← Tenure by political system

An electoral autocracy holds elections, but they are not fair contests. Opposition parties face censorship, intimidation, or rigged rules, so voting almost never changes who is in charge. The elections exist mainly to give the ruler a claim to legitimacy.

Across the 55 electoral autocracies we track, the current leader has been in office an average of 3,875 days (about 10.6 years).

Regime classifications follow the Regimes of the World scheme (V-Dem), via Our World in Data.