Politics and corruption go hand in hand pretty much like your first beer and second beer do. Where one comes, the other is bound to follow. And where we can probably agree that most politicians are to an extent corrupted by their power and status, there’s a few gentlemen out there that seem to relish in the glory of corruption far more than others do.
Let’s take a look at some of the most corrupt politicians to ever grace the face of the Earth.
Kim Jong Un
This man took all the notes from his father’s playbook and then some. The constant propaganda, controlling the media, controlling the information the citizens have access too, … He even controls how his pictures are taken and distributed so he always looks his very best. The textbook example of a dictator.
David Cameron
Ol’ Dave may not have looked like it, but this man didn’t shy away from corruption at all. First of all, a politician that has an offshore company should really raise a lot of red flags, right? Second of all, there’s been so many allegations against him when he was in office as Prime Minister that it’s hard to not assume that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
The king of the United Arab Emirates is mostly known for his strategic misplacing of treasury assets. Do to his sheer abuse of the treasury, he made himself a nice round sum of $150 billion. That’s what the Panama Papers say, at least. Even if that number would end up being a gross overestimation of the money he made, I doubt he’ll ever have to do a day of honest work in his life.
Vladimir Putin
Even before his most recent escapades on the geopolitical stage, this man was second to (almost) none in terms of corruption. In similar fashion to Kim Jong Un, Putin goes to great lengths to control the flow of information that enters and leaves his country. What sets Putin apart from someone like Kim Jong Un is that Putin also cares very little about international treaties.
Nawaz Sharif
The Pakistani ex-Prime Minister owns a lot of properties and companies around the entire country, and that’s usually not a good sign. Sharif gained most of his international fame by being smack dab in the middle of the Panama Papers leak, which is an even worse sign. His schemes made him and his family a lot of assets, which are estimated at a value of $30 billion.
Petro Poroshenko
The former Ukrainian president is probably the man who single-handedly destroyed the Ukrainian economy. He was an entrepreneur before he became President but somehow still managed to misplace about $3 billion worth of assets. Misplace in his own pockets, I mean.
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson
That’s right, even Scandinavia has corruption. This Icelandic prime minister was the youngest ever to get the position, but he sadly had to retire when his name was mentioned multiple times in the all-too-known Panama Papers. He’s currently still a member of the Icelandic parliament though, which is kind of weird.
