Zimbabwe has just returned proof that dictators cannot always buy the vote, writes Ayman El-Amir* Dictatorship dies harder than democracy while the demise of the former is less costly than the death of the latter. This is the crisis Zimbabwe has been facing for the past two weeks since parliamentary and presidential elections, which concluded 29 March, failed to give President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) party the usual victory. For the first time in an autocracy, it is the oligarchy, not the opposition, which is contesting the results and is bent on organising a recount. Simply put, the familiar majority was voted out of office and is not accepting the verdict of the ballot box. Zimbabwe is the latest, not the last, battle between autocracy and the free and fair ballot -- a rare event in many developing countries. Once dictators get a grip on power they rarely lose it willingly, ready to slash and burn before they go down. They come to power sometimes as heroes of national liberation, other times as saviours of the nation in a military coup, often ludicrously followed by another coup also in the name of saving the nation. They may be installed in circumstances of an unexpected vacuum in leadership, or by manipulation of the constitutional order. Regardless, once they are in they stay in, repeatedly re-elected "by the people, for the people" who never seem to change their minds, no matter how disastrous the situation turns out to be. To stay in power, dictators use the law of force, replacing the force of law. They do not mind deploying battalions of secret police, armies of state security, and well-oiled propaganda machines. Tactics also include cardboard one- party political organisations and legislative assemblies that promulgate repressive laws against the people who unwittingly chose them in half-baked elections. Torture chambers are in order for the enemies of the people as defined by the guardians of the people. Generations are born and grow up knowing none other than the eternally elected leader. The only legitimacy of dictatorship rests in its steady hold on power. Josip Broz Tito donned the mantle of father of the nation -- the six-republic mosaic of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He earned the authority to go with it because he led the partisan guerrilla resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of the Balkans during World War II and thus became a hero of national liberation. Mahatma Gandhi led the resistance against the British occupation until India achieved independence. He was given the honorific title of "father of the nation" but not the everlasting office, if only because he was assassinated shortly after India's independence. More importantly, he was a liberation hero by civil disobedience and peaceful resistance. Sir Winston Churchill and his Conservative Party lost the parliamentary elections to the Labour Party immediately after the end of World War II during which he led Britain to victory with great difficulty and many sacrifices. He was never elevated to "father of the nation" status. During the latter part of the 20th century, military dictatorships, from Myanmar to the Middle East to Africa and South America, cared little about justifying their legitimacy. Some beneficiary apologists even coined the terminology "revolutionary legitimacy" to hoodwink the masses and justify regimes that suspended civil liberties, basic human rights, distorted the rule of law and even constitutions. Dictatorships have since become more sophisticated and more devious, controlling all branches of government under different titles, rigging elections, violating human rights and suppressing opposition. They combine executive power with the supreme command of the armed forces, chairmanship of the appointed political party (which usually wins all elections with an overwhelming majority and thus dominates the legislature), effective power over the judiciary and control of trade unions by convoluted laws. To top it all, they back up their all-embracing powers with emergency law that may run for decades through a rubber stamp parliamentary majority. Underlying it all is the weapon of intimidation; buying support via the use of raw force. Third World experience with governance has demonstrated that dictatorship is not only addictive but is also lucrative. Virtually no dictatorial regime has been proven an exception to this rule of thumb. Dictatorships in the Arab Middle East and Africa are prime examples of self-enrichment, corruption and the looting of national wealth. The series of military coups that destabilised Nigeria in the 1980s also enriched a considerable number of top military leaders who skimmed the country's oil wealth. The initial rule of the Palestinian Authority under former leader Yasser Arafat was attended by several examples of self-enrichment and abuse of donor funds that alarmed the European Union. The EU partially suspended funding and demanded rigorous financial accountability. The extent of Arafat's own estate after his death demonstrated that he was not exactly an austere, revolutionary Ché Guevara. Corruption and financial abuse in established Middle Eastern autocracies, whether monarchical or republican, are a fact of life that defies accountability. Autocracies perpetuate themselves in power through a supporting, beneficiary elite. This is not the standard electorate that votes governments and presidents in and out of office in decent democracies. Rather, they consist of exclusive special interest groups include security officials, business tycoons, regime propagandists and self-serving political aspirants. To guarantee loyalty, the elite have to be awarded special privileges and lucrative incentives. They often stand to lose everything, and risk legal prosecution, should the alliance of interests collapse. So they are bonded to the regime and become its main apologists. The confrontation now underway in Zimbabwe between the ruling ZANU- PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition is symptomatic of this conflict of interests between the failed ruling elite and the popularly elected representatives of a nation. The ruling elite has been in shock and denial since suppressed election results indicated it had lost the parliamentary elections by a clear margin, and the presidential election by a more sizable margin. President Mugabe's regime, refusing to concede loss, seems intent on dragging the country through a labyrinth of legal battles until it can regroup its forces and change the results in its favour. This has already started by the arrest of seven officials of the Zimbabwe Election Commission on charges of "undercounting" votes favourable to the candidacy of President Mugabe. Autocracies play the game of subterfuge democracy in different ways. They make a little concession here, a crackdown there, a manipulative interpretation of the law in some cases and replacement of a draconian law by another one in other cases. In all circumstances, dictators consistently address their populace in paternalistic terms, showing great concern for their suffering and ordering immediate resolution of the pressing problems they face -- problems which their regimes had created or failed to address in the first place. All dictators pretend to be benevolent protectors of the interests of the people they rule. This applies across the board, from former dictator Nicolai Ceausescu of Romania, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Sani Abacha of Nigeria to the league of Third World dictators in Africa, Asia and the Arab Middle East. The fallacy of the benevolent dictator, however, is what it says it is -- a fallacy. The explosive electoral situation in Zimbabwe, like the bloody one that preceded it in Kenya in December 2007, is emblematic of the ballot box is asserting its power against the force of dictatorship. People are becoming increasingly aware of their problems, their choices and their agency. Looking beyond banned gatherings, threats, paid propagandists, the secret police, prison cells, sham trials and jail sentences, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as the direction of history has always proven. * The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
