Abstract
Political process of dictatorship is not known well to researchers, since veils of secrets prohibit outsiders from observing what is going within the regimes. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the hitherto closed political dynamics through lens of “electoral frauds”, which is rampant. This paper argues following two. Firstly, lower - ranking elites within the regimes commit electoral fraud not only to win elections but also to exaggerate the degree of electoral margins in order to impress dictators, since dictators evaluate the elites by election results. This paper calls this type of fraud as “electoral frauds as gaming”. Secondly, I argue that if the opposition party participates in elections, electoral fraud as gaming is less rampant because the opposition parties checks and monitors electoral processes so that elites within regime find it difficult to commit frauds. This paper tests this argument by analyzing results of Mexican municipal elections from 1970 to Low.
