How International Leaders Are Doing in TIME’s Person of the Year Poll

Vote Now for TIME’s Person of the Year.

This time last year, Narendra Modi was the chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Prime Ministerial candidate. He was also among the world leaders and politicians featured in TIME’s Person of the Year readers’ poll for 2013, finishing at fourth place with 14% of the vote. This year, Modi, who got the top job after the BJP stormed to victory in India’s national elections in May, is leading the readers’ poll with over 10.7% of the votes cast as of Thursday afternoon.

With nine days to go until voting closes, here’s a look at the world leaders who fared best in the 2013 poll—and where they stand this year.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egyptian President

2013 rank: 1. Current rank in 2014 poll: 38th

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was still sporting a generals’ epaulettes on his shoulders when TIME readers crowned him the winner of the 2013 Person of the Year poll. By January, the general—who ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, last summer—had become a field marshal. And soon the uniform was replaced with a dark suit as al-Sisi ran for the presidency, eventually winning the May elections by a wide margin.

As we noted when he spoke to TIME in September, his rule has been widely criticized for crackdowns on Morsi’s supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood and on free speech and journalists. Talking about Morsi’s ouster in 2013, al-Sisi defended the military’s action, saying “it was the Egyptian people who demanded that change of identity.”

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish President

2013 rank: 2. Current rank in 2014 poll: 40th

When he finished second in the 2013 poll, Erdogan was Turkey’s Prime Minister, a job he would have had to give up next year because of term limits set by his ruling Justice and Development, or AK, party. And so, after over a decade as P.M., he contested what were the country’s first direct presidential elections, promising to add some executive heft to the largely ceremonial office. Voters responded in droves. Despite facing anti-government protests during his final term as Prime Minister, he comfortably swept to victory in August, cementing his position as the most powerful Turkish leader in decades. He has also found himself a new home: a sprawling palace four times the size of Louis XIV’s extravagant digs in Versailles and, according to reports, no less sumptuous, with green granite inlays and washrooms decked in silk wallpaper. Originally intended for the Prime Minister, it reportedly cost more than $600 million to erect.

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Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister

2013 rank: 4. Current rank in 2014 poll: 1st

Modi was one of the strongest performers in the TIME readers’ poll last year. At the time, the controversial Indian politician was already widely tipped to lead his party to victory and unseat the ruling Congress Party-led coalition government in elections in May, 2014. Few, however, predicted the scale of his eventual triumph, with the BJP securing the first parliamentary majority for a single party in 30 years. Promising to revive India’s slowing economy, Modi tapped into disenchantment with the Congress, the grand old party of Indian independence which, by the end of its latest term in office, was mired in a series of high-profile corruption scandals and struggling to boost growth.

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Bashar al-Assad

2013 rank: 10. Current rank in 2014 poll: 25th

With the Syrian conflict now in its fourth year, Assad continues to hold on to power in Damascus, even as vast swathes of the country fall into the hands of extremist militants. On Wednesday, Russia reaffirmed it’s support for the Assad regime, with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying: “We share the view that the main factor driving the situation in the Middle East is the terrorist threat. Russia will continue supporting Syria … in countering this threat.”

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Other leaders from the 2013 poll who also feature in this year’s survey include the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who came 11th last year and currently stands at 5th place, and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who came 15th last year and current stands at 16th place.

Since 1927, TIME has named a person who for better or worse has most influenced the news and our lives in the past year.

The Person of the Year is selected by TIME’s editors, but readers are asked to weigh in by commenting on any TIME Facebook post that includes #TIMEPOY, tweeting your vote using #TIMEPOY, or by heading over to TIME.com’s Person of the Year voting hub, where Pinnion’s technology is recording, visualizing and analyzing results as they are received. Votes from Twitter, Facebook and TIME.com’s voting hub are pooled together to create the totals displayed on the site. You can see the results of the poll and vote on your choice for person of the year here.