Woodchopper wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 9:47 am
Dictators don't get to retire. Their successor doesn't want a rival and will get rid of them. Kadyrov would just fall out of a window like all the others.
Indeed much more often they are overthrown or die in office. Some of the overthrown managed to escape to a long life in exile, like Idi Amin. Emperor Bokassa of CAR seemed to have a nice life in Paris after his overthrow, and it's not clear to me why he returned home to be thrown in prison. Similarly Fujimori of Peru. But a few have handed over government peacefully and carried on with a quiet life, at least for a while.
Several Chinese emperors after Mao retired to a quiet life - Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao. Though the present emperor Xi Jinping may choose not to, it appears, and seems to have consolidated enough power to get his will. Though we are still waiting for that great assembly that will confirm it.
Than Shwe of Myanmar resigned after 19 years as military ruler, handing over to Thein Sein, who ruled for 5 years until they decided to hold elections. They both continue to be free and wealthy within Myanmar, and influential in the Burmese military. 5 years after Thein Sein handed over to an elected leader, the Burmese military restored its rule in a coup.
Augusto Pinochet of Chile managed to live a quiet and comfortable life for several years in Chile, after deciding to hold an election he failed to rig, until he made the mistake of coming to Britain for medical treatment.
Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan retired in 2019, and has since been stripped of his influential I'm-the-power-behind-the-throne positions by his successor Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. He seems to carry on in quiet retirement, and the formal capital city is still named after him.
King Sultan of Saudi Arabia has apparently retired, while still being king, by putting his preferred, and even more despotic, son in charge.