An Emperor and Kings

Say a country has twenty leaders who want to rule the country.  Only one can rule at a time.  As the current leader, would it be best to...

Eliminate all who aspire to be rulers
Allow your rule to expire so others may rule
Deny further rule until you have a successor
Imprison/restrict others who want to rule or reduce them to poverty
Allow them to rule as governors or subordinate leadership positions

If you choose the last option, how do you prevent them from turning on you or revolting? 

>>15

You don't get it... the scenario itself is flawed.
The prompt doesn't address the favor of any of the candidates, the perceived virtue (in a phenomenological sense) of any of the rulers or the previous ruler... it doesn't address the status of citizens in the contrary the government style the GNP or world-status of the country discussed
it's quite impossible to glean from the prompt any information about the imagined world that would actually facilitate the development of any "[USEFUL] ideas about what would happen and the major factors involved."
The point of my post was "why fucking bother? You're dealing in some dumbass illusory ontological notion of politics in which too many environmental factors are blatantly overlooked."
This was not intended, as you suggested, to suggest that because the scenario was unrealistic that it wasn't viable as a test case, but rather that the prompt needed more clarification before any legitimate political analysis could be done.

and GOOD motherfucking job reading machiavelli... i guess that makes you pretty fucking special huh? get over yourself, narcissist.

oyeah...
"ou are the equivalent of the yammering faggot who smells like body odour and diarrhea who somehow finds his way into a science conference room and declares in an incoherent manner"
this isn't witty. gtfo.