Has any country NOT AUSTRALIA lost a Prime Minister/President?

September 23, 2023 11:36 PM

Has any country other than Australia accidentally lost/misplaced a sitting Prime Minister/President? (This question brought to you by the disappearance of Harold Holt.)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries to Law & Government (11 answers total)

Well, about the closest I can think of, is in 2009 South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford went mysteriously missing, then his office issued a statement that he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail" (?!!!). That is what he told staff to say, if anyone were to ask. In fact neither his staff nor his security staff nor his family actually knew were he was. He was missing for six days.

In reality - and in a twist that does rhyme a bit with the Harold Holt disappearance - he was visiting a mistress in Argentina.
posted by flug at 12:04 AM on September 24, 2023 [10 favorites]

Response by poster: flug, thanks, that was interesting. I am actually looking for stories of sitting Prime Ministers/Presidents who were permanently lost while in office

eg Harold Holt went for a swim while Prime Minister and was never seen again (and his body was never found)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:38 AM on September 24, 2023

Technically, one could argue that Johan de Witt went partly missing while in office...
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:50 AM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

de Witt's disappearance is an inspiration for all of us.

See also:

Wikipedia:

"The Princes in thr Tower refers to the mystery of the fate of the deposed King Edward V of England and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, heirs to the throne of King Edward IV of England. The brothers were the only sons of the king by his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, living at the time of their father's death in 1483. Aged 12 and 9 years old, respectively, they were lodged in the Tower of London by their paternal uncle and England's regent, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, supposedly in preparation for Edward V's forthcoming coronation. Before the young king could be crowned, he and his brother were declared illegitimate. Gloucester ascended the throne as Richard III."

posted by sebastienbailard at 1:56 AM on September 24, 2023

The Jianwen Emperor, maybe?
posted by kickingtheground at 1:58 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Jianwen Emperor, maybe?

Think he's at the bottom of this listicle, https://www.grunge.com/106151/royals-mysteriously-vanished/, but I'm more in favor of this fellow:

"And that hope gave rise to an entire messianic faith called Sebastianism, wherein followers believed that one day he'd rise again and deliver them from Spanish rule, blah, blah, blah,"

posted by sebastienbailard at 2:06 AM on September 24, 2023

Johan de Witt

That article has incorrectly doubled the 'T' in his surname.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:20 AM on September 24, 2023

He wasn’t a head of state, but there was a British MP called John Stonehouse who faked his own death (badly).
posted by damsel with a dulcimer at 4:37 AM on September 24, 2023

Trawling through the lists of people who disappeared on Wikipedia yields some pre-modern examples:

• Romulus, the first king of Rome, is said to have disappeared during a storm around 700 BC. Later Roman historians speculated that he was either murdered by his political enemies or raised into heaven by Mars, the god of war. It must be noted that most stories surrounding the founding of Rome are as much legend as they are history.
• Mansa Muhammad, emperor of the Malian Empire, disappeared around 1300 when he led an expedition to explore the Atlantic Ocean. This has led to speculation about whether this expedition reached the Americas, though solid evidence of this is lacking.
• Constantine XI, the last emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire), disappeared during the final sack of Constantinople in 1453 and is presumed to have died during the fighting. However, no eyewitness accounts of his death have survived. And of course, the state he led also ceased to exist around the same time.
• Along the same lines (and asmentioned above), King Sebastian I of Portugal was last seen in 1578 riding into battle against Moroccan forces. His body was never recovered.

posted by Johnny Assay at 7:17 AM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

I am editing as I had overlooked OP is asking for *permanent* disappearances.
I hope my original answer is still of interest.
In the 1920s French president Deschanel fell off a night train in an episode of somnambulism. He was missing for only a few hours.
In the 1960s French president De Gaulle lost his nerve during the 1968 wave of social protests and while he was presumed to have gone to stay at his country house, he had left the country without informing anyone but his close family. His disappearance lasted six hours.
posted by bluedora at 12:11 PM on September 24, 2023

This is a fictional one, but too fun not to.mention. in the movie Habemus Papum, the newly elected pope completely freaks out about having been elected. He locks himself in his room. He runs away. He refuses to appear on the balcony. Basically the white smoke goes out and then as far as anyone but the cardinals knows, nothing happens. The cardinals aren't even allowed to.leave the enclave because the new pope hasn't been announced.

Eventually (spoiler) they let him just not be pope because, you know,.you can't really force someone to be pope. So from.the point of view of the public who.knew nothing except that a pope was elected but never poped (they don't know who, they don't know why), the reigning pope just disappeared permanently with no explanation.

It's a fun watch and on Netflix.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:35 PM on September 24, 2023