For now, power has ebbed away from Mr Menem, but he has no obvious successor.
When Mr Brown goes, as he is expected to, his disoriented party will inherit no obvious successor.
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But since the murder three years ago of Anna Lindh, the foreign minister, he has had no obvious successor.
With no obvious successor in sight and the likelihood of an eruption of rivalries, Chicago's politics may get nastier again.
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Mr Brown is often spoken of as the obvious successor, but most of the cabinet, Mr Naughtie writes, do not want him as an heir.
Now, with no obvious successor waiting in the wings and a general election due in September 2013, Mr Stoltenberg is hardly likely to volunteer to step down.
With Mr. Ferguson leaving, there are questions about whether the Glazers will become more active in the management of the team, filling an inevitable vacuum that exists because no obvious successor has been groomed within the club.
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They took the view that Mr Diamond, who was credited with creating the sprawling modern form of Barclays - global, huge on Wall Street - was probably the safest pair of hands to steer it away from accidents, in the absence of an obvious successor.
Lula chose Ms Rousseff as his successor partly because more obvious alternatives were ruled out by various scandals.
The question now is whether his successor will have better fortune avoiding obvious potholes and charting a way forward.
Mr Weill, after all, has pledged to look for a successor, and there are still no obvious candidates.
As a former law clerk to Rehnquist, not to mention his immediate successor as Chief Justice, Roberts was an obvious choice to deliver the annual lecture named for Rehnquist at the University of Arizona law school in February.
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