Old Rulers Hate to Give Up Power

The world learned today that Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as president of Egypt. He had been pressured to step down for more than two weeks, and for a while it looked as though he was resolutely clinging to power.

The man is 82 years old and had been in power for 30 years. I retired when I was 64, and it's hard for me to understand people who want to keep on working until their eighties.

But I guess there's an important difference between them and me: power. People who have power typically don't want to give it up. I guess having power, and ruling, is a lot of fun.

I thought it would be interesting to look at some other people who ruled for a long time and into an old age.

• The last Habsburg emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Joseph, died at age 86, at which point he had ruled for 68 years.
• Queen Victoria of England died at age 81, after she had ruled for 63 years.
• The present Queen of England, Elizabeth II, is 81 years old and has been ruling for 58 years. (The queen of England, as a constitutional monarch, really does not have much power to "rule.")
  
• Fidel Castro is now 84 years old. He stepped down as head of Cuba in 2008, when he was 81. He had been in power for 49 years.
  

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein