Whenever a president is deposed, we always go through the same rigmarole: he goes on the lam and issues statements that say that he is still the legitimately elected leader.
And in many cases that’s true. But how often do they ever get to really come back? I was thinking about that this morning. The answer is: not often.
One exception that I could think of was Pres. Charles de Gaulle, who briefly fled during the May 1968 uprising in France. He returned to power after the military and police crushed the students and labor unions in street battles.
There is also Pres. Aristide of Haiti, overthrown not once but twice. After the first time, the Clinton administration invaded Haiti in order to return him to power. A few years later, the Bush administration backed a coup that overthrew him and forced him to fly to the Central African Republic. But at least that first time under Clinton, he counts as a legitimately elected president who was returned to power, albeit via foreign military intervention.
Can you think of other examples of restorations?
6 Comments.
I’m thinking of Charles II. Granted, it doesn’t quite satisfy your conditions, but if you go by the house line of the monarchy (I don’t remember which strand of inbred foreigners Charles I and II were), it would qualify as a “return.”
Someone also mentioned Hugo Chavez.
I also thought of the English restoration (maybe just because you used the word). Chávez is only barely an example; I wouldn’t describe him as overthrown and restored so much as briefly captured during ongoing civil strife which he eventually came out on top of. At least one other Latin American president, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, survived an even briefer coup attempt in which he was held hostage by national police in a military hospital.
What about Perón? He was popular if unelected, was deposed, and then brought back much much later.
Well, Idi Amin got close….
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Also, if you buy into complete bullshit, the current state of Israel would count as a restoration — assuming you ignore the entire archaeological, anthropological record.
In 1991, Gorbachev was ‘deposed’, but shot right back into power within days. I will never forget that particularly nerve-wracking set of days. Not that Gorbachev had AS much to come back TO, since he watched the Soviet empire dissolve, enraging the loyal Communist coup leaders for allowing it to happen…but he came back. Yeltsin took his place almost immediately. He, too, was the victim of an almost-coup. That’s all I got right now.