Political Assassinations: Behind the Killing of British PM Spencer Perceval

Commentary One of the greatest difficulties in maintaining a stable democracy is keeping one’s political leaders from being murdered. In the more excitable Latin American and Caribbean nations, presidents and would-be reformers are killed with depressing regularity, the most recent being the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse cut down in his own home in 2021. Four Lebanese prime ministers died from 1982 to 2005, three of those the victim of car bombs. In Asia, attacks on politicians are a fine old tradition. In India, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948, Indira Gandhi was murdered by her bodyguards in 1984, and her son Rajiv was killed by a suicide bomber in 1989. The president of Bangladesh was killed by army officers in 1981, while Pakistan lost two prime ministers: Liaquat Ali Khan who was shot to death in 1951 and Benazir Bhutto who was killed in a massive explosion in 2007....