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I was researching on some 3rd world dictators and kept coming across things that sounded familiar. As GWB said, "Things would be a lot easier under a dictator, so long as I was the dictator." So, after the next terror attacks, if Pelosi and Reid agreed to let GWB become our dictator instead of having the 2008 elections, which dictator would he be??
Choices:
Kim Jong-il
Kim is portrayed as a weirdo or a joke. But he is actually a well-informed, wily politician who was trained for this position by his father, Kim Il-sung.
Ayatollah Khamenei
His regime has increasingly suppressed freedom of expression: Women can be stoned to death for adultery, and in November an Iranian man was publicly hanged for homosexuality.
King Mswati III
According to the Swaziland constitution, he has the right to overrule all laws and rules, and it is illegal to investigate any matter relating to the him.
Isayas Afewerki
Afewerki has kept himself in charge of Eritrea by suspending the constitution and canceling elections. He also forced his people into a useless border war with Ethiopia. Isayas accused his neighbors, Ethiopia, Yemen and Sudan, of being an “Axis of Belligerence.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko
Lukashenko was elected independent Belarus’ first president in a fair election in 1994. He immediately set about squashing his opposition. Lukashenko appoints all the members of the upper house of parliament.
Pervez Musharraf
General Musharraf seized power by overthrowing an elected government. An enthusiastic supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Musharraf switched sides a week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Choummaly Sayasone
n Laos, it is possible to be arrested for a wide variety of vague, alleged offenses, such as “creating division among the people,” importing a publication that is “offensive to the national culture,” and reporting “misleading news.” Premarital cohabitation is illegal, as is having sex with a foreigner.
Meles Zenawi
In 1998, he subjected Ethiopia to an unnecessary border war with Eritrea that caused thousands of deaths. He agreed to international arbitration to settle the border, but when the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission ruled against him, Meles refused to abide by the decision.
Hosni Mubarak
When President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Mubarak took his place and has ruled Egypt under a state of emergency ever since. Every six years, he stages a rigged election to maintain his position as president. For the latest one, in 2005, no international observers were allowed. Reports of the torture of prisoners in Egypt are frequent, credible and widespread. Under the Emergency Law, Mubarak has the right to arrest people without charge.
Paul Biya
Biya is credited with instituting one of the more creative tactics in the history of rigged elections. After international election-monitoring groups denounced his elections as “designed to fail,” Biya hired his own group of international monitors. Made up of ex-U.S. congressmen of both parties, the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress declared Cameroon’s 2004 election as free and fair.
Vladimir Putin
Russian prison conditions are described as “frequently life-threatening.” Although Vladimir Putin has stated that he will not run for reelection in 2008, he has greatly centralized power in the executive branch.
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