Who are currently the de facto farthest left and farthest right world leaders?

[DavidB.]

I have a hard time coming up with a definition of what left-wing and (especially) right-wing mean in a global context. Limiting myself to countries that are reasonably democratic and looking at the leaders within their own national context, Alexis Tsipras is among the most left-wing leaders whereas Viktor Orban seems to be among the most right-wing leaders (although certainly not if one uses a free-market conceptualization of right-wing).

[DavidB.]

As for the right ... Orban, the Gulf monarchs, Khamenei, Shinzo Abe and Nawaz Sharif, maybe.

I fail to see how some of these are right-wing, unless you define that as "in favor of keeping the status-quo" -- which, admittedly, wouldn't be too bad of a definition for developing/not-so-democratic countries, but its comparative value with Western countries is around zero.

Limiting myself to countries that are at least semi-democratic, Erdogan and Putin also come to mind (apart from Orban). Using a more "Western" definition of right-wing (i.e. in favor of less state intervention in the economy), Stephen Harper might have been a good pick before he got defeated.

[DavidB.]

The Gulf monarxhs and Khamnei arw conservatives in my opinion, and I don't think you could deny that?

Sure, I agree, but conservative isn't the same as right-wing.

[DavidB.]

Calling Kim far-left is ridiculous. Not that North Korea can be placed on a left-right scale, but his regime (in practice) is extremely conservative, in the sense it wants the no change in North Korean status quo (one of extreme inequality and not an insignificant amount of capitalism).

"It's not communist as long as it's not nice"...