Imperialism necessitates authoritarian strongmen, elected or not, else America/Europe will take everything you got, plunder your natural resources, and enslave your entire nation under the yoke of neoliberalism, neocolonialism.

I say this often but I’ll say it again: there are no “benevolent dictators”, that’s not how the world works and it’s great man theory. When people get access to healthcare, education and welfare, it’s not because “a powerful benevolent person authoritarianly made the decision”. The Libyan government under Gaddafi had significantly more democratic processes than it has now or it had had before, Hakim has a video explaining this.