If Barack Obama wins the U.S. presidential election in November at the age of 47, he will become one of the youngest Americans to assume the presidency. But Obama would still be older than these guys in the list compiled by Foreign Policy . There’s only one from South Asia: Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan. Born Feb. 21, 1980, he assumed power on Dec. 14, 2006:
How he got to the top: His father handed him the position.
In a benevolent effort to move his Switzerland-sized Himalayan kingdom of 600,000 from a monarchy to a democracy, his father-the previous king-abdicated in December 2006 and passed the throne to “Prince Jigme,” who fittingly has a master’s degree in politics from Oxford University. The Land of the Thunder Dragon became the world’s newest democracy in March when Bhutanese went to the polls for the first time ever to elect a 47-seat National Assembly. The handsome king will remain as the country’s head of state, but he is committed to guiding Bhutan’s democratization.
Click here for other leaders in the list:
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