 produced increased state revenues for development.

7. Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco Bahamonde(4 December 1892– 19 November 1975) was a Spanish general who ruled over Spain as a military dictator from 1939 until his death in 1975.  Francisco Franco was a career soldier who rose through the ranks until the mid-1930s. When the social and economic structure of Spain began to crumble, Franco joined the growing right-leaning rebel movement. He soon led an uprising against the leftist Republican government and took control of Spain following the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). He ruled for a period of 39 years 50 days. 

6. Enver Hoxha

Enver Hoxha (born Oct. 16, 1908—died April 11, 1985), the first communist chief of state of Albania.  He was chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania and commander-in-chief of the armed forces from 1944 until his death. He served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times served as foreign minister and defense minister as well.  He being country’s ruler for 40 years after World War II, he forced its transformation from a semi feudal relic of the Ottoman Empire into an industrialized economy with the most tightly controlled society in Europe.

5. Omar Bongo

El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo) on 30 December 1935 - died June 8, 2009), in Barcelona . He  became President of Gabon in 1967. He was  the Africa's longest serving leader. He was just 31 and the world's youngest president at the time. Following the February 2005 death of Togolese president Gnassingbé Eyadéma, he became Africa's longest serving ruler. He was elected vice president in March 1967, alongside Leon M'ba, and became president following the death of M'ba on November 28, 1967. Early in the 1970s (it has been reported as both 1970 and 1973), Bongo converted to Islam, taking the name Omar Bongo. In 2003 he added Ondimba as his surname. He ruled for a period of 41 years 155 days.

4. Muammar Gaddafi

AlSharif Muammar bin 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, 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 later came to rule under his own Third International Theory. Muammar al-Gaddafi seized control of the Libyan government in 1969 and ruled as an authoritarian dictator for more than 40 years before he was overthrown in 2011.

3. Chaing Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975), also romanized as Chiang Chieh-shih and known as Chiang Chungcheng. Chiang Kai-shek was a Chinese political leader and the major figure of Chinese history from 1927 to 1948. He led the Chinese Republic during World War II (1939–45) and was eventually forced from power by the Chinese Communists. After 1950 he served as president of the Republic of China on Taiwan. 

2. Kim ll-sung

Kim Il-sung was born Kim Sung-ju on April 15, 1912, the son of a middle-class schoolmaster named Kim Hyung-jik in Pyongan-namdo, a northeastern province of Korea. He was a  communist leader of North Korea from 1948 until his death in 1994. He was the country’s premier from 1948 to 1972, chairman of its dominant Korean Workers’ Party from 1949, and president and head of state from 1972. Kim Il-sung, absolute ruler of North Korea for 46 years, was the first communist head of state to establish dynastic rule, enabling his son to succeed him.

1. Fidel Castro

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was born near Birán, Cuba, in 1926. Fidel Castro was a political leader of Cuba (1959–2008) who transformed his country into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere. Castro became a symbol of communist revolution in Latin America.  Politically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, Castro also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state, while industry and business were nationalized and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society. 

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