In Bangladesh’s January 2024 general election, the ruling Awami League won 224 of 300 seats. The main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, boycotted the vote owing to a lack of fairness. Nationwide turnout was officially reported at historically low 41%. “Free, fair, and participatory,” declared then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who held power for 15 of the past 20 years before student-led protests toppled her government in August last year. Her opponent, Khaleda Zia, remained under house arrest. No one was surprised.
Authoritarian regimes have always found elections useful as a means of validating them rather than choosing governments. In Asia, where electoral democracy once looked ascendant, autocratic leaders now use elections as tools to maintain power rather than seeing them as risks to it. Handled with care, they offer the gloss of legitimacy, the thrill of participation and—when needed—the pretext to remove inconvenient rivals. The goal is not to win votes, but to control the conditions under which they are cast.
Only a handful of countries in Asia—North Korea, China, Turkmenistan—dispense with elections entirely. Most prefer to simulate democracy. In 2024 at least a dozen Asian states held national or regional votes. Few met any credible standard of fairness. Yet many of the leaders who oversaw them claimed unusually high mandates. Hun Manet, son of Cambodia’s longtime strongman, won over 80% of the vote in a July 2023 election with no viable opposition. Uzbekistan’s president secured 87% in a “snap” poll he himself scheduled in 2023. Pakistan’s army-installed government claimed victory last year despite widespread allegations of ballot manipulation and an internet shutdown on election day in parts of the country.
The performance is consistent, even if the methods vary. What binds them is a playbook that evolves faster than the institutions meant to restrain it.
Election manipulation in Asia is rarely crude. Gone are the days of overt ballot stuffing. Instead regimes prefer pre-election engineering: rewriting rules, disqualifying rivals, starving opposition campaigns of airtime and money, and fragmenting dissent with rival factions or legal harassment.
In Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election, Prabowo Subianto, a former general long accused of human rights violations, secured 58.6% of the vote. His ticket was strengthened by choosing Gibran Rakabuming Raka, son of outgoing president Joko Widodo, as vice‑presidential running mate. The Constitutional Court, under Chief Justice Anwar Usman—Jokowi’s brother‑in‑law—approved an exception to age requirements allowing Gibran, then 36, to run. Observers criticised the move as nepotism and dynastic politics. Prabowo had lost twice before but won in a landslide this time.
India, the world’s largest democracy, has not formally abandoned its electoral credentials. But the trendline is obvious. Ahead of the April–May 2024 general election, tax authorities raided opposition party offices and froze accounts. The chief rival to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, spent a year fighting a conviction for defamation—technically unrelated to politics but politically convenient. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominated national media coverage, aided by advertising budgets that dwarfed the opposition’s. Mr Modi won a third term, albeit without a majority.
Many regimes follow a three-step process. First, weaken independent institutions: courts, election commissions as well as media. Then disqualify or neutralise challengers. Finally, engineer victory without excessive force. Observers have noted the same pattern in Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and even the Philippines, where the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.—son of the late dictator—was enabled in part by online nostalgia campaigns funded by undisclosed sources.
One useful trick is to flood the ballot with low-quality alternatives. In Cambodia’s 2023 election, the main opposition party was disqualified on a technicality. Over a dozen minor parties contested the vote. None won a seat but their presence helped preserve the illusion of competition. In Russia and Central Asia, this tactic is called “spoiler politics”. In Asia it has become the norm.
These elections are not cost-free. Voter apathy has leapt sharply. In Thailand the progressive Move Forward party won the popular vote in May 2023, but was barred from forming a government after military-appointed senators blocked its nominee. Youth turnout dropped in subsequent local elections. In Malaysia, despite a technically democratic transfer of power, voter disillusionment has deepened amid horse-trading and political instability.
Capital markets, too, have learned to discount electoral outcomes in managed democracies. Investors now treat elections as scheduled risks, instead of as catalysts for reform. Bangladesh’s taka fell to record lows in 2024 despite the ruling party’s landslide victory. Fitch Ratings downgraded Pakistan’s outlook in the same year, owing to political uncertainty after the disputed election. In Sri Lanka, where elections are due in 2026, bond yields remain elevated, reflecting fears of renewed populist policymaking.
Yet foreign governments tend to play along. America and the European Union have condemned some abuses—especially in Myanmar, where the 2021 coup removed even the pretence of democracy—but tolerate others. India is a strategic partner; Indonesia, an investment destination; Bangladesh, a garment-exporting ally. The price of geopolitical alignment is selective scrutiny.
Why do Asia’s autocrats bother with elections at all? The short answer is that the costs of not holding them are higher. Authoritarian leaders without electoral rituals—like China’s Xi Jinping—must rely entirely on economic performance, coercion as well as ideology to maintain legitimacy. Elections, even fake ones, confer three strategic advantages.
First, they provide a domestic barometer. Turnout, protest patterns and social media sentiment offer data that private polls cannot. Second, they help elites manage succession. Dynasties need a place to train and present their heirs. Third, and most important, they create a firewall against external pressure. Elections give them a ready-made excuse to deny responsibility. Western governments reluctant to confront a “democratically elected” leader will find reasons to look the other way.
For the public, the cost is corrosive. When elections cease to offer genuine choice, the meaning of citizenship changes. In the absence of accountability, corruption deepens. Political violence tends to follow. The region’s electoral autocrats may avoid coups, but they rarely escape crisis. Sri Lanka’s meltdown in 2022, Myanmar’s civil war and Pakistan’s chronic instability all came from regimes that manipulated elections until they stopped mattering.
Asia’s democracies have always been diverse. Some, like Japan and South Korea, built liberal institutions alongside elections. Others grafted elections onto authoritarian foundations. Today the balance is shifting towards the latter. Of the region’s 4.7bn people, fewer than half live under governments that allow full electoral competition. Fewer still trust the outcome.
Most leaders will continue to hold elections for now—not despite being autocrats but because they are. The rituals help and the ballots count. But only for those who wrote the rules.
Machiavelli argued that it is better to be feared than loved. Asia’s electoral strongmen would add: so long as you can still claim to be elected. ■
