Eat your heart out Tutankhamun! While the Egyptian boy king took office at the age of nine, the town of Dorset, Minnesota has bestowed the honour of Mayor to a 4-year-old boy.

Every year the town picks a name out of a hat to become the new leader, and this year Robert "Bobbie" Tufts has been elected, in what observers can presume to be a free and fair ballot.

Vote rigging would be especially difficult as the town has a population of just 22 people (NOT a typo), which is a limited mandate in most jurisdictions.

But that does not seem to bother the nursery school student and he has already been fielding questions from the assembled media.

And he also has an answer for the phrase "behind every successful man, there is a strong woman", name-checking his girlfriend Sophia.