ORDER FIRST:

Dark pasts, Latin strongmen still hold appeal: Guatemala's dictator during the '80s is running for president. (Catherine Elton, 11/07/03, CS Monitor)

Many Guatemalans shudder when they recall Gen. Efrain Rios Montt's short-lived but iron-fisted rule in the early 1980s. He was the nation's dictator during one of the darkest eras of Guatemalan history, when tens of thousands of Mayan Indians were slaughtered in the Army's drive to quash support for leftist guerrillas.

But if his critics scorn this evangelical preacher and longtime congressional president as a genocidal general, his supporters revere him as the strong, God-fearing leader this turbulent nation needs. With only two days left before Sunday's elections, Mr. Rios Montt is hoping his supporters are numerous enough to catapult him into the presidency. [...]

"Rios Montt has a populist, authoritarian appeal which is growing and taking different forms in different countries in the region," says George Vickers, a Latin America expert with the Open Society Institute in Washington. "In Central America and in South America a large number of people in many countries sense that democracies haven't increased employment opportunities or brought about more order. They are interested in having strong rulers who can provide jobs and stability."

A poll released late last month and conducted by the Chilean company Latinobarometro shows that in 14 countries in the region, citizens have less faith in democracy than they did eight years ago. Of all the 17 countries included in the poll, Guatemala supports democracy the least with only 33 percent of the respondents answering that "democracy is preferable to other forms of government." In Paraguay and Ecuador, citizens are increasingly saying that authoritarian governments are preferable to democratic ones in certain circumstances, according to the poll.

The sky-high crime rates plaguing many countries in the region have buoyed the popularity of caudillos, who are perceived as better prepared to combat lawlessness. Many of his supporters recall Rios Montt's rule during the 1980s as one where the streets of Guatemala were safe.

It is perhaps only because of the unique circumstance of our having enjoyed it for so long that otherwise serious folks are able to ignore the primary human desire for physical security (as provided by the orderly rule of law) and become absolutist advocates for freedom as an end in itself.
Authoritarians who establish law and order and thereby the necessary conditions for greater democracy and freedom are justifiably held in no little esteem by significant portions of their countrymen. This will be the case even if the caudillo is overly brutal or holds on to power a bit longer than he needed to and even if the same folks who were glad he did what he did are not sorry to see the back of him when the time finally comes for transition to a more liberal regime--thus Franco, Pinochet, Trujillo, etc. The difficulty, of course, is knowing when the leader's ultimate aim is the good of the nation and when just exalting himself. It's interesting in this regard to see the variety of opinions concerning Vladimir Putin, who could be the savior or the ruination of Russian liberalism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2003 7:15 PM