"Brother and brother" is more common in Arab countries. After the death of UAE President Khalifa in mid-May, his half-brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, succeeded him. Their father is the first president of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed Sr., backed by the United Kingdom.
Khalifa has been in power for more than ten years. Because of his poor health, he is often ruled by his younger brother, so it is not surprising that his younger brother succeeded to the throne. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, also pledged allegiance to the new president. This Al Maktoum actually inherited these titles from his brother.
Although modern political concepts are widely popularized around the world, the power of family politics cannot be underestimated. This phenomenon is prevalent not only in hereditary countries, but also in other types of countries. Like the revolutionary brothers Fidel Castro and Raul Castro, they were in power successively in Cuba.
In addition to being in power one after another, there are two brothers who took office at the same time. For example, when former Polish President Lech Kaczynski was in office, he appointed his twin brother as Prime Minister of Poland. When Leh was president, he urged NATO and the EU to contain Moscow as soon as possible. In April 2010, he took a plane to Russia to participate in the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest incident. The plane crashed in Smolensk in heavy fog, and he unfortunately died. His older brother is currently Deputy Prime Minister in the Polish government.
There were also the Rajapaksa brothers of Sri Lanka who served as president and prime minister respectively in the same government. Sri Lanka's current president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, appointed his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister in 2019. Mahinda was previously a longtime president, when Gotabaya was named defense minister. Recently, Sri Lanka has been in chaos due to economic decline and people's difficulties in life. Mahinda has resigned as prime minister to avoid the limelight.
It is more common for the brothers not to be heads of government consecutively, but to be separated by a period of time. For example, the current Prime Minister of Pakistan Shabazz Sharif, his brother Nawaz Sharif served as Prime Minister for several times, was later accused of corruption, went into exile, and later returned to his country to serve his sentence, and was released on bail for medical treatment. He is currently stranded in the UK . Shabazz does not seem to be affected by this, and after Imran Khan was forced out not long ago, he became another prime minister of the powerful Sharif family.
In the above examples, everyone can know that they are political brothers just by looking at their names, and there are a pair of brothers who have served as prime ministers successively in Japanese politics, which is somewhat "confusing". That is Kishi Nobuyuki and Sato Eisaku in the 1960s and 1970s. Shinsuke Kishi's father was adopted as the adopted son-in-law of a family surnamed Sato, but Shinsuke Kishi himself later recovered his surname, while his brother Eisaku Sato kept the surname Sato. Later, Kishi's grandson, Shinzo Abe, served as prime minister for a long time. So despite the three surnames Kishi, Sato and Abe, people still call them "one family and three prime ministers".
There are political brothers, and there are political brothers and sisters. Thaksin of Thailand threw himself into politics as a wealthy man, posing a threat to Thailand's traditional political forces such as the royal family, the military and Bangkok's middle class, and was driven out by a coup, but Thaksin's sister Yingluck was elected prime minister. The traditional forces continued to use extraordinary means to force Yingluck to stay overseas as well.
Of course, in addition to taking stock of the global political fraternity and watching a legend, we can also think about what role the political family can play in the transition from traditional politics to modern politics. In a country that implements universal suffrage, there are still so many political families who continue to emerge as one-time talents. Does modern politics value family brands, or political families really have good political genes and talents, or both? Or is there a reason for institutional design? We can also ask: is this phenomenon the accepted norm, or is it just an accident?
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