The roster of former presidents and prime ministers imprisoned or under indictment at the end of 2025 reads like a who’s who of some of this young century’s most powerful, prominent and even popular world leaders.
In late October, the flamboyant former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was sent to a Paris prison after being convictedof conspiracy to seek illegal campaign contributions from a foreign dictator — in his case, now ousted and deceased Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi. (Sarkozy penned a prison memoir called “Diary of a Prisoner” and was released after 20 days while he appeals his conviction.)
In September, Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison after being convicted of trying to stage a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election loss. He was initially under home confinement but was ordered to begin serving his time after Brazil’s Supreme Court alleged he tampered with his ankle monitoring bracelet (a charge his lawyers deny).
South Korea’s former president Yoon Suk Yeol remains in prison for criminal insurrection and abuse of power (among other charges) after he declared martial law in an attempt to circumvent an opposition-led legislature. He became the sole South Korean president to be arrested while in office.
Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire whose family dynasty has led the country for much of the last 25 years, is in prison after being convicted of abusing his power to benefit his family businesses. He returned to Thailand from exile and received a royal pardon that reduced his sentence from eight years to one. He avoided jail with a hospital stay until a court ruled he needed to complete a year in confinement.
And let’s not forget the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte in prison in The Hague, awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity for thousands of extrajudicial killings during his brutal war on drugs. Duterte was arrested in March after a falling-out between his family clan and his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
In all these cases, as well as other earlier ones (Malaysia, South Africa), detained ex-leaders retain significant political support. There were fears that arresting a popular former president or prime minister (or in South Korea’s case, a sitting president) might deepen political polarization and kick off a cycle of retribution once power eventually changed hands. But in all the above-mentioned cases, the doom-filled prognoses proved to be baseless.
The United States has taken a different tack. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled last year that American presidents are essentially above the law. In a 6-3 vote in Trump v. United States, the justices said presidents are immune from future prosecution for any actions they take while in office, as long as their acts are part of their “core constitutional powers” or otherwise “official acts.”
Many — particularly Trump’s supporters — claimed prosecuting an ex-president would turn the U.S. into a “banana republic.” Even more neutral analysts worried that prosecuting Trump when he left office after his first term risked making him into a martyr, thus potentially making him more popular. Some of my colleagues have argued persuasively that Trump’s multiple prosecutions helped him easily win the 2024 Republican primaries.
But there’s an equally valid concern about granting a future president near-blanket immunity for almost anything they do in office. And even more worrying to me: What signal does it send to the rest of the citizenry when the person elected by the people to represent them is held to a different legal standard? That seems to make a mockery of the very American idea that we are all equal before the law.
This year also saw a proliferation of Gen Z protests springing up from Asia to Africa. These activist movements have succeeded in toppling governments in Bangladesh, Madagascar and Mongolia, and last year caused the prime minister of Bangladesh to flee. All these protests — as well as ongoing ones in places as diverse as Kenya, Indonesia, Morocco and Bulgaria — are united by the overwhelming sense among young people that entrenched politicians are corrupt and largely immune from the laws that apply to everyone else.
In Trump’s case, the question isn’t whether it was right or wrong to pursue legitimate legal cases once he left office in a cloud in 2021. Rather, it’s why it took so long.
After the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, there seemed ample evidence to bring charges — we all watched the violence unfolding in real time. The only constitutional check on presidential lawbreaking is impeachment. But that remedy no longer works in America’s hyper-partisan political system. When voting to acquit Trump in his second impeachment in February 2021, then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the criminal justice system, not the Senate, should hold the former president to account.
The toxin of partisanship continued to poison the process. No charges were brought until August 2023, which was by then the start of the primary season, even though one of the most infamous pieces of evidence — Trump’s call urging Georgia’s secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” — dated back to Jan. 2, 2021. What might have been the outcome if charges were brought in August 2021? We’ll never know.
Three years later, under an even more changed political environment, the Supreme Court gave Trump and all future presidents a “get out of jail free” card by conferring near-total immunity from prosecution. So, looking at other democracies that hold leaders to account, it’s fair to ask: Which country looks like the banana republic now?
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