Word: autocrats
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...contest could never really have been called fair. On one side was an ailing but wily autocrat, whose authority was waning but whose hands remained firmly clenched around the levers of political power. On the other was an unassuming but determined housewife-crusader, whose political resources were meager but whose brief and meteoric candidacy had fanned the desire of millions of her countrymen for political change. What had kept the mismatched sides in balance during the course of their 57-day election battle was a promise as potent in appeal as it was frail in prospect. The hope was that...
Back in Manila, the capital, a different kind of spectacle was unfolding. President Ferdinand Marcos, 68, an ailing autocrat possessed of formidable political powers, made an election foray of his own from Malacanang Palace to address 7,000 longshoremen on the city's South Pier. Everything was carefully choreographed: a stream of local entertainers kept the crowd's attention until Marcos, looking drawn, tired and weak, was escorted to the podium. The President joked about rumors that he had suffered a physical collapse, and dismissed reports of his obvious ill health as so much "black propaganda." Wife Imelda...
...founder and owner of ComputerLand, William Millard, 53, built a billion-dollar business on an old-fashioned notion: it is better to be feared than loved. Since the firm's start in 1976, Millard has ruled his 1,100 employees and more than 800 franchisees with an autocrat's hand, making unilateral decisions and railing against anyone who challenged his judgment. Until recently, that style worked wonders. ComputerLand (1984 sales: $1.4 billion) is the world's largest chain of computer stores, with 820 outlets in 24 countries, including China. Profits are expected to reach $20 million this year. Millard...
...malaise finally crept into Trudeau's own party. An autocrat who rarely consulted caucus, Trudeau exploited his power of personality and cultivated his dislike for day-to-day administration. Accountability to the press and to members of his own party became less and less frequent, but back-benchers kept their mouths shut--knowing Trudeau was the only hope for their own political backsides...
...fugitive images of Haile Selassie seem to merge with his visions of Stalin and other Communist leaders who have inflamed the writer's political fantasies. Little wonder that when The Emperor was published in Poland in 1978, this story of an evil autocrat surrounded by craven functionaries was read as an allegory of Communist rule. Who but Stalin, for example, might have justified a famine in the words attributed to an apologist for Haile Selassie: "Between you and me-it is not bad for national order and a sense of national humility that the subjects be rendered skinnier, thinned...