Every national leader, scored across up to eight dimensions of tenure contribution — from governance and economy to politics and crisis response. Compare current form against the legacy they'll leave behind.
SourceWorld Bank + derivedMethodWeighted averageConfMedium✓ ReconstructableⓘLeadership Rating measures change under the leader relative to global trends — a score near 60 means performance broadly matched the benchmark trajectory. It is a weighted average of up to eight dimensions, renormalised over the ones with sourced data (the coverage note beside the score says how many), and requires all four core dimensions — Governance, Economy, Politics and Institutional Integrity — to be sourced. Five use live World Bank indicators; the rest are derived from sourced signals (WIPO/Oxford/UNESCO, GDELT, World Bank + UCDP, survey data) where coverage exists. Diplomacy is a GDELT-derived engagement proxy, and anything unsourced shows as no data. Political position is V-Dem V-Party expert coding. Full weights on the Methodology page.
A note the moment a prediction resolves — and when the record changes. Free.
Ahmad Al-Sharaa, President of Syria, has no composite Leadership score yet — too few dimensions have sourced data to compute one. Their standout dimension is Diplomacy (82/100). The pressure to watch: Institutional Dependency — Stability score of 20 indicates the system's performance is heavily dependent on this leader — a concentration risk.
The data & sources
Ahmad Al-Sharaa carries no composite rating: too few dimensions have sourced data, so it renders as "No data" rather than a filled-in guess. Diplomatic Conduct 82/100 (medium confidence) — performance-under-test blend from directed GDELT events + UCDP. Governing-stability conditions score 20/100, renormalised over WGI, V-Dem and UCDP.
The risk read
For country-risk purposes, Ahmad Al-Sharaa's tenure reads as fragile: governing-stability conditions score 20/100. Crisis exposure 38/100 (Low exposure); response untested. For the full opportunity, market-pulse and resilience read, see Syria's nation page.
The strategic read
Governing conditions: stability 20/100. Live pressures: institutional dependency and legitimacy pressure.
Analyst OutlookAI · not a sourced score
claude-fable-5 · 2026-08-24
Cited, adversarially-verified forward analysis — every claim is sourced and survived a red-team. An LLM intelligence brief, not a sourced score, and never blended into this leader's ratings.
Al-Sharaa has cleared every sanctions list Washington kept on Syria for 47 years and kept the country out of a war on its doorstep — but his most loyal division is 3,500 foreign fighters garrisoned on the Alawite coast, and the law that freed his economy checks every 180 days whether they are still there.
The Consensus
The jihadist who became a statesman: al-Sharaa has collected every prize the West had to give — Caesar Act repeal, state-sponsor delisting, HTS delisting, a restored EU agreement, a Trump handshake in Ankara — and kept Syria neutral through the Iran war; pundits price him as a consolidator whose main risk is that the moderate turn is cosmetic and the sectarian bill (1,426 dead on the coast, 1,339 in Sweida) eventually comes due.
UNHCR's cumulative count of Syrian refugee returnees passes 2 million by 2026-12-31, up from 1.63 million at the end of April — the return, not reconstruction, is the transition's first measurable dividend.
AI · not a sourced score · claude-fable-5 · 3 cited sources · red-teamed · never blended into ratings
Wrong if UNHCR's published cumulative refugee-returnee figure for Syria is below 2,000,000 as of 2026-12-31. by 2026-12-31
Confidence70%
Show the caseHide the case
Strongest counter — Returns are driven by conditions in host states more than in Syria; a drought year, 'little to no economic improvement' reported by citizens and a bombing campaign in Damascus could stall them, and UNHCR's counting lags. Survives because the pace already recorded — 1.63 million by April, roughly 119,000 from Lebanon in three war weeks alone — needs only ~370,000 more in eight months, and every neighbour hosting Syrians has a domestic incentive to keep the flow going.
No sourced communication signal yet. This blends GDELT coverage tone, media reach and message resilience — it populates once GDELT indexes enough coverage of this leader.
