If there’s been one lesson to glean from the past few days, it’s that Donald Trump is no seasoned candidate for president. His political naiveté was quite apparent when he invited Russian hackers to engage in espionage to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, and then, a day later, when he said his suggestion had been “sarcastic.” It was pretty obvious when he refused to outline a coherent strategy for combating ISIL, claiming that he didn’t want the terrorist group to discover his secrets, and then, two days later, when he said the same about Russia. It was glaring when he told a female reporter to “be quiet” during a press conference. For career politicians, those kinds of gaffes could be campaign-ending.
America has little experience with such green candidates. It has even less experience with such green presidents—the last person to win the presidency with zero prior political experience was Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. And so, if he’s elected in the fall, it’s unclear how Trump-the-newcomer might embrace the post of world leader. To find out we decided to take a look at some other contemporary heads of state who were novices to politics when they took office, and how they handled the power once they got there. Could this be a guide to the Trump presidency?
Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister of Italy
Other than the Atlantic Ocean, on the surface little separates Trump and Italy’s longest-serving prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Their wealth is rooted in real estate and their lifestyles are lavish. They exhibit the same hotheaded bravado, insatiable appetite for women and agressive tan. Both have drawn inspiration from the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Berlusconi started out with a brief stint as a singer on a cruise ship. He struck gold when he turned to real-estate development in the 1960s, predicting a post-war boom and amassing a fortune that allowed him to lead a playboy lifestyle that got his face and his infamous “bunga bunga” parties splashed across the tabloids. Berlusconi later broke into media, amassing an empire that grew to include Italy’s three public television networks, its three largest private networks, its biggest publishing house and 40 magazines. He also owned dozens of other businesses, ranging from his own for-profit university to the soccer team A.C. Milan. Today, Forbes estimates his wealth at $7.1 billion.
The sheer breadth of Berlusconi’s business holdings, however, spurred anti-trust concerns. In a rash move to protect his fortune, Berlusconi made his political debut in the 1994 race for prime minister. Much like Trump, he stirred populism among young Italians with promises of stamping out corruption, lowering taxes and creating jobs. Advertising his lack of political experience as a virtue, he won the election in a surprise landslide. “I don’t need to go into office for the power,” he told the New York Times in 2001 when asked about his reasons for running. “I have houses all over the world, stupendous boats … beautiful airplanes, a beautiful wife, a beautiful family … I am making a sacrifice for my country.”
But Berlusconi’s years in office were marred by scandal and political misfires. His cabinet collapsed nine months into his tenure, plagued by criminal investigations into corruption charges. He lost reelection in 1996, regained power in 2001, and lost again in 2006, before finally becoming prime minister a third time in 2008. In the meantime, he was accused of tax fraud, bribery and having connections to the mafia. In 2011, while being investigated for having sex with an underage prostitute (he was later convicted and acquitted), he resigned his post, ushered out by angry crowds in the streets of Rome yelling “Thief” and “Mafioso” and singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Berlusconi made big promises, but he is remembered for his big failures: failing to pass the austerity measures needed to reduce Italy’s deficit and plunging Europe further into its debt crisis while skirting the law to benefit his own businesses.
Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria
As the third and by no means favorite of former Syrian President Hafez Assad’s 11 children, Bashar al-Assad was never meant to rule. He graduated from Syria’s University of Damascus with a degree in ophthalmology in 1988 and worked at a local military hospital before moving to London to pursue a graduate degree, expressing no interest in politics or entering the military. His older brother Bassel, an army officer and leader of the presidential palace security guard, was the popular choice to succeed his father. But when Bassel died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar, the next youngest son, was summoned to Damascus to be groomed for political life. He assumed power in July 2000, a month after his father died.
Under Assad’s rule, the country has faced a five-year civil war with a death toll numbering nearly half a million, according to the Syrian Center for Policy Research. Since the war’s beginning, Syrian average life expectancy has dropped 14 years, to 56 from 70. Half of the country’s population has been displaced. ISIL has risen to power, declaring a “caliphate” in territory stretching from Aleppo to the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala. And the country has been turned into an international battlefield, with U.S.-coalition forces arming Syria’s rebels in order to defeat ISIL. Assad has presided over a chemical weapons attack on civilians, widespread barrel bombing of cities and the starvation of up to a million of his people. All things considered, Assad may be this century’s bloodiest dictator.
Tihomir Orešković, prime minister of Croatia
As if Europe were not beleaguered enough, just days before Britain voted to leave the European Union, the government of the EU’s newest member, Croatia, totally collapsed—and it’s career-businessman-turned-prime-minister was forced to leave office.
A year ago, Tihomir Orešković was CEO and chairman of Pliva, Croatia’s largest pharmaceutical company, and head of financial management for Teva, a multinational pharmaceutical company. But after an inconclusive parliamentary election last November, two of Croatia’s political parties united and named Orešković as their compromise candidate. (The party’s respective leaders Tomislav Karamarko and Bozo Petrov then became his deputies.) Orešković had no prior political experience, but he assumed his post as the country’s first non-partisan prime minister in January 2016, facing deep economic troubles and rumblings of nationalism as thousands of immigrants poured in from Syria.
Orešković presided over some controversial developments. He was criticized for turning a blind eye as the country’s minister of culture led a campaign against liberal journalists, and for being reluctant to speak out against rising anti-semitism and far-right nationalism.
But it was an internal dispute that would be his downfall. After butting heads with Karamarko, the champion of the country’s right wing, he lost a significant chunk of his support. In June, the conservatives called for a vote of no-confidence, which Orešković lost 125 to 15, and parliament voted a few days later to dissolve, effectively ending the fragile coalition that brought Orešković to power in the first place. Orešković’s ouster might have brought about the country’s most traumatic political upheaval since it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Jimmy Morales, president of Guatemala
Jimmy Morales never wanted to be a politician—unless he was playing one on his weekly YouTube sketch show “Moralejas,” in which he starred alongside his older brother Sammy for nearly 15 years. The show is raunchy, slapstick comedy, and has featured Morales in blackface. But it’s not exactly popular: With a meager following of about 1,000 subscribers online, Morales would not even qualify as famous in his own right as an actor, which makes his ascendency to the top echelons of power all the more wild.
As Guatemalans took to the streets last August protesting their President Otto Perez Molina, who was implicated in a customs fraud scheme, Morales—then totally unknown in politics—announced his candidacy. Molina resigned and was jailed, while Morales ran on a strong anti-corruption platform with the National Convergence Front Party. In the October election, he won in a surprise upset against Molina’s former Vice President Sandra Torres.
Morales’ critics are skeptical of how specifically he will crack down on political malfeasance—but his presidency has the blessing of Vice President Joe Biden, who in January became the first high-ranking U.S. official to attend a Guatemalan inauguration in nearly three decades. “A new Guatemala is possible, and it’s worth the struggle,” Morales said during his inauguration ceremony in January. “Of course things could be better, but I want you to bear in mind things don’t change overnight ... we’re passing from the darkness of corruption to the dawn of transparency.”
So far, however, Morales had relied on the counsel of the National Convergence Front’s old guard. He has continued to embrace the country’s free market policies, which many Guatamalans regard as the source of widespread poverty. He has not made improvements to the state’s crumbling health and educational systems. And he has failed to carry out judicial reform focused on prosecuting the perpetrators of genocide and war crimes during the country’s civil war, which culminated in 1996. Morales stepped into power during time of major transition that would have challenged even a seasoned leader. So far, it seems that defining a clear vision for Guatamala’s future requires more than the six-page manifesto Morales submitted during his candidacy.