“It was necessary an independent and active court to avoid collapse of institutions,” said Supreme Court President Luís Roberto Barroso, on Monday (14), in a letter rebutting the recent lines of US President Donald Trump over Brazil. Barroso’s words could be in the mouth of authoritarian leaders around the world.
In at least five recent regimes with authoritarian characteristics, the defense of democracy and institutions was employed as a pretext for the repression of the opposition. Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Egypt and Bolivia commanded by Evo Morales by 2019 have already used this type of rhetoric.
Barroso is not the only one of the ministers to adopt a speech in this line. In early June, Alexandre de Moraes stated: “Be national enemies or international enemies, the sovereign country as Brazil will always know how to defend its democracy.”
On July 10, Gilmar Mendes posted in X that the Brazilian “combative democracy” lives “a historical moment”. “What is written in Brazil today is a true unpublished chapter in the history of democratic resistance,” he said.
Even in style, the speeches of the ministers coincide with those of authoritarian leaders. Check it out below.
Russia uses a concept of “sovereign democracy”
In Russia, There is the concept of “sovereign democracy”, created by the Kremlin Vladislav Surkov counselor in 2006to describe the form of political organization that would respect the historical particularities of Russia. The central idea is that Russian democracy should be built without external interference, preserving national sovereignty in the face of pressures of Western liberalism.
The Russian government argues that, after the 1990s chaos, stability would require a strong state, capable of ensuring the will of the majority and protecting the country from internal and foreign threats. In this model, periodic elections and high rates of popular approval to the president would be considered sufficient to legitimize the Russian form of democracy – the so -called “sovereign democracy”, unlike the Liberal standards of the West.
Critics of the regime, however, maintain that the concept has been used to justify the concentration of power, the limitation of civil liberties and the weakening of opposition. Under the rhetoric of “sovereign democracy”, the government exerts wide control over the media, restricts manifestations and imposes obstacles to the performance of various civil organizations, especially those with international bonds.
The label of sovereign democracy would work, according to the opposition allegations, as a shield against criticism, framed as attempts to interference. Although Putin’s regime continues to perform elections and maintain some external traits of democracy, there are great doubts about the degree of system legitimacy.
In Venezuela, Chavez and Maduro defend “popular democracy”
Since Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan regime has used the rhetoric of “popular democracy” to justify authoritarian changes and the repression of opponents. In his inauguration, still in 1999, Chavez promised in a speech “boosting democratic transformations.”
Rhetoric was maintained by Nicolás Maduro, who in his inaugural speech in 2019 described Venezuela as a “solid, deep, popular and revolutionary democracy”, built by the humble against the elites. He maintained in the same speech that it was necessary to strengthen the power of the state “in defense of peace and Venezuelan democracy.”
This type of discourse is also institutionalized through legislations such as the “law against hatred” of 2017, which, while sustaining values such as “democracy”, “peaceful coexistence” and “human rights”, has been used to punish dissidents and close media.
In June 2025, In Instagram post, Maduro said again that Venezuela is “the cradle of the new popular and direct democracy”in which the people governs without oligarchies.
In recent years, Venezuelan opposition has exposed several cases of electoral fraud, censorship, repression armed with protests and judicial persecution.
In Bolivia, Evo Morales wore similar speech
In Bolivia, Evo Morales, who commanded the country from 2006 to 2019, for three mandates in a row, often used the language of democratic defense to justify strength measures and other decisions.
In 2018, for example, Morales stated that “democracy is stronger than ever,” comparing the country’s situation with the years of its arrival in power.
Daniel Ortega says he protects Nicaragua against opponents of his “democracy with the people and for the people”
After the 2018 protests, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega began to describe repression against opposition as a defense of the democratic order in the face of a supposed coup attempt. In a national chain, in the early days of the crisis, Ortega said that repression was necessary to protect institutions from “small opposition groups” and a “carefully elaborate conspiracy”, According to the newspaper Nicaraguen Confidential.
Over the next few years, he maintained the rhetoric that demonstrations and criticisms against his regime were part of an international destabilization plan led by the United States, and that his government acted to prevent democracy from being destroyed by “terrorists” and “traitors.”
In 2021, when the allegations of abuses committed by his regime were intensified, he stated during the Sandinista National Congress, According to your party’s website: “Let’s defend peace, defend human rights, which is to defend democracy with the people and to the people.”
Egypt suppressed violently opponents to save institutions, according to his leader
The current Egyptian regime, commanded by Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi, maintains that the 2013 military coup that deposed Islamite Mohamed Morsi and later placed it in power, was actually a salvation of democracy. Since he came to power, Al-Sisi has been reelected twice in claims with strong accusations of fraud. He expanded the duration of the presidential term to six years.
Em 2019 interview with the American network CBSHe criticized the people who call him a dictator by stating that the people put him in power and that the measures of repression against opponents were necessary “to restore security”: “thirty million Egyptians went to the streets to reject the regime that ruled at the time. It was necessary to respond to their will. Secondly, the maintenance of peace after this period required some measures to restore security.”
According to him, demonstrations of his opponents caused a situation that “could have destroyed the Egyptian State and caused massive instability, besides what can be imagined”, which justified the repression. “We are dealing with fundamentalists and extremists who have caused damage and have killed people over the last few years.”