Diplomatic Conduct
82/ 10090% sourced · severity 43
Conduct 73 · Test Severity 43 → 82
Cooperative ratio20%75
Share of the country's international interactions coded cooperative vs conflictual
Restraint20%93
Inverse of net material force the country projects — armed-conflict events it initiates minus those it absorbs. Force projected abroad lowers it; being invaded does not
Coalition breadth15%69
Crisis
Exposure
38/ 100
Low exposure
Response
Untested
Untested
Low confidence · no major shock in mandate
Worst year (2025) — shock drivers
Conflict intensity40
Each is a global percentile: how this year's shock compares to every country-year on record. Disaster shocks are not yet sourced (no open-licensed annual series).
Sourced from 2 mandate-years (2025–2026), 1 of 4 shock components present.
SourceWorld Bank GDP + UCDP deaths (annual + Candidate GED) + WGI stabilityMethodCountry-year shock severity · peer-relative damage
Leadership Radar
Tenure Contribution · to date
Uneven profile — 21-point spread from Diplomacy to Institutional Integrity.
Country scores are blended with live World Bank data where available. Difficulty reflects the structural challenge of governing this nation — not the leader's individual performance.
Source: World Bank·Method: Unweighted average·✓ Reconstructable
Leadership Archetype
Awaiting data
No archetype yet — not enough sourced stats to classify one. The archetype is derived from the leadership stat profile; it populates once enough dimensions are sourced.
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Key questions
Who is Ahmad Al-Sharaa?
Ahmad Al-Sharaa is the President of Syria, with no party affiliation.
What challenges does Ahmad Al-Sharaa face?
The main pressures are institutional dependency and legitimacy pressure. Stability score of 20 indicates the system's performance is heavily dependent on this leader — a concentration risk.
How is Ahmad Al-Sharaa viewed internationally?
Ahmad Al-Sharaa has a Diplomatic Conduct score of 82/100.
Data coverage:107 Sourced·85 Derived|Scores refreshed: 2026-08-24·snap-20260824-c9f25cd0|Methodology:Reconstructable|Cite:How to cite
Spot an error?
How many distinct countries it cooperates with as initiator
Agreements & mediation15%85
Mediating, negotiating and signing formal agreements as initiator (GDELT CAMEO)
Sanctions balance10%4
Sanctions the country imposes minus those imposed on it
Engagement volume10%87
Count of international diplomatic events — country-level
Media tone10%—
Favourability of foreign coverage of the leader on diplomacy — leader-level, low-weighted
Partial coverage: 90% of the formula's weight is currently sourced; the score renormalises over what's present. Remaining components appear as data lands.
SourceGDELT 2.1 Events + DOC APIMethodPerformance-under-test blend, severity-amplifiedConfMedium✓ ReconstructableⓘHow a head of state conducts themselves on the world stage, not how much activity their country generates. Blends cooperative ratio (20%), Restraint (inverse of net force projected, 20%), coalition breadth (15%), agreements & mediation (15%), sanctions balance (10%), engagement (10%) and leader media tone (10%), renormalised over available data. Test Severity (active conflict + conflictual share + sanctions received) amplifies the blend so conduct under fire moves the score more. Full model on the Methodology page.
ConfLow
✓ Reconstructable
ⓘCrisis Exposure measures how severely a leader was tested — a peak-biased aggregate of per-year shock severity (conflict intensity, economic contraction and political-stability decline vs. recent normal) over the mandate. It is context, not a verdict: high exposure is neither good nor bad on its own. Crisis Response measures how the country fared during its genuine crisis years relative to comparable crisis episodes worldwide — country-years hit with the same shock severity. Higher = less national damage than peers at that severity. Leaders who never faced a major shock are marked Untested rather than rewarded. Per country-year, real WB/UCDP/WGI shocks are winsorised and percentile-ranked into a ShockSeverity; Exposure is the peak-biased mandate aggregate. Crisis years (severity ≥ 60) score Response = 100 − damage percentile among comparable-severity crises worldwide, then severity-weighted over the mandate. Untested = no major shock (never rewarded). Absent components are reweighted, never filled.
Politics
—
Crisis Response
—
Vision
—
Communication
—
Institutional Integrity
61
Source: World Bank + derived·Method: Contribution·✓ ReconstructableⓘEach dimension measures change under the leader relative to global trends — how the indicator moved over their tenure, net of the world's move over the same window — not the country's absolute level. A score near 60 means performance broadly matched the benchmark trajectory; above = improved the country's standing, below = declined. Governance / Economy / Politics / Institutional Integrity from World Bank WGI, WDI and V-Dem trajectories; Vision from the country's innovation rank (WIPO patents + UNESCO tertiary), former leaders only (patents lag ~3 years); Crisis Response (World Bank + UCDP + WGI, an absolute response-quality scale) and Communication (GDELT) from tenure signals; Diplomacy (Diplomatic Conduct) is active-only. A tenure under six months, or an indicator whose series hasn't reached the term, shows as no data. Full model on the Methodology page.
