Loss Of U.S. Moral Authority Undermines Democracy Around The World

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Around the world today, lots of countries claim to be “democracies”; but then the state thugs use various ploys to assure that no opposition can ever prevail. Among such ploys, the tactic currently in vogue is to gin up some collection of flimsy criminal charges to get the opposition leader and/or his/her supporters arrested or otherwise sidelined.

If you haven’t been following the subject closely in recent months, you may not realize how pervasive the use of this tactic has become. Sure, imprisoning the opposition leaders has long been part of the playbook of the worst thugocracies. It’s what you would expect of a small-time African dictatorship or of a Central American banana republic, not to mention the likes of Russia or China. But recently the tactic has been spreading like a case of poison ivy to countries otherwise pretending to grown-up, or semi-grown-up, status. Countries like India, Bangladesh, and Brazil. And, did I mention, the United States — once known for claiming to be the shining exemplar for the world of good governance, and for seeking to use its moral authority to induce others to follow its lead. Today, governing cliques in other countries are greatly emboldened by the brazen abuse of power orchestrated by Biden and the gaggle of Democratic prosecutors pursuing Trump. Hey, we’re just conducting business the same way you Americans do in your own country! You have no standing to criticize us!

We’ll start with a couple of the worst — Russia and Venezuela. In Russia, Vladimir Putin, either personally or through his stand-in Medvedev, has been in power continuously since 1999. In three prior re-elections, to keep the opposition from getting traction, Putin has used a standard playbook of the autocrat — control of the press and television, suppression of demonstrations and rallies, control of the vote-counting process. But the most recent election, held March 15, is the first time Putin felt emboldened to have the opposition leader (Navalny) imprisoned. The charge was “extremism,” (whatever that means) for which Navalny was convicted by a compliant court and sentenced to a term of 19 years (!). And then Navalny mysteriously died in prison in February, just weeks before the election. Putin claims to have won some 87% of the vote in the election.

In Venezuela, the next election is expected in July. Current dictator Maduro (along with predecessor Chavez) has totally run the country into the ground. Likely, he would lose any fair election badly; but he’s taking no chances. The opposition has united around a candidate named Maria Corina Machado, who announced her candidacy in June 2023. According to this January 26, 2024 piece in the AP, shortly after Machado announced her candidacy in June, the Venezuelan government imposed a 15-year ban on her running for office. The supposed grounds are “fraud and tax violations and . . . seeking the economic sanctions the U.S. imposed on Venezuela last decade.” Machado says she was never notified of the supposed ban, and she proceeded to run in a primary conducted independently of the government in October by the opposition groups, winning some 90% of the votes. Thereafter, the government told her of the ban, so she challenged it in court. But in December, Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, totally in control of Maduro’s forces, upheld the ban. In the latest development, according to this piece from Reuters, on March 20 Madura’s henchmen arrested, and/or issued warrants for the arrest of, nine top members of Machado’s campaign team including her “right hand,” (campaign manager) Magalli Meda. As of today, Machado herself apparently remains out of prison, although I doubt that will last. She has also been prevented from registering as a candidate for the upcoming election.

Meanwhile, over in Bangladesh, there was an election on January 7, 2024. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasami, head of the Awami League party, ran for her fifth term in office, against main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Here is what happened in the run-up to the election, according to a January 8 piece in the Guardian:

In the months leading up to the election, tens of thousands of BNP leaders and rank and file members had been arrested en masse and kept in terrible conditions in overcrowded prisons, while opposition protests were met with heavy police violence. At least nine BNP leaders and supporters have died in jail in the past three months, according to the opposition.

In these circumstances, BNP made the strategic decision to call for a boycott of the election. The result was a very low turnout election, where the ruling party won an overwhelming victory. From the Guardian:

Tarique Rahman, the BNP chairman who lives in exile in London due to corruption allegations against him that he denies as politically motivated, said: “What unfolded was not an election, but rather a disgrace to the democratic aspirations of Bangladesh.”. . . Rumeen Farhana, one of the few BNP MPs who has not been jailed, called it a “dummy election”, adding: . . . “Bangladesh will be a de facto one party state after this election.”

