4. Elections compel new democratic governments to overspend, worsening economic policies and performance.
When I investigated elections’ effect on economic policy in newly democratic countries, I found that populist pressure does cause policies to deteriorate somewhat in the year before an election. They certainly did in Ghana in 2008. But governments that face frequent elections have significantly better economic policies when they are averaged over the political cycle, and governments that become subject to elections improve their policies.
Unfortunately, there is a caveat: Elections in which there is misconduct have, at best, no effect on economic policy because governments are off the hook of accountability. For example, President Robert Mugabe chose to wreck the Zimbabwean economy precisely when he was facing contested elections. His policies were not even populist; he simply relied on fraud and intimidation to establish policies that benefited only a tiny political elite.
via Paul Collier — Five myths about elections’ power to change nations – washingtonpost.com.
This is a good reason why we cannot just let the alleged (damn political correctness) election cheating/corruption/graft and overall crookedness of the present administration.