Obama, who has twice been named ‘Person of the Year', is in the shortlist with the US magazine saying the President's “second term started with a slew of self-inflicted wounds and unfulfilled promise(s), from an IRS scandal and stalled immigration reform to the bungled Obamacare launch”. Syrian President Bashar Assad is also among the contenders.
Among the other candidates are New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, J P Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Pope Francis, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie.
International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Germany's re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin are other contenders. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Chinese President Xi Jinping are also among those shortlisted.
Chechen brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspects in the Boston Marathon terror bombings, are in the shortlist too.
