The Dictators Contest

Semi Final The four successful Quarter finalists were picked randomly against one another.


Kim Jong Il		Enver Hoxha
This really is too tight to call. The man who connived in the shooting down of a South Korean passenger jet up against the man who closed down the churches and instituted the World's first athiest state. When this contest first began thedictatorship.com had serious doubts whether anyone could topple the hermit from North Korea but recently he has been showing signs of wear. Smiling for the cameras? Acting the gentleman with the puppets from the South? Joining ASEAN? Actually leaving the country? Kim is obviously getting mellow in his old age. Come back in a few years and maybe we can see what you are made of then. Hoxha triumphs and bags a place in the final.


Anastasio Samoza		Leonid Brezhnev
If this were merely a contest of scale Comrade Brezhnev would already be through and warming up for the final showdown. The man oversaw an empire that stretched from the North Pacific to the Danube....and after his unpleasant behaviour regarding the Czechs in 1968 had every one of his citizens quaking with fear until the day he died. Against this vastness the 50,503 sq miles of Nicaragua seem inconsequential. Yet out of this tiny state the Samoza family, and particularly its patriarch, Anastasio, carved out one of the greatest fortunes in the Americas. Samoza's legacy, despite the turmoil he put his country through, remains only slightly tarnished. Still respected by a good number of Nicaraguans his family remains in control of a significant chunk of farming land and if the current court cases go the family's way, they could be in charge of a lot more.