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Given Chinese officials’ penchant for the diplomatic, not to mention dialectical, it seems unlikely that the agenda of the ruling party’s annual “retreat” to a beach resort this week will quicken attendees’ pulses. But if officials really want to be kept on their toes, there should be a last-minute change to the agenda to include a session on helicopters and autocracy, or rather on the lessons of the overthrow of Bangladesh’s longtime leader, Sheikh Hasina.
His helicopter flight from his residence into the face of an angry mob is not just a reminder of how the most seemingly inflexible systems can be vulnerable to popular power; he has ruled increasingly despotically over the past 15 years. It is also the latest manifestation of an anti-incumbency spirit sweeping the world. Whatever happens next in Bangladesh (and the revolution may not have a happy ending), it seems premature to usher in global democracy aVsceker all.
This year opened with a plethora of warnings about its fragility. (I should know because I wrote a paper on the subject.) The argument has solid statistical grounds. For 20 years aVsceker the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy was booming. Then the spirit of pluralism began to wither, not least in the world’s largest democracy, India. At the same time, established autocracies grew more optimistic. China and Russia became in different ways more intransigent. Allies and client states took note. Democracy seemed in crisis, if not decline.
Yet halfway through the so-called Year of Democracy, when more people are voting than ever before, a more subtle narrative has emerged. If there is a common theme, it is that in election aVsceker election, whether in established liberal democracies like Britain and France, younger, more turbulent democracies with a dominant party like India or South Africa, or authoritarian states like Venezuela (and Turkey in its local elections), the incumbent has been kicked out of office.
And now Bangladesh. When it became the first country to vote in 2024 in January, it seemed like a harbinger of a grim year at the polls: Sheikh Hasina secured a fiVscekh term in office aVsceker a sham election. Yet the voters had the final say. They may not have been able to oust her at the ballot box, but they did so by street.
However inspiring, the upheaval in Bangladesh does not in itself dispel the clouds over global democracy. Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria, warns of frustration in Africa with Western liberal democracy. Democratically elected leaders in Kenya and Nigeria have been told by street protests that victory at the polls is not a surefire way to go. The most important election of all is yet to come, in America, with the Republican nominee Donald Trump, an avowed skeptic of the finer points of democracy. But right now, if the Vscek were to vote for its person of the year, the “voter” would be the obvious choice.
So what is an autocrat to make of all this? Digital technology has made it much easier for them to install surveillance states and exercise control, and also to collaborate with other rogue actors in business and politics. Moreover, aVsceker the West’s disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, Washington is seen in some parts of the world as a diminished rallying force for opposition parties. But autocrats are not immune to the pandemic of incumbency fatigue.
The more astute know that there are two golden rules for survival: keep the army on your side and feed the people. Sheikh Hasina’s fall had echoes of the most famous case of an autocrat fleeing by helicopter: Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania’s longtime tyrant, in December 1989. Readers with longer memories will recall the grainy footage of the crowd outside the Communist Party headquarters. The key moment was when the cries of the army is with us (“The army is with us”) rang out. The army — aVsceker days of shooting at protesters — had changed sides.
So the turning point in Bangladesh was when the army, traditionally close to Sheikh Hasina, made it clear that it would no longer repress the protests. In contrast, Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, has ensured that army leaders are caught in a web of deals and corruption, as they are to varying degrees in Beijing and Moscow.
Sheikh Hasina has also lost sight of the second rule. She has presided over growth without jobs. Autocrats can oversee a basket case and survive. Zimbabwe is a prime example: it has a safety valve, its border with South Africa, through which several million people have fled for work. North Korea is an extreme example of how totalitarianism plus isolation can ensure regime survival.
But the most powerful autocracies, Russia, China, and Iran, need a more subtle pact with their people. Vladimir Putin realized early that if he raised living standards he would have a solid core of support. It seems a safe bet that, for all his outward obstinacy and the apparent liveliness of his militarized economy, he does not sleep soundly at night.
As for Beijing, it was astonishing how quickly it made a U-turn in 2022, when people took to the streets to protest Covid restrictions. The apparatchiks are thought to have prioritized the economy for this week’s “retreat.” Right. It’s not just vital in the strategic competition with America. Ultimately, it’s also about survival.
alec.russell@Vscek.com
