Opportunistic Autocrats
7 minute read
I’ve always thought that if you want to see a person’s true colours, then observe how they behave under pressure, or better yet, in a crisis. I believe the same holds true for companies and even governments, which is another reason why these unprecedented times are so fascinating. As ever, ‘E’nvironmental and ‘S’ocial issues are dominating headlines, but the often overlooked ‘G’ - Governance factors will prove vital to the economic distress companies and countries find themselves in, and therefore the size of the hole from which they must dig themselves out. There is so much to talk about here so this month I am going to try to focus on “macro-governance” i.e. the importance of governments and leadership at a country level.
The erroneously named Spanish Flu pandemic (it probably originated in the US, not Spain) shares some fascinating similarities and differences with this one; occurring during the tail end of WW1, some estimates put the death toll at more that both World Wars combined. One of the key outcomes of it was the League of Nations ultimately establishing the World Health Organisation to ensure that the world did not endure such a pandemic again – the kind of international cooperation we have certainly not been seeing so far in 2020. A fragmented global response to imposing a vast array of different restrictions has led to mixed results with some countries faring relatively better than others. Good examples include Germany, Taiwan, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland – all of which acted decisively, communicated truthfully and clearly, used technology intelligently and showed genuine compassion – they also all happen to led by women5. Once the world started down the path of every country (and sometimes even region) for itself, global cooperation and coordination to battle this global issue became an awful lot harder. Imposing haphazard lockdowns and social distancing measures can be confusing but uncoordinated lifting of restrictions could be downright dangerous. Perhaps it is not in politicians best interests to work together – economies are being ripped apart, hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost and many millions more have been turned upside down; politicians are already trying to find others to point the blame at. If they all had worked together in a coordinated manner then everyone would have had to accept a portion of the blame.
The first and most obvious example of poor governance was China’s attempted cover up of the mystery “Wuhan pneumonia” and the reluctance of the rest of the world to really challenge on this – some diplomats cited relations as “delicate”; presumably that means they don’t want to jeopardise delivery of vital medical supplies from China, or the possible hostile takeovers of weakened Western companies by Chinese state controlled entities. More recently the US has withdrawn their funding to the WHO and China has repeatedly excluded the WHO from the crucial investigations into the origins of the virus.
Social and economic upheaval also provide the perfect opportunity for unscrupulous would-be autocratic leaders to enact ‘emergency’ measures which cement their power at the expense of the people they govern, particularly at a time when the rest of the world is somewhat distracted. At least 84 countries (including the UK) have so far implemented some kind of additional laws and powers to battle the crisis, often giving states legal powers to limit personal freedoms; the big fear of course is that not all of these will be rescinded once the emergency is over.
China decided that now was the right time to arrest prominent democrats in Hong Kong and announce that they no longer recognise a key part of HK’s constitution which will effectively allow the mainland to interfere in HK laws and excerpt pressure to curtail the freedoms HK residents enjoy. Hungary’s parliament have passed a law which will allow Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree, effectively becoming a dictator – not a behaviour you’d expect from an EU member state; Serbia and Togo have done similar. Being able to ban large gatherings (for social distancing reasons) is also a convenient way to block legitimate government protests, the likes of which we have seen recently seen in Russia, India and parts of Latin America and Africa, after social distancing is no longer required. Lockdown rules can be used selectively, as in the case of Azerbaijan where President Ilham Aliyev has openly used them to threaten political opponents. Foreign aid and relief cash can also be selectively allocated and easily misappropriated.
The vital contract tracing effort which will underpin many countries strategy to prevent a second COVID wave inherently means citizens giving up some of their rights to privacy. China and Russia in particular are now (legally) deploying extremely sophisticated snooping tools to track their citizens. We know that Fake News can be as damaging as the virus itself, but powers designed to limit it can also be used to limit freedom of Speech – Zimbabwe and Libya have passed laws which make criticising the government responses an imprisonable offence; Jordan, Yemen, Oman and the UAE have banded print newspapers (due to the risk of them spreading the virus). Aspirational autocrats will argue that at times like these public health must be prioritised ahead of liberty, but censorship and restricting the flow of information can be extremely damaging for both, stifling an evidence based response to the virus and allowing corruption to thrive. All the while human rights campaigners, NGOs and journalists are grounded under lockdowns, unable to scrutinise.
Handing absolute power to leaders whose priorities are geared towards increasing and prolonging their power is not in the best interests of the future and is certainly not sustainable. Exactly what they choose to do with their powers after the crisis remains to be seen, but frankly, this is a worry for the SDGs, especially the more socially focused ones1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,16. The Economist explores these ideas in a lot more detail (subscription needed).