Dictablanda

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Dictablanda is a word used by political scientists to describe a dictatorship in which civil liberties are mostly preserved rather than destroyed.

The word dictablanda is a portmanteau of the Spanish words dictadura ("dictatorship") and blanda ("soft"); there is also an element of punning involved in that blanda replaces dura ("hard").

The term was first used in Spain in 1930 when Gen. Dámaso Berenguer replaced Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja as the head of the ruling military junta (directorio militar) and attempted to reduce tensions in the country by repealing some of the harsher measures that had been introduced by the dictator. It was also used to refer to the latter years of the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco, and to the hegemonic 70-year one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico.

The term "dictablanda" can be usefully contrasted with democradura, meaning an illiberal democracy — a system in which the government and its leaders are elected, but is nevertheless relatively deficient in civil liberties.

An example of this is Pakistan from the bloodless coup by Pervez Musharaff from October 12, 1999 to January 1, 2004, when Musharraf constitutionally became President of the country by winning 56% of the votes in its Electoral College^[1].