Current president of Poland went from being relatively unknown parliament member (I’d bet, less than 5% of general public knew who he was? Also there’s another public figure with the same last name, so maybe even some people who knew the name were confusing him with the other guy) to being the president within one year. So with longer timescale, big support from one of leading political powers, and some political backlog it is possible. There are surely similar stories around the world, of outsiders rising to leaders.
Of course what you’re asking is much more extreme, but that provides some staring datapoint.
Even an unknown member of parliament has still been tested against a competitive market, has at least met many or all the key power brokers, etc. They’re much closer to the president end of the spectrum than the random citizen end.
Current president of Poland went from being relatively unknown parliament member (I’d bet, less than 5% of general public knew who he was? Also there’s another public figure with the same last name, so maybe even some people who knew the name were confusing him with the other guy) to being the president within one year. So with longer timescale, big support from one of leading political powers, and some political backlog it is possible. There are surely similar stories around the world, of outsiders rising to leaders. Of course what you’re asking is much more extreme, but that provides some staring datapoint.
Even an unknown member of parliament has still been tested against a competitive market, has at least met many or all the key power brokers, etc. They’re much closer to the president end of the spectrum than the random citizen end.