World Leaders by Country 2005 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jacques Chirac

As president of France, Jacques Chirac is also co-Prince of Andorra.

Raffarin and de Villepin were prime ministers of France during 2005. Jospin was Raffarin's predecessor and also a defeated candidate in both the 1995 and 2002 presidential elections.

Answer: Iran

Ahmadinejad was mayor of the Iranian capital, Tehran, prior to his election.

Considered a hardliner, Ahamdinejad won a surprise victory over former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to replace the reformist Mohammad Khatami.

Answer: Brazil

Lula won the 2002 presidential election after three previous attempts, taking office in 2003.

A trade unionist, Lula was the first left-wing president of Brazil in almost forty years.

Answer: Hosni Mubarak

Vice-president of Egypt under Anwar Sadat, Mubarak became president of Egypt after the assassination of Sadat in 1981. He was re-elected for a fifth term of office in 2005. Although this was the first Egyptian presidential election to allow multi-party candidates, the fairness of the election was called into question by the opposition and foreign observers.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was president of Tunisia in 2005, Bashar Assad was president of Syria and Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) was president of the Palestinian Authority.

Answer: Germany

The German federal election was held on 18th September 2005. Although Merkel's party had begun the campaign with a 21% lead over the main governing party in the opinion polls, the final result was so narrow that it was two months before coalition talks between the two largest parties could be finalised and Merkel confirmed as Germany's new chanceller.

She is the first woman and the first citizen of the former East Germany to hold the post.

Answer: Helen Clark

Ms Clark first became prime minister of New Zealand in 1999 and in the 2005 election was narrowly re-elected to a third term over her opposition rival, Don Brash.

Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley were Helen Clark's predecessors as prime minister.

Answer: Japan

Koizumi first became prime minister in 2001 and in 2005 led his Liberal Democratic Party to one of the biggest victories in Japanese political history.

Answer: Gloria Arroyo - Chile

Gloria Arroyo was the president of the Philippines in 2005.
In 2005 Chile was led by President Ricardo Lagos.

Answer: Zimbabwe

Prominent in the struggle against white rule in what was then Rhodesia, Mugabe became first prime minister of independent Zimbabwe in 1980 and then, in 1987, president.

Answer: Mexico

Fox was elected president of Mexico in 2000, ending over seventy years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Answer: Afghanistan

Karzai became interim president of Afghanistan in 2002, following the overthrow of the Taliban government. In 2004 he became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan.

Answer: Australia

Howard first became PM of Australia in 1996, winning subsequent elections in 1998, 2001 and 2004.

Answer: Sri Lanka

Ms Kumaratunga was president of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005, leaving office in November of that year.

As well as being the first woman to serve as as her country's president she was also the second woman to serve (albeit briefly) as the country's prime minister, the first being her own mother. When she was elected as president, Ms Kumaratunga resigned as prime minister and appointed her mother to serve once more as prime minister.

Answer: Vladimir Putin

Putin became Prime Minister of Russia in 1999. Then on 31 December 1999 he became Acting President of the Russian Federation, and was elected as president in 2000.

Nazarbayev, Niyazov and Lukashenko were presidents in 2005 of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Belarus respectively.

Answer: Sonia Gandhi, India

Despite being the leader of the Congress Party, Mrs Gandhi, the widow and daughter-in-law of previous Indian prime ministers, decided not to accept the office of prime minister when her party won an unexpected election victory in 2004, due to the strife likely to be engendered by her Italian origins.