Elected autocrats and the decline of democracy

If the dawn of democracy arrived in Athens 2,500 years ago, how has its day progressed in as many years? This cradle of democracy was built on slave labour, where women wore the veil and the majority of the ordinary Athenians were enslaved to the rich. Although there were smooth-talking politicians, who used spins even in those days, the city was able to develop sophisticated voting systems and anybody who didn't vote was called stupid.

If not for a few exceptions, the contrast with our times looks grim. Some of the most advanced democracies of the world are seething with controversy on whether they should ban women from wearing the veil. That most people are enslaved to the rich is more than adequately reflected in the most recent finding: 62 people are as wealthy as half the world's population. The plight of the workers in sweatshops, the women and children trafficked to brothels, and the refugees washed up on foreign shores conjure the nightmare that was once the fate of the slaves. 

US-based organisation, Freedom House, in its report last year claimed that about two-thirds of the world's citizens lived under a dictatorship. It also said that 106 dictatorships or partial dictatorships persisted, accounting for 54 percent of the world's nations. The most striking contradiction these countries have with ancient Athens is that citizens who wish to cast their votes are made to look like a bunch of idiots.

Because elections meant to be the conduit of democracy are being used to confiscate it. When millions of Egyptians voted in a referendum on their Constitution in January 2014, 98.1 percent yes votes basically re-established military rule in the country. The whole world knows what happened before the referendum. Security forces rounded up and tortured hundreds of activists who had called for a no vote. Not even 40 percent of Egyptians bothered to show up at the polling booths. 

Thus the rise of elected autocrats is now a standard practice in many Third World countries. It proves wrong the vaunted optimism expressed by analysts in the early 1990s that a democratic dawn was about to break across the globe. Instead, mischievous rulers have learned to beat democracy at its own game. They are using the political legitimacy of a popular vote to abuse power, enrich allies, and annihilate the opposition as well as the legitimacy itself. 

Even worse, these rulers are treating return to power like the refill policy of those stores, which offer unlimited free refills for their drinks. Once in power, the rulers devise ways to perpetuate it. And they do so by staging rigged elections as if one legitimate investment in power entitles them to have many illegitimate returns on it. 

Once these rulers win elections, they uphold electoral democracy in their speeches but utilise its power in their actions to consolidate power and amass vast wealth. They start destroying democratic institutions and emptying the bureaucracy of independent-minded civil servants. In some cases, they try to win the support of their rural populations, promoting economic growth and improved standard of living. Democracy in this masterminded manipulation invariably tends to perpetuate political strife, graft, and muddled economic planning. 

What it does is rollback democracy, which first creates stagnancy and then degeneration. Many of the rulers plan to rule for a lifetime and some of them partially succeed until they are either assassinated or toppled. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, people are cowered into submission and paralysis by a complex set of manoeuvrings comparable to card sleight that leaves bettors in a state of perplexity. Democracy is reduced to a bluff when the packet is intact but the gift is missing.

This type of deceptive democracy is like fruits laced with formalin. It slows down the rot but is downright toxic. And it hollows out a country like termites eating wood. Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe is now on the verge of collapse. Venezuela is teetering on the brink. Researchers say that a country's finances go into a freefall after 10 to 15 years of totalitarianism. The tell-tale signs are increasing inflation and diminishing growth.

Countries with a small population and high revenue are exceptions to this rule. Oil-rich Gulf states are best examples. Singapore thrived under one-party rule, small geographic and population sizes incrementally outpaced by GDP growth. Nigeria, to the contrary, started with a wave of petrodollars much of which was squandered by military juntas and their cronies. 

It's one thing not to have democratic rule in a country. It's another thing when fake democracy is imposed on people. The former whets people's appetite for democracy, while the latter ruins it like junk food hurts metabolism. 

Frogs blink when they eat because their eyes help them swallow food. Democracy is caught in the false pretence of defenders who are devouring it. 

The writer is the Editor of weekly First News and a columnist for The Daily Star. 

Email: badrul151@yahoo.com