Kingmaker
A kingmaker is a person or group that has great influence on a royal or political succession, without themselves being a viable candidate. Kingmakers may use political, monetary, religious, and military means to influence the succession.
Originally, the term applied to the activities of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick—"Warwick the Kingmaker"—during the Wars of the Roses in England.
Examples
- The prophet Samuel of the Hebrew Bible, in the transition from the period of the biblical judges to the institution of a Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the transition from Saul to David
- Chanakya in the Mauryan Empire
- The Praetorian Guard in the Roman Empire
- Yeon Gaesomun in Goguryeo
- Tonyukuk in the Second Turkic Khaganate
- Sayyid Brothers in the Mughal Empire
- Vidyaranya in the Vijayanagara Empire
- Ricimer in the Late Western Roman Empire
- Nogai, Mamai, and Edigu in the Golden Horde
- Janissaries in the Ottoman Empire
- Godwin, Earl of Wessex in late Anglo-Saxon England
- Baron Carl Otto Mörner in the House of Bernadotte
- Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester during The Anarchy
- Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick in the Wars of the Roses
- Wiremu Tamihana in the Māori King Movement
- Hato Hasbún in El Salvador
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – a pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement under whose influence were all the major political leaders of the Indian freedom struggle including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhai Patel
- James Farley – orchestrated the gubernatorial and presidential elections of Franklin D. Roosevelt
- K. Kamaraj – instrumental in making Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi as Prime Ministers of India in 1964 and 1966, respectively
- Ayya G. K Moopanar – The 'kingmaker' who rose to prominence in the Indian national scene during the post-Emergency days of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He was the General Secretary in charge of the Congress Working Committee, a body of High Command in the ruling Congress Government. Moopanar, who decided the fate of Congress Chief Ministers in the state of India, was more than any other responsible for the elevation of Rajiv Gandhi to the Prime Ministership on the assassination of his mother, Prime Minister Indra Gandhi. He was the longest serving Gen. Secretary of All India National Congress, and served with Prime Minister Indra Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
- Dick Morris – orchestrated the gubernatorial and presidential elections of Bill Clinton
- Girija Prasad Koirala – described as a kingmaker in Nepal with the election of Madhav Kumar Nepal
- Fred Malek – described as a kingmaker for the Republican Party in the United States
- David Axelrod – described by U.S. News and World Report as a "reporter turned kingmaker" with respect to the ascendancy of Barack Obama
- Bakili Muluzi – described as a kingmaker in Malawi
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah – an influential politician who became an ideological leader of All-India Muslim League and the first Governor-General of Pakistan; widely regarded as the founder of Pakistan.
- Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński – was highly instrumental in the 1978 papal election of Karol Wojtyła, Archbishop of Kraków, as John Paul II
- Rashid Dostum in Afghanistan
- Rupert Murdoch – a media tycoon in ownership of News Corp and the Fox Corporation who has consistently backed every winning Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the 1979 general election.
- Nick Clegg – described as a kingmaker in the 2010 UK general election as the leader of the Liberal Democrats following a hung parliament
- Richard J. Daley as Mayor of Chicago and Chairman of the Democratic Party of Cook County was the leading figure in the Illinois Democratic Party. As such, he controlled a large bloc of delegates at Democratic National Conventions and provided crucial support to Democratic Presidential nominees, including Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey.
- Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland's kingmaker according to The Financial Times on February 2016.
- Democratic Unionist Party and its leader Arlene Foster became regarded as a kingmaker after the June 2017 general election resulted in a hung parliament.
- Winston Peters, New Zealand's kingmaker after both the 1996 and 2017 elections.
- Avigdor Lieberman and his party Yisrael Beiteinu in the September 2019 Israeli legislative election.
- Devlet Bahçeli, Turkey's kingmaker according to The Financial Times.
- Ali Ahmeti and his party Democratic Union for Integration in the 2020 North Macedonian parliamentary election.
In game theory
Contemporary usage
The term "kingmaker", though always unofficial, has tended to gain more importance in places of power struggle—e.g., politics, sports organizations etc. Consequently, bestowal of such a title is looked upon significantly and more often as a means of indirect gratification for individuals wanting to silently dictate the affairs of the organization. The term is also occasionally used in a pejorative sense during elections where a small number of independent political candidate who hold a sizeable sway in the "vote bank" can most likely decide the course of an outcome.As well as referring to an individual, the term can also be applied to institutions or think tanks whose opinions are held in great regard by the interested organization. The influence of the religious orders like the Roman Catholic Church in running the affairs of the state during medieval times is a well-known example. Kingdoms and empires in the Indian sub-continent often relied on their religious heads. Besides religious orders, even countries can fit into this terminology when they can dictate the affairs of the other country. In current political scenarios across the world the term can expand its scope to include powerful lobbying groups, whose role is often seen as a defining factor on major issues.
Citizens of West African sub-national monarchies often use the word kingmaker to refer to the members of the electoral colleges that choose their sovereigns because they also usually officiate during the coronation rituals and rites of purification, the word in this particular case taking on a literal meaning i.e. a maker of the king.
The term "kingmaker" is also used to describe situations in multi-player games where a player is either unable to win or has claimed an unassailable lead, but, in either case, plays a strong role in determining the outcome for other players.
In fiction
- The character Leon Fortunato from the Left Behind series of novels is often described as a kingmaker.
- Marcus Jefferson Wall, the antagonist of much of the Matador series by Steve Perry is called the Kingmaker, and controls the President of the Galactic Federation
- The character Mayvar Kingmaker from the Saga of the Exiles series of novels tests the ability of aspirants before they can be proclaimed king of the Tanu.
- Ser Criston Cole, a character from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, is commonly referred to as "the kingmaker".
- Minato Yoko, a character from Kamen Rider Gaim, considers herself a kingmaker, wanting to see who has what it takes to take the Forbidden Fruit, a fruit of great power that can essentially make a person a king. Likewise, another character, Mitsuzane Kureshima, also has traits of a kingmaker, hanging around with and manipulating events so as to put the ruler in his favor.
- Harry Leong, the ultra-rich, secretive billionaire from Crazy Rich Asians, is revealed to be one of the kingmakers in the government of Singapore.
- One of the villains in the NBC TV series The Blacklist went under the alias The Kingmaker.
- Uhtred of Bebbanburg from Bernard Cornwell's The Saxon Stories and the Netflix Adaptation, The Last Kingdom was considered an kingmaker during the succession of King Edward of Wessex after the death of Alfred the Great.