Australian Outlook

Who's Who of the G20

12 Nov 2014
Roselina Press
Image credit: Flickr (DonkeyHotey)

Brisbane is the host city for the 2014 G20 Leaders’ Summit, an event that is being called the most significant meeting of world leaders that Australia has ever hosted.

But what do we know about the leaders who will be arriving next month?

As our table shows, only four of the G20 leaders are women: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

In terms of religion, Roman Catholicism is the faith that most leaders share. China’s President Xi Jinping, South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye and France’s President François Hollande are atheists.

The youngest leader is Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at 39 years of age. King Abdullah ibn Abdilazīz of Saudi Arabia is the most senior member at 90.

In terms of education, the vast majority of leaders have tertiary qualifications, but Jacob Zuma has risen to become South Africa’s President despite receiving no formal education.

Most G20 leaders lean slightly to the right of the political spectrum, with most leading centre-right and right-wing political parties.

 

  Head of StateAgePolitical PartyReligionEducation
ArgentinaPresident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner61Justicialist Party (Centre)Roman CatholicismLaw, National University of La Plata
AustraliaPrime Minister Tony Abbott56Liberal Party of AustraliaRoman CatholicismRhodes Scholar and Master of Arts (Politics and Philosophy), Oxford University
BrazilPresident Dilma Rousseff66Workers’ Party (Centre-left to Left-wing)Roman CatholicismBachelor of Arts/Science, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
CanadaPrime Minister Stephen Harper55Conservative PartyChristianMA Economics, University of Calgary
ChinaPresident Xi Jinping61Communist PartyAtheistDoctoral degree in Law, Tsinghua University
FrancePresident François Hollande60Socialist PartyAtheistGraduated from Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which trains high-level French civil servants
GermanyChancellor Angela Merkel60Christian Democratic Union (Centre-right)LutheranismDoctorate in Physics, Leipzig University
IndiaPrime Minister Narendra Modi64Bharatiya Janata Party (Right-wing)HinduismMA in Political Science, Gujarat University
IndonesiaPresident Joko Widodo53Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle (Social democrat)IslamBA in Forestry, Gadjah Mada University
ItalyPrime Minister Matteo Renzi39Democratic Party (Centre-left)Roman CatholicismLaw degree, University of Florence
JapanPrime Minister Shinzō Abe60Liberal Democratic Party (Centre-right to Right-wing)Shintoism/Zen BuddhismDegree in Political Science, Seikei University
South KoreaPresident Park Geun-hye62Saenuri Party (Centre-right to Right-wing)AtheistBA in Electronic Engineering, Sogang University
MexicoPresident Enrique Peña Nieto48Institutional Revolutionary Party (Centre to Centre-left)Roman CatholicismMA degree in Business Administration, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education
RussiaPresident Vladimir Putin62United Russia (Conservatism, Statism)Russian OrthodoxInternational Law, Leningrad State University; Later studied at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow
Saudi ArabiaKing Abdullah ibn Abdilazīz of Saudi Arabia90N/AWahhabismEarly education at the Royal Court
South AfricaPresident Jacob Zuma72South African Communist PartyProtestantismReceived no formal schooling
TurkeyPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan60Justice and Development Party (Centre-right)Sunni IslamBusiness Administration, Aksaray School of Economics and Commercial Sciences
United KingdomPrime Minister David Cameron47Conservative PartyAnglicanismBA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Brasenose College, Oxford
United StatesPresident Barack Obama53DemocratChristianityJ.D. magna cum laude from Harvard
European UnionHerman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council & José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission66—58Christian Democratic and Flemish Party (Centre-right)—Social Democratic Party (Centre-right)Roman Catholicism—Roman CatholicismMA in Applied Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven—MSc in Economic and Social Sciences, University of Geneva

 

 

Roselina Press is a graduate student of Melbourne School of Government, The University of Melbourne.
 

This article was originally published in the G20 Watch. It is republished with permission.