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Is there any indication that the opposition is any more competent and less corrupt?
This is an important point. Live long enough and you grow to become very skeptical of the Western narrative that different leaders will create different outcomes. People cheered when Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and became leader of Burma. They jeered when she went on to persecute the Rohingya Muslims. The Arab Spring told a similar story. As did the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Simply adding Western democratic mores to a third world country doesn't seem to change much.
There is, however, one type of leader who tends to create long-term positive impacts for a country. And that is a benevolent dictator, or dictator-lite. Examples of leaders in this mold are Rwanda's Paul Kagame or Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. Perhaps the most salient current example is President Bukele of El Salvador who has already achieved massive quality of life gains for his citizens by declaring martial law and throwing all the gang members in jail.
While these leaders improve their countries and achieve huge popularity, they are not cheered by Western governments and NGOs, who tend to favor untested opposition groups who inevitably become corrupt the moment they are handed real power.
That list is tiny, and you might have to drop a few if you consider whether they have successfully locked in their gains and had an orderly succession to a still flourishing system.
Nobody has any idea how to make Lee Kuan Yews or General Parks*, or they'd make a dozen of them. Often people act enlightened to fool the West and then do whatever (Obama used to think Erdogan was that guy) Which is why a lot of people default to "get a democracy going".
TBH there is no "Western narrative" - there's many. Even in the same government you'll find people supporting democracy and change until they turn around and support the only strongman on the grounds that they're the ones who can keep the state running or, at least, do what the US wants (basically Obama's relationship with Egypt after the Arab Spring).
(I don't think you're wrong about Western NGO-types framing people like Bukele as autocrats for violating "civil rights" but that just makes me skeptical that he is autocrat, as opposed to proving he's a successful one)
* This being The Motte, someone might also remark on it being a strange coincidence that the examples that immediately come to mind are East Asian...
Pinochet was close to those god level rulers. Chile is the richest country south of our border.
A dictator who murdered thousands and imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of people is not benevolent.
Why does that matter? He killed the right people (communists). And put the country on a path to have the highest per capita income in the region.
It’s not like these other dictators didn’t kill and imprison people.
As I told someone else, "Yes, actually, murdering all my political enemies is a good thing" is inflammatory enough to require more than a low effort hot take like this.
And you've been posting a lot of crappy comments like this, and apparently bans and warnings aren't making an impression.
So while this comment itself was only a little bit bad, you're getting another one-week ban because we're tired of you posting one "little bit bad" comment after another.
Expect future bans to escalate.
When communism had a body count well into the tens of millions in the half century prior to the events described, “political enemies” does not do the category justice.
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