Most Powerful

• #1 Ilham Aliyev
  AzerbaijanEuropeRussiaTurkey Party State ControlPolitical 21st Century State Power Power: 100
  Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev (born 1961) is an Azerbaijani politician who has served as president of Azerbaijan since 2003. He succeeded his father, Heydar Aliyev, and has remained in office through repeated elections and constitutional changes that expanded presidential authority and removed term limits. His administration has also elevated family-linked political roles, including the creation of a vice-presidential position filled by his wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, reinforcing the perception of a consolidated ruling family at the center of the state. Under his leadership, Azerbaijan has leveraged hydrocarbon wealth and strategic pipeline geography to build state capacity, maintain alliances, and project influence abroad.
• #2 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
  Turkey Imperial SovereigntyMilitaryPolitical World Wars and Midcentury Military CommandState Power Power: 100
  Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and the central figure in the transformation from the Ottoman imperial collapse to a modern nation-state with a strongly centralized political system. A military officer shaped by late Ottoman reforms and imperial wars, he rose to prominence through leadership in the Turkish War of Independence after the First World War. As the first president of the republic, he implemented sweeping reforms in law, education, administration, and culture, aiming to build a secular, nationalist state capable of surviving in a world dominated by industrial powers.
• #3 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
  Black Sea regionEuropeIstanbulMiddle EastNATOTurkey Party State ControlPolitical 21st Century State Power Power: 100
  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 1954) is a Turkish politician who has been the country’s dominant national leader of the twenty-first century, serving as prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and as president from 2014 to the present. Rising from municipal politics in Istanbul and building a broad electoral coalition through the Justice and Development Party (AKP), he presided over a period in which Turkey combined rapid infrastructure expansion and international ambition with deepening political polarization and a major shift toward a centralized presidential system.
• #4 Abdullah Öcalan
  Kurdish regionsTurkey CriminalCriminal EnterprisePolitical Cold War and Globalization Illicit NetworksState Power Power: 92
  Abdullah Öcalan (born 1949; some sources give 1948) is a Kurdish militant and political leader and the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He became a central figure in the Turkish–Kurdish conflict after the PKK launched an armed insurgency in 1984. Captured in 1999 and imprisoned on İmralı island, he has remained a symbolic and ideological reference point for the movement and has periodically issued statements affecting strategy and negotiation.