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We propose a model of political competition and stability in nominally democratic societies characterized by fraudulent elections. In every election, an opposition candidate faces off against the current leader. If the incumbent wins, he continues to hold office, automatically positioning him as the candidate for the next election since there are no term limits. If he loses, there is a positive probability dictated by external factors that he will engage in electoral fraud. We model voter forward-looking behavior and introduce a new solution concept—the fraud-robust farsighted equilibrium set—to predict equilibrium leaders; these are leaders who would remain in power indefinitely without resorting to electoral fraud. We investigate the conditions for the existence, popularity, and welfare implications of such leaders. We find that when voters have strict preferences, an equilibrium leader always exists. Nonetheless, equilibrium leaders are generally unpopular and can be inefficient. We outline three types of conditions under which equilibrium leaders are efficient. First, efficiency is achieved under any political system if and only if there are no more than four competing politicians. Second, if there are more than four competitors, all equilibrium leaders are efficient if and only if the prevailing political system is an oligarchy, meaning that power is held by a minimal coalition of individuals. Third, for a broad class of preferences, including those that are single-peaked, equilibrium leaders are always efficient and popular, regardless of the degree of political competition. This analysis suggests that an excess of competing politicians, possibly resulting from high ethnic fragmentation, may result in political failure by encouraging the emergence of a ruling leader who can remain in power indefinitely without committing fraud, despite being both inefficient and unpopular.
