If and when democracy dies, it is likely the result of thousands cuts and stabs directed at the body politic, cutting its life support and destroying its nerve system. The demise of a liberal democratic regime will likely end up giving birth to an autocrat or a populist leader, but the process to chip away democracy result from collective action taken by a political elite that acts solely on self-interest.

To secure patronage networks built around the political party system, elites make efforts to take effective control of political parties, packing their central boards with family members and minions, an act that, in the long run, could blunt political parties' effectiveness in performing their work to aggregate voters’ interests.

Political parties, the workhorses of a healthy democracy, now controlled by these self-dealing elites, will only be an accessory in a political system that only resembles a procedural democracy.

Also, in the effort to secure their interests, barons of the media, supposedly the fourth pillar of democracy, are willing to join the government and as a result will only give favorable coverage to those in power.

And when checks-and-balances mechanisms have become too cumbersome, these same political elites will have no problem launching direct attacks on independent oversight bodies like the antigraft commission or the Constitutional Court.

When the public space, both online and offline, has become too crowded with criticism directed at the government, a coalition of political elites that controls the state apparat has no problem unleashing hell on dissenters. On social media, government critics are now subjected to attacks from trolls, bots and influencers while street protests are dealt with the most heavy-handed approach.

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