Stewardship
Inherited-strength lens · separate from the rating
—
Governance
—
Politics
—
Integrity
—
Innovation
—
0 of 4 groups eligible and sourced
Source: World Bank WGI + V-Dem + derived·Method: Stewardship·✓ ReconstructableⓘMeasures whether strong institutions inherited at the start of the tenure were preserved, improved or eroded. It does not reward the leader for inheriting a strong country. A metric qualifies only when the inherited baseline was at least 75 on its normalized scale; the score is the world-net change over the tenure on the single public scale (60 = preserved relative to global movement). Requires two or more eligible sourced groups, the six-month tenure floor and a post-tenure-start observation — otherwise No data, never a zero. Weights mirror the current-form groups (gov 0.17 · pol 0.15 · int 0.08 · vis 0.09), renormalized over what is eligible and sourced.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Top Strengths
Diplomacy82
International relations and multilateral negotiation
Key Weaknesses
Source: Derived·Method: Ranked by stat value·✓ ReconstructableⓘUp to 5 strengths (dimensions scoring 70+) and 5 weaknesses (scoring 57 or below), ranked from the leadership radar. Dimensions in the 58–69 benchmark band appear in neither column. Descriptions are fixed per dimension and don't vary by country. Dimensions without a sourced signal show as no data. Full model on the Methodology page.
Ahmad Al-Sharaa — President, Syria (2025–present) | NationsHelm
Current Challenges
Institutional Dependencyhigh
Stability score of 20 indicates the system's performance is heavily dependent on this leader — a concentration risk.
Legitimacy Pressurehigh
Continuity & legitimacy of 13 points to a contested or fragile mandate underpinning Syria's institutions.
Extreme Environmentmedium
Syria presents structural constraints that materially limit what any leader can achieve within a single term.
Source: Derived·Method: Rule-based·✓ ReconstructableⓘFlags challenges when a sourced dimension falls below the published benchmark band: any leadership dimension < 58 (severe < 48), Stability < 50, Crisis Exposure > 60, or regime continuity/legitimacy < 40 — plus an adverse Stability Trend, adverse External Conditions, or Severely Constrained / Extreme domestic context. Economy derives from World Bank indicators; Institutional Integrity from V-Dem's executive-corruption index (World Bank Control of Corruption as fallback); Communication from GDELT media reach, tone and resilience; Crisis Exposure and continuity from the stability blend. A low Communication signal can mean thin coverage OR wide-but-hostile coverage — the flag distinguishes the two.
ⓘ
Country scores are the unweighted average of scored World Bank indicators — the same model used on the nation's own page. Difficulty reflects structural constraints on governing this nation, independent of the current leader.
Leadership Conditions
Government Stability
20
Active conflict · Contested legitimacy · Weak rule of law
External Conditions
—
No World Bank data for this tenure period.
Stability breakdown
Political stability33%25
WGI Political Stability & Absence of Violence
Institutional strength22%19
WGI Rule of Law, Government Effectiveness & Control of Corruption
Continuity & legitimacy17%13
V-Dem political continuity and regime legitimacy
Violence & safety17%0
UCDP organized-violence deaths, population-scaled and inverted — prefers the fresh current-year UCDP-CED reading, else the finalized annual GED
Stability trend11%50
3-year direction of the WGI stability score
Time in Office 19 months·Since 2025-01
Source: WGI · V-Dem · UCDP · trend·Method: Weighted blend·✓ ReconstructableⓘGovernment Stability blends six sourced signals, renormalised over what's available: WGI Political Stability (30%), institutional strength (20%), V-Dem continuity (15%), UCDP violence deaths (current-year UCDP-CED where available, else finalized annual GED, 15%), Fragile States social cohesion (10%) and the 3-year WGI trend (10%). External Conditions derives from a World Bank GDP-growth shock over the tenure.