In India, there is an election scheduled for April 19. The LA Times reports on March 22 that one of the main opposition leaders, a guy named Arvind Kejriwal, was just arrested. The LA Times identifies Kejriwal as the “top elected official” (analogous to mayor?) of New Delhi. Despite the fact that his claim to fame is crusading against corruption, Kejriwal has been charged with taking some $12 million in bribes. From the LA Times:

Arvind Kejriwal, who is New Delhi’s top elected official, was arrested Thursday night by the federal Enforcement Directorate, which is controlled by Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. The agency accused Kejriwal’s party and ministers of accepting $12 million in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago. Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, or Common People’s Party, said the accusations were fabricated. The party said Kejriwal will remain New Delhi’s chief minister while it fights the accusations in court.

And then there’s Brazil. Brazil is a country of nearly 220 million people, and with a GDP of over $2 trillion. It should be joining the ranks of the most important countries of the world. But it currently is in the grip of a far left-wing government, headed by Luis Ignacio (“Lula”) da Silva, who ousted former President Jair Bolsonaro in a close election in 2022. The next election is in 2026.

Bolsonaro is a somewhat Trumpian figure in Brazil, with analogies including that he has a very committed populist following, that he holds large and boisterous rallies, and that his supporters conducted a riot protesting the last election at the time of the transfer of power to Lula in January 2023. (Bolsonaro in fact left office and transferred power.). Not surprisingly, Bolsonaro is getting the full Trump lawfare treatment from the current government and essentially all elite institutions in Brazil. It’s as if the Brazilians were following the news from the U.S. and trying to imitate every move that the state actors take against Trump. The New York Times on March 19 has a piece that includes a rundown of some of the initiatives seeking to take down Bolsonaro:

  • “Brazil’s electoral court has already ruled Mr. Bolsonaro ineligible for public office until 2030 for spreading false information about Brazil’s voting systems on state television, forcing him to sit out the next presidential contest in 2026.”

    So in Brazil a politician of the right can be disqualified from running for “spreading false information about . . . voting systems.” It’s surprising that Colorado didn’t think of that one.

  • Mr. Bolsonaro has been subject to questioning and searches as part of several inquiries, including into the selling of watches and jewels he received as presidential gifts from Saudi Arabia and other countries, as well as accusations that he worked with top government officials to hatch a plan to try to hold onto power after his 2022 election loss.

It does seem a bit tacky for the President of a big country like Brazil to get gifts like watches and jewels from foreign governments and then sell them to obtain personal funds. On the other hand, it’s also not clear that these were bribes, or otherwise illegal. Bribes require a quid pro quo, and what is it exactly that Bolsonaro could have done for Saudi Arabia as the quid pro quo to make these gifts into bribes? (Unlike Biden, who could withhold or release a billion dollars of aid to Ukraine depending on how much the oligarch paid his son for a fake directorship job.). Recall that former Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia was initially convicted of taking multi-hundred thousand dollar gifts, but his conviction was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis that he was not alleged to have done anything in return other than set up some meetings. So unless Brazil has some law prohibiting a President from taking gifts, it’s not clear what Bolsonaro may have done that is improper.

And then there’s the latest bit of lawfare against Bolsonaro:

  • Brazil’s federal police recommended that former President Jair Bolsonaro be criminally charged in a scheme to falsify his Covid-19 vaccine card, partly to travel to the United States during the pandemic, in the latest sign of criminal investigations closing in on the former president.

Well, that one will surely bring him down! It’s almost as bad as paying hush money to a woman accusing you of a sexual impropriety.

And finally, there’s the news from the West African country of Senegal. There, main opposition presidential candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye was arrested and detained in advance of the election held over the past weekend (March 23-24). The charges included “incitement to insurrection” (sound familiar?), and “defamation of a constitutional body.” However, he was released 10 days in advance of the election on orders of Senegal’s constitutional court. And it appears that he has won the election! Mark Steyn has a brief report on the events, and links to multiple articles from the West African press about the event.

Credit goes to Senegal in this collection for the closest thing to untampered elections.