He actually did try to rig the election, using all the standard tricks. But…enough people showed up to vote against him, that he still lost anyway.
As per the dictator 101 you must not allow any (real) opposition for the election. So he messed up. ;)
I suppose that in a way, leaving open a path to remove a dictator by election that is technically possible but very difficult to achieve might be a smart move for that dictator, because if a big enough percentage of the population wants them gone and is organized enough to overcome the difficulties in winning a rigged but not completely hopeless election, theres a non-insignificant chance they cant hang on to power in the long run anyway, but if that mass movement has to resort to a proper revolution to throw them out, the odds of the dictator living through the aftermath are lower than if they leave via an “official” process.
This is pretty much what the Kuomintang realised with Taiwan. Keep up the repression long enough and eventually people would revolt and invite possibly an invasion from the mainland. So after Chiang Kai-Shek’s son died in 1988 they put in a new guy who liberalised the Taiwanese political system and basically tied the political progress of Taiwan to the Kuomintang.
This bought the Kuomintang several more years in power and they won a legit election in 1996, holding on to the presidency until 2000, when they peacefully bowed out. They won it back in 2008.
Forgot to murder/disappear his political opponent. Rookie dictator mistake.
South-American dictators usually notice they are bleeding and run away before the very end. The other side of the coin is that South-American dictators often outlive their governments.
