politicsI’d actually be interested in multiple answers, by country or region. I know this is similar to the question about being elected as an atheist, but what I’m interested in is specific examples of open atheists in office right now, if there are any.
The new Prime Minister of Australia is an open atheist.
The Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, Nick Clegg, is an open atheist and indeed ran as such.
Karunanidhi, the current chief minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (equivalent to the Governor of an American state) is an atheist. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the current chief minister of West Bengal and V S Achuthanandan, cheif minister of Kerala are also atheists.
As a side note, the first Prime Minster of independent India was also an atheist - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru
Former prime minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt is an atheist, as he admitted when invited in a talk show on Belgian television (Nooitgedacht). But being prime minister of Belgium may not be considered as a very powerful position. ;p
I also think Zapatero is an atheist, but I’m not sure. It says agnostic on his wikipage.
In any case, it is not rare for European top politicians to be atheists. The issue is uncontroversial in Europe except for a few countries, mostly southern european ones like Italy or Portugal.
Pete Stark, Democratic Congressional Representative for California’s 13th district, is an open atheist. The only member of Congress in the US, as far as I know.
Mazie Hirono is listed as a Buddhist, but I’m pretty sure she has publicly stated that she is “non practicing” and basically atheist. While searching for that I came across Ted Kaufman, also a US representatives, although the jury is still out on him.
Raul Castro is probably an atheist. Or did you mean people who won free and fair elections?
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