Kal, you know I like you and I like your contribution to EVERY survivor and to many, many threads in this forum.
But, here, I don't agree with you. I'm sure that Nhoj voted for a smaller number of leftist leaders than I did myself, up to now...
And, well, voting so early for John Paul II, Friedman, Kohl, Erhard, even Reagan may well be considered as a leftist partisan hack from you
(I was really sad about John Paul II and I'll be sad about Kohl)
Of course, unfortunately, many of us, except Hash, Edu and, in a way, Gully Foyle and PiT, have strong leanings.
Of course, it can be partly hidden by "national" trends that makes you, for example, voting for Soviet leaders. Or, for me, a negative stance against African leaders, even pro-Western ones. But, still, the leaning is here.
As for me, I'm often 1 or 2 rounds late to oust rightist leaders: I would have voted for Franco, Stroessner, Reagan, but, well 1, 2 and 4-5 rounds later (respectively...).
And, with Lewis, Sibboleth, Hans-im-Glück, BRTD (though BRTD is more moderate than in previous survivors
) and... yourself (yes !!
), I'm a bit forced to balance things and so, against my will, I'm forced to vote a bit more on the right than I'd want, or I'm forced to anticipate a bit...
I knew it would be difficult to eliminate Guevara. I know it will be hard to oust Ortega, Gramsci, Sartre, even Togliatti, and though they were all bad men...
Honestly, Nhoj has really voted for dictators and in a quite balanced way. Maybe a little bit more with a centre-right positioning, but less than me !
And, on Ortega proper, well in 1979-1990, he was a disappointment and he didn't really established a democracy or helped his country's economy (especially after 1983-84).
Of course, you may say all of this is Reagan's fault and that Ortega couldn't do anything else.
But he wasn't forced to turn to Havana and Moscow first.
Some more moderate leaders, as Eden Pastora, were sidelined quite quickly.
At least, just acknowledge Ortega is debatable.
But, well, Kohl also. Who would have been so strong in front of Gorbachev in the end of 1989: this is him who took the reunification from Gorbachev and Shevardnadze (who was more open than Gorby on the subject, BTW). Kohl, nobody else.
Who took the decision of the parity 1:1 DM-Ost mark ? Catastrophic economically, very fair socially...
And Kohl, with Mitterrand and Delors, did a lot to save the European idea, which was dying slowly...
So, the debate is difficult on him too. More than on Ortega, I think
Let's keep on voting in this survivor, which is so diverse and miwed that I think you always find a personal "hero", bad or good...
Remember my reluctance to vote for Beria and now for Lin Biao (I should hate them in normal life, but here, well...)
It's a game and you can try to make some weird leaders to qualify for the top 5 (Hashemite, Gully Foyle, Lewis, Sibboleth and myself have some, believe me: I already guess1 or 2
)
I would have been pleased by a final Peron-Deng Xiaoping or Beria-Salazar (Sigh) !
