Global role model
Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, is about to accomplish a feat that is routine among dictators across the globe.
He has persuaded himself that he alone is suitable to lead his country till death do them part. To ensure that eventuality, he has arranged that no one else who might have a chance of winning may run in national elections scheduled for November.
Nicaragua's descent into a new round of long-term dictatorship more than 40 years after Marxist guerrillas overthrew the 43-year rule of the Somoza family dynasty - gets hardly an international shrug. The world is far more concerned with dangerous big-power rivalries, a persistent pandemic and widespread economic worries.
Nicaragua is a country of 6.5 million that mainly produces textiles, coffee and economic migrants. Unlike the case during the 20th century's second half, when national liberation movements were widespread, Nicaragua now has no political influence surrounded as it is by also impoverished but nonetheless democratized neighbors in Central America.
Still, Nicaragua serves as a textbook example of a long-running trend: the erosion of electoral democracy across the globe. Ortega has used partisan domination of government institutions to put a legal stamp on his crushing of foes. As is common elsewhere, physical repression and the silencing of critics spice what is in effect a constitutional coup.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the spread of democratic elections exemplified a new burst of democracy. Warsaw Pact countries and Latin American nations run by military juntas - Cuba excepted - embraced alternation of power through elections.
Some countries in East Asia followed the trend. In Africa, a few entered the democratic ranks by discarding lifetime leaders, though others remained and still remain entrenched.
As decades passed, autocrats began to turn the election into a ritual to distract from one-man rule. Russia stands as a case in point.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin has in effect ruled Russia since 2000. Periodic elections are less and less contested because of concentration of power in the Kremlin, persecution of democratic rivals and suppression of independent media.
Via referendum, he canceled rules that limited presidents to serving a pair of six-year terms. Under the new framework, he can rule until 2036, should he triumph in the next two votes. The next one is scheduled for 2024.
This year, he jailed Alexei Navalny, a leading pro-democracy leader, anti-corruption campaigner and presidential hopeful. Putin also signed off on laws that criminalize opposition organizations. At a minimum, both actions pre-empt legislative elections this year in which he might have lost a commanding majority.
In neighboring Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, held elections last year that were deemed fraudulent by many. Thousands of protesters took to the streets and police beat them down. Lukashenko jailed opponents while many fled into exile.
Former Soviet republics in Central Asia - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan - are ruled by dictators who hold ornamental elections to provide their regimes a veneer of popular participation.
It's much the same for rulers outside the former Soviet realm. As of June, five African heads of state have been in power for more than 30 years - in Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Eritrea. More than half a dozen other African leaders have ruled for at least a decade.
It seems that every time an old potentate falls in Africa, others work to ensure their own political longevity. In Uganda, for instance, president Yoweri Museveni, 76, persuaded the parliament to let him run beyond the constitutional age limit of 75 years. He won a sixth term in January.