Brazil may now be heading for a more or less orderly transition of power in Brasilia, but hardly a peaceful transition in the country. The defeated candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, has indicated collaboration in the handover but not acknowledged that he lost the vote. Having long undermined confidence in the election system, and with violent protests unfolding in parts of the country, he in his first post-election statement spoke of “injustice in the electoral process.”

Democracy rests on basic norms being adhered to, certainly by leaders. One such norm is “election results are respected.” After an election, leaders are expected to explicitly accept the outcome. Such rituals are part of the fortification of democracy itself. It they are ignored, it is shocking and destructive. Norms cannot be imposed, they are adhered to by convention. That is why it is so utterly disruptive if they are thrashed. We cannot legislate for the acceptance of norms. Democracy needs leaders who are attuned to upholding basic norms. Citizens, too, of course, but where leaders lead citizens follow.

Leaders who are ready to impose damage on democracy itself are not fit to hold high office. Bolsonaro has shown himself unfit. Another obvious case is Donal Trump, whose refusal to accept the election loss is tearing apart the fabric of American democracy. In Britain, Boris Johnson, a serial norm-breaker, proved himself so unfit for office that his own Members of Parliament finally forced him to resign.

Candidates for high office are tested in competitive elections. But that is not enough. Too often, unfit candidates are able to stand and it is then difficult for voters to spot who they are. My conclusion is that candidates should be more carefully tested earlier in the process, at the point of being nominated or of presenting themselves as candidates.

One way in which that could be done is by a simple fit-and-proper-person test. Such tests are commonly used in business and organisational life. Central banks vet candidates for directorships in financial services for fitness and propriety. No one can serve as a juror who is deemed unfit for jury service. Candidates for political office should be tested no less carefully. To ask of candidates that they have a minimal suitability to act as their fellows’ representatives is not to negate the principle of universal eligibility.

My recommendation is that candidates for local and national elected office should be obliged to file with the relevant electoral authority a self-declaration that he or she (1) does not have a history of (serious) criminal convictions, (2) does not have a history of (serious) insolvency or bankruptcy, (3) does not have a history of having withheld (serious) income or property from taxation, and (4) authorises the electoral authority to check the veracity of the self-declaration and commits to providing the authority with relevant documentation. If unwilling to file, they would be disqualified from standing. If it later emerges that they had filed falsely, they should be dismissed from office.

There would be multiple benefits:

• Dodgy candidates would be discouraged from standing.
• Unfit candidates would be identified early and prevented from standing.
• Unfit candidates who make it through to office could be dismissed.
• Citizens would be able to better trust their political leaders.

Under such a regime it is, for example, unlikely that Donald Trump could have become a presidential candidate and impossible for him to have refused insight into his tax records. America would have been saved much distress.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.