Who's Who of the G20
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 State | Age | Political Party | Religion | Education | ||
Argentina | President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner | 61 | Justicialist Party (Centre) | Roman Catholicism | Law, National University of La Plata | |
Australia | Prime Minister Tony Abbott | 56 | Liberal Party of Australia | Roman Catholicism | Rhodes Scholar and Master of Arts (Politics and Philosophy), Oxford University | |
Brazil | President Dilma Rousseff | 66 | Workers’ Party (Centre-left to Left-wing) | Roman Catholicism | Bachelor of Arts/Science, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul | |
Canada | Prime Minister Stephen Harper | 55 | Conservative Party | Christian | MA Economics, University of Calgary | |
China | President Xi Jinping | 61 | Communist Party | Atheist | Doctoral degree in Law, Tsinghua University | |
France | President François Hollande | 60 | Socialist Party | Atheist | Graduated from Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which trains high-level French civil servants | |
Germany | Chancellor Angela Merkel | 60 | Christian Democratic Union (Centre-right) | Lutheranism | Doctorate in Physics, Leipzig University | |
India | Prime Minister Narendra Modi | 64 | Bharatiya Janata Party (Right-wing) | Hinduism | MA in Political Science, Gujarat University | |
Indonesia | President Joko Widodo | 53 | Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle (Social democrat) | Islam | BA in Forestry, Gadjah Mada University | |
Italy | Prime Minister Matteo Renzi | 39 | Democratic Party (Centre-left) | Roman Catholicism | Law degree, University of Florence | |
Japan | Prime Minister Shinzō Abe | 60 | Liberal Democratic Party (Centre-right to Right-wing) | Shintoism/Zen Buddhism | Degree in Political Science, Seikei University | |
South Korea | President Park Geun-hye | 62 | Saenuri Party (Centre-right to Right-wing) | Atheist | BA in Electronic Engineering, Sogang University | |
Mexico | President Enrique Peña Nieto | 48 | Institutional Revolutionary Party (Centre to Centre-left) | Roman Catholicism | MA degree in Business Administration, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education | |
Russia | President Vladimir Putin | 62 | United Russia (Conservatism, Statism) | Russian Orthodox | International Law, Leningrad State University; Later studied at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow | |
Saudi Arabia | King Abdullah ibn Abdilazīz of Saudi Arabia | 90 | N/A | Wahhabism | Early education at the Royal Court | |
South Africa | President Jacob Zuma | 72 | South African Communist Party | Protestantism | Received no formal schooling | |
Turkey | President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | 60 | Justice and Development Party (Centre-right) | Sunni Islam | Business Administration, Aksaray School of Economics and Commercial Sciences | |
United Kingdom | Prime Minister David Cameron | 47 | Conservative Party | Anglicanism | BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Brasenose College, Oxford | |
United States | President Barack Obama | 53 | Democrat | Christianity | J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard | |
European Union | Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council & José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission | 66—58 | Christian Democratic and Flemish Party (Centre-right)—Social Democratic Party (Centre-right) | Roman Catholicism—Roman Catholicism | MA in Applied Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven—MSc in Economic and Social Sciences, University of Geneva |
This article was originally published in the G20 Watch. It is republished with permission.