‘It could never happen here’
Imagine you are reading a good long in-depth feature piece, perhaps in The Guardian, or watching a lengthy foreign correspondent report that features a small country of 6.6 million.
It could be in the Pacific, Asia, Africa, South or Central America.
This country has a long and proud history of democratic traditions and freedoms but you learn it has been ruled by the one party for 20 of the last 23 years.
When the hapless opposition fluked a term in power the party’s allies and supporters waged an all out campaign of strikes and even used public vehicles as anti-government billboards.
Since coming back to power the dominant party has fallen almost completely into the grip of its leader, a strongman who has cultivated a rabid cult-like following.
He has started talking about himself as the “dad” of the country. Distinguished journalists have spoken out about the way his devotees hound them and their colleagues.
The strongman has declared a state of emergency for about 20 months, even though this contravenes UN guidelines the country is party to.
A watchdog ordered the government release the safety advice it used to justify the state of emergency but the government has refused to do so and is fighting this request in court with public money.
The police have reacted in starkly different fashions according to whether protests seem condoned by the government or opposed to them.
Leaked secret files indicate that senior police have intervened to stop members of the strongman’s party being arrested over election fixing.
When a shockingly brutal attack on a mentally ill man was videotaped the government defended the police involved and they were later cleared.
A minority group has been identified and blamed for the government failings such as hospital pressures.
This is despite the strongman making a ludicrous promise about expanding health care that he later claimed he never made.
The country’s once most respected newspaper is running opinion pieces that call the despised minority group “saboteurs”.
It has demoted its most celebrated cartoonist for an anti-government cartoon that was “out of touch with the readership”.
New laws are coming in to keep the minority “saboteurs” locked out of employment, public places, public facilities, private facilities and shops.
Doctors suspected of “being in cahoots” with the minority group, even doctors, are being raided and private medical files are being seized.
During the state of emergency period a local watchdog and as a consequence international observers have called out human rights breaches, which have had deadly consequences.
Far from apologizing, the government has been proud of its actions.
New laws have been drafted to replace the state of emergency.
Lawyers warn they give the police powers the Stasi would envy.
They also warn the laws allow the strongman to “rule by decree” and represent an “appalling” unrestricted interference with individual liberty.
The strongman loves big public works, which he calls the “big build”.
There are serious questions around the transparency and economic planning of these works.
The projects are running over time and over budget but they benefit the stongman’s union allies.
The government is reported to be hiding the true state of its finances.
Already it has the lowest international government credit rating in their region. The strongman seems to be looking towards China to help bail it out.
The socialist left strongman and his party are facing numerous corruption claims.
Despite overseeing the collapse of many smaller businesses the strongman is friends with “capitalist” tycoons and enjoys their hospitality.
He reportedly has the friendship and favour of a casino mogul, whose gambling business faced major criminal allegations but whose licence remains intact.
The strongman enjoys expensive wines and golf at exclusive clubs, even allegedly breaking his own rules to do so.
No doubt you’d watch or read this and shake your head at the shenanigans of a typical third world country.
Then you would say: “Thank goodness that could never happen here.”
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