When criminals rig elections to seize power, don’t expect free and fair elections. - Thought • Quote

“ When criminals rig elections to seize power, don’t expect free and fair elections. ” - TemQBS -

Quote Interpretations:

• People who obtain political power through electoral fraud cannot reasonably be expected to protect the integrity of future elections. In other words, if criminals cheat to get into power, they have little incentive to make the system fair enough to remove themselves.

• “Criminals” can refer not only to individuals but to a corrupt political establishment. Once election-rigging becomes part of how power is acquired, the institutions responsible for conducting elections may themselves become compromised. Therefore, free and fair elections become the exception rather than the expectation.

• Summarily, fraud produces illegitimate power, illegitimate power protects the mechanisms of fraud, and those mechanisms are then used to preserve that power. In essence, once leaders discover that manipulating elections works, they may have both the means and the motivation to keep doing it.

- TemQBS’ Food for Thought