When Dictators Die
The world’s dictators are aging — but democrats shouldn’t be too quick to rejoice.
BY , SEPTEMBER 10, 2015
There are 55 authoritarian leaders in power throughout the world. Eleven of these leaders are 69 years old or older, and they are in varying stages of declining health. Most of these aging dictators, such as Angola’s Jose Eduardo Dos Santos (73 years old), Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev (75 years old), and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe (91 years old), have been in power for decades. At first blush this paints a hopeful picture for democracy watchers, who have recently documented a slow but steady authoritarian resurgence. Surely the fact that 20 percent of the world’s autocracies face the specter of succession provides an opportunity for new democracies to emerge — or does it?
