“Given that Trump is pre-emptively crying ‘fraud’ and refusing to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power should he lose, this is the chronicle of an election debacle foretold,” said Kimberly Theidon, a professor of international humanitarian studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Theidon drew a parallel between Trump and former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, whose 2000 election she monitored. Fujimori won in a vote that the international community treated as illegitimate, and ultimately gave up power months later.
“Watching him control the media, the judiciary and having staged an early ‘auto-coup’ forms the backdrop for my deep concerns — what changed the outcome of his fraudulent win was domestic outrage and international monitoring,” Theidon said. “In light of Trump’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies, we can learn from similar electoral machinations elsewhere. There needs to be electoral monitoring by an international organization — the U.N. and the Organization of American States are two entities that come to mind.”
