Indian PM Narendra Modi Voted Time Readers’ 2016 Person of the Year
Time Magazine‘s online readers named Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi 2016’s Person of the Year. The politician received 18 percent of the total vote, edging out: President Barack Obama, President-elect Donald Trump and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who each earned seven percent. Other contenders included Hillary Clinton (four percent) and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (two percent).
The readers poll, which closed Sunday at midnight, is held separately from Time‘s official Person of the Year, which will be revealed on Wednesday, December 7th. Each year, the magazine’s editors select one individual or group who, for better or worse, had the most global impact across the past 12 months.
Modi, the 14th Indian prime minister and leader of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has held office since May 2014. Time notes the politician drew both applause and criticism for recently eliminating 500 and 1,000-rupee notes from circulation. Despite his controversies, a September Pew poll gave Modi an 81 percent approval rating from Indian citizens.
Time‘s poll results, analyzed by Apester, found that voter preferences vary widely both across the world and between U.S. states. Modi received 17 percent of all “yes” votes in California, with 12 percent in New Jersey. Meanwhile, president-elect Trump secured his highest marks in states he won during the election, including North Dakota, Mississippi, Alabama, Wisconsin and Louisiana.
Modi previously won Time‘s online readers’ poll in 2014, earning over 16 percent of the vote. German Chancellor Angela Merkel won Time’s 2015 Person of the Year.