If, as Iran’s opposition has alleged, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rigged the country’s presidential election, he will join a long roster of autocrats who have tried to preserve their power through fraudulent means. But election-stealing is a risky gamble. Although the perpetrators have sometimes succeeded, typically by deploying brutal force, they have seldom evaded justice when their ploy failed.
Based on our review of 16 cases of rigged elections in authoritarian or transition countries in the last 40 years, we find that autocratic rulers who attempted to steal presidential, parliamentary, or general elections had roughly an equal chance of keeping their grip on power, succumbing to a quick and decisive defeat, or getting mired in a costly political stalemate.
Autocrats have an excellent chance of surviving crises provoked by disputed elections if the ruling elites are united and if they have the support of military and security forces.
President Robert Mugabe resorted to violence to crush opposition demonstrators following Zimbabwe’s disputed presidential election in 2002. The ruling elites in Ethiopia ordered the police to fire on demonstrators after the opposition challenged the outcome of the country’s general election in 2005. In 1989, the Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega rigged the country’s general election. He would have succeeded in clinging to power had President George H.W. Bush not sent in the U.S. military to depose him.
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