Thirty years ago, after the Cold War, large parts of the world looked to the West for inspiration, with a slanted eye on its enviable prosperity. But now calves according to the authoritative organization Freedom House the number of democratically governed countries in the world has fallen for the fifteenth consecutive year.
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Not that fewer elections are being held. On the contrary, there are very few countries left where there is never a vote. Authoritarian regimes have also taken a liking to this, although they usually fold it in such a way that they are sure they will win. “In this way they hope to gain more legitimacy for their government,” says Daniel Calingaert, who researched democracy for Freedom House and now works at Bard College in New York. “All semi-authoritarian states are holding elections today and even many non-free states do.”
From Russia, North Korea and Iran to vast numbers of countries elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, elections or something similar are being held everywhere. Often the leaders already have the media in their hands, if necessary they imprison opposition politicians and with some intimidation of the voters they usually manage to get the ‘right’ result. In a country like Zimbabwe, there are hints in such cases that houses will be set on fire if people do not vote for the leader or his party. This technique is called ‘shaking the matchboxes’. It works because many are still terrified by previous devastating politically oriented arson attacks. And if necessary, they falsify the results.
“For authoritarian leaders, elections can be a means of making their regimes more stable,” said British political scientist Nic Cheeseman, a professor at the University of Birmingham and co-author of the book ‘How to rig an election’. “If you play it a little handy, you can divide the opposition in your country with it.” A classic example is Kenyan President Moi who, in the 1990s, managed to split the united opposition with a deliberate strategy.
Authoritarian regimes also like elections because it increases their international credibility. This makes it easier for them to qualify for financial aid. “In countries such as Ethiopia and Rwanda, elections are repeatedly manipulated on a large scale,” says Cheeseman, who specializes in Africa. “Rwandan President Kagame keeps winning by ridiculous majorities. Yet he is not nearly as excluded internationally as, for example, Eritrea, which does not hold elections.”
fake elections
By not attacking regimes like Kagame’s harder over such fake elections, Cheeseman says the West is undermining its own credibility and that of the democracy they promote. “If you actively support the opposition in Venezuela because the elections were not fair, but not in Rwanda or in Uganda, where the autocratic president Museveni has developed into a useful ally of the West against terrorism, people will notice that you double standards and countries like Russia and China know how to exploit that very well. That inconsistency is very damaging.”
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The West has also, in some cases, lost credit for democracy by pushing for elections in countries that were not ripe for it. “If you do it too hastily, as in Afghanistan and Somalia, elections can create more problems than they solve,” says Cheeseman. Something similar is now looming in Libya, where presidential elections are scheduled for December 24. The parties have yet to agree on the electoral law and the country is still teeming with armed militias who have made it clear that they will only accept a win from their own candidate. New battles therefore seem likely.
Calingaert also realizes that elections can be counterproductive if losers do not recognize the result. At the same time, he points out that elections are often the lesser evil. “The question remains: how else are you going to choose leaders?” In elections, more people get the chance to give their preference. “In Afghanistan, without elections, that would have been done by a council of tribal elders, now women and young people also got the chance to vote.”
Surprises never ruled out
Moreover, surprises are never excluded in elections, says Calingaert. In an increasingly authoritarian state of Sri Lanka, then-President Rajapaksa surprisingly lost to his rival in 2015. in Zambia this summer opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema defeated the incumbent autocrat Edgar Lungu to everyone’s surprise. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, after elections that followed a long civil war, a start of democratization started.
A new trend, which is worrying from a Western perspective, is that after elections, which in themselves stand the test of criticism, governments are beginning to change course, as is happening in Hungary, Poland, India and Brazil. They extend the powers of the government, affect the independent judiciary and limit the freedom of the press. “Democracy then erodes from within,” says Calingaert.
Nevertheless, Calingaert and Cheeseman believe that the future belongs more to democracies. According to Cheeseman, it appears that democratic countries develop better in the long run than authoritarian countries. “A country like China, of course, tries to project its economic strength overseas,” says Calingaert, “but it has no model that it can export, there is no ideology behind it that can inspire others. It is just a country ruled by powerful people.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of December 9, 2021
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