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You only have to be a citizen of Austria in order to become President. So far, three out of eleven presidents were born outside of present day Austria.
Karl Renner (president from 1945 - 1950): Dolnà Dunajovice (Untertannowitz), Moravia
Theodor Körner (1951 - 1957): Komárom (Komorn), Hungary
Adolf Schärf (1957 - 1965): Mikulov (Nikolsburg), Moravia
We also had a couple of foreign born Chancellors, which are more powerful than the President anyway, even though they are not head of state:
Karl Renner (who later became President; 1918 - 1920): Untertannowitz
Walter Breisky (a couple of days in 1922 ): Bern, Switzerland
Rudolf Ramek (1924 - 1926): Cieszyn (Teschen), Poland
Ernst Streeruwitz (1929): StřÃbro (Mies), Bohemia
Kurt Schuschnigg (1934 - 1938): Riva del Garda, Italy
Arthur Seyß-Inquart (1938; puppet of Hitlers NSDAP): Stonařov (Stannern), Moravia
Karl Renner again: 1945
So 7 out of 26 Chancellors were born outside of Austria.
I think that you are correct about that, but I will mention Lord Beaverbrook, who was born as Max Aiken, in Maple, Ontario. To be a Lord, as a Canadian, was possible then, but as we know with Conrad Black, also known as Lord Black of Coal Harbour, it now requires the surrender of one's Canadian citizenship, to become a Lord.
Lord Beaverbrook was a member of Churchill's cabinet, from 1942 to 1945.
Jim B.
Toronto.
At the same time you had Roy Thompson, Lord Thompson of fleet. Even in those days a Canadian could not be a hereditary peer and that is why Ken Thompson is not the second Lord Thompson.
Bonar Law was the only Canadian to be the prime minister of the UK. I think but am not 100% sure that he was the only foreign born PM the UK has ever had.
That is correct, though I think he would have been a natural-born British citizen/subject, given his Scottish background and the fact that Canada was at the time a British colony.
There's no law against it here, never has been, though somebody who wasn't a natural-born citizen would likely be unelectable anyway unless they had a particularly Anglo cultural background or came here as a young child and had assimilated. I've never heard anybody object to the idea of an immigrant PM, but it isn't realistically going to happen any time soon. (Oddly enough though, the BNP (an anti-immigration political party) put forward a candidate for mayor of London a couple of years ago who was himself an immigrant from Uruguay.)
If we're talking non-elected heads of state, our most recent non-native born was German-born King George II, who was king in the 1700s.
Yes, the president has to be a natural born citizen. One president, Martti Ahtisaari, was from "abroad" as he was born in Vyborg which is today a part of Russia.
Another interesting feature is that the president of Finland doesn't pay any taxes, have no legal right to holidays, and have to give up his/her party affiliation when elected.
This is an interesting question. There was a presidential election in my country last year and one of the candidates has both Czech and American citizenship cause he was born in Washington. Another candidate was a Jewish guy and he was considered one of the favourites, but he did not win eventually. But my second sentence has nothing to do with your question, it is just a curiosity :-)
That is correct, though I think he would have been a natural-born British citizen/subject, given his Scottish background and the fact that Canada was at the time a British colony.
I wonder what accent he had. Local canadian accents must have been different back then, otherwise I imagine it would jarring to hear a prime minister's speech in a Canadian accent to British ears. Enough to hurt electability?
I wonder what accent he had. Local canadian accents must have been different back then, otherwise I imagine it would jarring to hear a prime minister's speech in a Canadian accent to British ears. Enough to hurt electability?
He moved to Scotland when he was fairly young, so I doubt he had any traces of a "Canadian" accent, and technically he wasn't Canadian or born in Canada
I wonder what accent he had. Local canadian accents must have been different back then, otherwise I imagine it would jarring to hear a prime minister's speech in a Canadian accent to British ears. Enough to hurt electability?
Aww, the only YouTube stuff on him I could find was silent Probably would come across as a bit aloof to be electable in the media era anyway judging by this:
I wonder what accent he had. Local canadian accents must have been different back then, otherwise I imagine it would jarring to hear a prime minister's speech in a Canadian accent to British ears. Enough to hurt electability?
The English accent from New Brunswick would have sounded more British then now, but would have been audibly different already as English settlement was primarily by New England Loyalists whose accents had already had several centuries to diverge. There was of course also settlement by European Brits there and this lead to a more British sounding accent then what you hear to the south, but if he had been fresh of the boat it would have still been instantly recognizable as non-European.
To those who live in countries where you have to be a native-born citizen to be the head of state - what's the reasoning behind that law? Thinking about it from a British perspective, if somebody non-native born didn't seem British enough for the electorate to be able to relate to them or trust them to have the country's best interests at heart then that person just wouldn't win an election, and no party would risk putting that person forward.
If we had a law saying that you had to be a native-born citizen to be prime minister then all I can imagine it doing is look like an anachronism when, say, somebody born in Ireland and who came here at age one and who had gone native in every possible way was banned from being PM on a technicality.
Last edited by ben86; 01-03-2014 at 06:15 PM..
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): Bern, Switzerland
Probably would come across as a bit aloof to be electable in the media era anyway judging by this:
