Read the latest news on Kenya, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the country was a bastion of democracy, freedom and prosperity in Africa—that is, before last week’s crooked election and the ensuing carnage. Associated Press referred to the chaos that has killed over 300 people following the Dec. 30, 2007, election as a “bloody convulsion threatening what has been East Africa’s most stable and prosperous democracy.”

Amazing what passes for democracy these days.

Kenya’s previous election, in December 2002, in which 24-year dictator Daniel arap Moi was thrust from power, was hailed as a democratic success story. Mwai Kibaki rode a wave of popular support into office as a reformer who would clean up endemic corruption and greed that had kept the ruling class wealthy and the people impoverished.

Instead, Kibaki set about cementing his own continuous rule using the same Big Man tactics his predecessor did: purchasing loyalty and silencing enemies. He appointed an anti-corruption chief who apparently did too good of a job for Kibaki’s liking: In February 2005, John Githongo fled Kenya, choosing exile in Britain rather than being muzzled in his own country.

As for the economic prosperity that Kenya has enjoyed—a 6 percent increase in gross domestic product for the past two years—it has not filtered down to the people. In 1990, 48 percent of the population lived below the poverty line. Today that figure is nearly 55 percent—a majority of Kenyans living on, at best, a couple dollars a day. Growing unemployment sends more restless people to the streets, fueling tribal tensions.

When an election approached and voters had an opportunity to hold Kibaki accountable for these failings, polls showed his opponent—Raila Odinga, from a rival tribe—in the lead. Hope for change turned to anger, however, when, after various reports of vote fraud emerged (some constituencies had suspiciously remarkable voter turnout, for example—115 percent in one case), Kibaki was declared the winner and hastily sworn into his second term that very day. Soon, the streets exploded with violence.

Sadly, Kenya is just one in a litany of stories across Africa that all have the same moral: Democracy is betraying its promises. In country after country, this betrayal creates disillusionment and despair, which then give way to mayhem.

Nigeria’s national elections in April were plagued by fraud. Like Kenya, it was hoped democratic elections in 1991, the first in 16 years, would introduce a new democratic era. That optimistic idea suffered a bad bruising in last year’s elections. Human Rights Watch observers reported widespread problems including intimidation of voters, vote-rigging and -buying, and bloodshed. European Union observers said the election process “cannot be considered to have been credible.”

While the election for leadership of South Africa’s African National Congress in December ousted a man who failed to deliver on his promises to his people, it brought to power a man with questionable character who faces criminal charges. And though some may laud this leadership change as democratic progress, South Africa itself is more or less a one-party state, with the anc elites quickly running the country into the ground.

The ruling party in Zimbabwe, which has been in power for 28 years, also had a congress in December, in which Robert Mugabe’s candidacy for this year’s presidential election was endorsed, making an utter mockery of democracy. The Zimbabwe Independentreported, “Mugabe secured his endorsement after distributing cars and farming equipment to traditional chiefs and party members and used war veterans through their leader Jabulani Sibanda last month to organize the so-called million man march to garner support for him” (Dec. 21, 2007).

In theory, democracy should protect against such political strong-arming.

In Africa, though, democracy—or the trappings of it—generally only protects the flow of foreign aid into government coffers. And it also spins nice new invisible robes of legitimacy for the continent’s emperors.

Examples of free and fair elections facilitating the peaceful transition of authority from one leader to the next—the basic promise of a functional democracy—are simply dwarfed by examples of this fragile process being thwarted by various forms of corruption. Many are the ways in which those hungry for power—particularly those determined to retain power—can vigorously manipulate and exploit this system in their own self-interest.

That is why a brief stint of democracy in Kenya did not bring the freedom people wanted. That is why, in Nigeria, just 35 percent of the people support democracy. It is also why, out of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa—although all but five had at least one multi-party election in the decade leading up to 2004—not one could inarguably be considered a successful, functioning democracy.

The most common form of governmental change among these nations, in fact, has been the coup. Only one—the Ivory Coast—has been free of a coup attempt. In the post-colonial generation between 1957 to 1990, Blaine Harden reported in Africa: Dispatches From a Fragile Continent, “Not one African head of state, even in nations that tolerate a measure of democracy, has permitted voters to end his reign. … Excepting four civilian presidents who chose to retire and a handful who were lucky enough to die in office of noncoup causes, all the others have been assassinated, jailed or exiled.”

The truth is, the unhappy children borne of the fraudulent marriage between this particular form of government and this particular continent have cousins all over the world. Last February, authoritarian Turkmenistan held elections widely regarded as suspect, with official voter turnout being a highly unlikely 99 percent. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s ruling party used voter intimidation, total media control and even the establishment of puppet pro-government parties to attain a decisive victory in parliamentary elections on December 2; in Chechnya, official results showed that 99.4 percent of voters supposedly supported Putin’s United Russia party. Since Georgia’s presidential elections this past Sunday, the opposition claims the polls were rigged; monitors reported isolated cases of serious fraud. Thailand is at a political stalemate after an election last month: More than 70 of its 480 parliamentary seats are still under investigation for electoral fraud, including allegations of vote-buying; several candidates have already been disqualified.

And that’s not even counting those peoples—the Lebanese, Palestinians and Egyptians among them, not to mention Iran—where apparently fair elections awarded the reins of power to ideological extremists. (Of course, in 1933 the democratic process in Germany infamously brought Hitler to power.) Ironic, then, that a pillar strategy in the West’s effort to eradicate violent religion-motivated extremism is to promote the spread of democracy. Proof continues to pile up that this notion is utterly unfounded in reality.

While they may lament such tragedies, advocates of democracy remain convinced of the worthiness of the theory. But for those willing to acknowledge reality, the idea that democracy can solve the world’s woes is taking a beating.

Churchill was on to something when he called democracy the worst form of government—except all the others that have been tried. That is because it is subject to the same self-promotion, greed, corruption and deceit that routinely plague more manifestly authoritarian forms of governance.

The common denominator—and the flaw at the heart of democracy’s failings—is human nature.

(What is human nature? Read this.)

Democracy is only less bad than other forms of government insofar as it puts a check on human nature—for example, by making provision for the unseating of a dictator.

However, human nature is stubborn. As “the bloody convulsion threatening what has been East Africa’s most stable and prosperous democracy” testifies, it generally manages to assert its malevolent presence into the process just fine, thank you very much.

There is another government, though—far superior to democracy—that, even Churchill would acknowledge, hasn’t yet been tried on a national scale. You can read about it in Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like.