Lessons for Latin America of Boris Johnson’s fall from power

From afar, the decline of once-popular British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might have seemed dizzying. One minute he was striding confidently in Kiev alongside Ukraine’s President Zelensky and speaking of matters of war and peace, and the next he was resigning on live television.

And this was despite Johnson having led the Conservative Party to its largest electoral victory in a generation only three years ago. What lessons does his decline have for other leaders currently popular or who court a cult of personality like Presidents Bukele, Lopez Obrador, or Bolsonaro? And what might Johnson’s fall say about the longevity of repressive leaders like Maduro, Ortega, and Diaz-Canel?

First, personal popularity is fleeting. When a leader seems to have outlived his or her usefulness, colleagues who see their own political livelihoods threatened by the leader’s shrinking popularity can strike quickly.

Johnson’s serial lying led to party colleagues forcing a vote of no confidence in his leadership in June, which he survived but with diminished authority. This itself reduced his influence, contributing to two significant local election losses for his party later that month that threatened to ensure many Conservatives would lose their seats if such sentiments were repeated at a general election, due by 2024.

Johnson enjoyed a larger-than-life reputation, of being the “Big Dog” around whom British politics revolved, but sentiment is easily discarded when political futures are on the line.

Second, it’s not the crime but the cover up. The most recent incident that generated resentment among Johnson’s fellow members of parliament was bad enough — knowingly promoting someone he had reason to believe was a sexual predator to a sensitive position while privately mocking the severity of his offenses. Yet Johnson’s persistent lies about this matter, which included sending colleagues out to lie on his behalf, crystallized simmering resentments about his habitually tenuous relationship with the facts.

Johnson first authorized a flat denial, then that he was unaware of a “specific” allegation, followed by being uninformed of a “serious, specific” allegation, then that he was not briefed about any allegation that might be the subject of a “formal” disciplinary action. When he later confessed that he knew all along and recognized his mistake, it was too late. A raft of prominent colleagues resented having debased themselves on national media in dutifully echoing the serial misrepresentations.

Third, independent journalism is vital. The story about the sexual predator was uncovered by a junior reporter in her fourth month on the job. Rather than hold the juicy material for a book, she published it immediately. Other media outlets dug away and uncovered more facts, prompting the increasingly untenable daily revisions to the official statements.

The parallels were obvious to the recent “Partygate” scandals involving shifting official explanations for Johnson and his colleagues enjoying alcohol-fueled parties at No. 10 Downing Street while pandemic rules prohibited them for others. Without the media, the cover ups might have succeeded.

Fourth, there’s courage in numbers. Rumors at Westminster were constant of unhappiness with Johnson’s behavior, yet until recently no political heavyweight from the Cabinet was prepared to take a stand against him.

When two top ministers resigned on July 5, citing Johnson’s lack of personal integrity and some policy concerns, their departures opened the floodgates. Some 50 MPs resigned in 36 hours, including many Johnson loyalists, an unprecedented development in British politics. Even then, Johnson vowed to continue in office, invoking what he claimed was a personal mandate of 14 million people who voted for him in 2019. It took a large group of current and former MPs to persuade him in personal conversations that he no longer commanded the confidence of his party and should resign.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the glue that holds democracies together — bold journalism, political courage, and informed public opinion — is at least as important as the formal rules of the game.

This matters as much in Latin America as it does in the United Kingdom or United States. Johnson may or may not have broken any laws, but he persistently embarrassed his colleagues, his party, and his country. The collective outcome was that the democratic system put him — a mere politician – in his place. This did not happen automatically but was the result of numerous individual decisions from journalists, politicians, and the public as reflected in letters and calls they made to politicians.

To be sure, autocratic leaders like Maduro, Diaz-Canel and Ortega have long eliminated the checks and balances on display in London. They abuse power to jail, torture and murder instead of respecting its limits. While it is of little consolation today to their long suffering citizens, Johnson’s fate holds lessons for them too.

Latin American leaders who believe they are more important than the people they serve should reflect on Johnson’s fate. It’s critical for democracies to prioritize democratic values and institutions over the whims of fleetingly popular politicians, to ensure to avoid the anti-democratic tipping point after which repression becomes entrenched.

A democracy fueled by independent journalism and the public it serves, allied to timely political courage, can and should make swift work of a leader, like Johnson, whose hubris outstrips his judgment, lessons that may be particularly apposite in El Salvador, Mexico, and Brazil today.

And if the democracy fails and tips into repression, as in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, the building blocks of sustainable change are the same independent journalism, informed citizenry, and political courage that brought down Johnson.

Power is not permanent and ultimately rests on consent.