Mohamed ElBaradei Quotes

You cannot apply your high standards to a country [Egypt] burdened with decades of autocratic rule. Our democracy is still in its infancy.

Establishing a stable democracy is a two stage process. First you get rid of the old regime, then you build a durable democratic replacement. Because the first stage is dramatic, many people think the game is over when the dictator is gone. But the second stage is more difficult. There are many examples of broad coalitions coming together to oust dictators but relatively few of them stayed together and agreed on what a new regime should look like.

If democracy succeeds in Egypt, other countries will follow. Should the democratic experiment in Egypt be hijacked by the military or anti-democratic Islamist groups, the revolution will fail elsewhere.

The dictator can be removed in a day, but it can take years to stamp out the lingering remnants of his dictatorship

The transition from dictatorship to democracy is always very difficult, and if you read a history of any country that went through this, it wasn't easy. And, you know, you don't end dictatorship one day and next day you have fully fledged democracy.

We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

With Taiwan, it took about 40 years to go from an authoritarian to a democratic society.

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

We had a revolution 2 years ago, and we see a people moving from a completely authoritarian system into a democracy. They don’t know how democracy works. They don’t know the ingredients of a democracy.

The problem in Burma is the problem in Egypt, the problem you refer to in Yemen, and the problem in a lot of these countries in the world: that you can get stuck in the process of transition, in what’s been called a competitive authoritarian… a pseudo democratic regime.

We're in the middle of the transformation of a society that has handled its politics through repression to a society that will handle its politics through democratic institutions.

As long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period... Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression - and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.

Conservatives are giving up on democracy because it's not efficient. They want an autocratic regime.

The Egyptian military plays positive and negative roles in Egypt, but the most significant single thing it did under Mubarak was to guarantee an Islamist victory once he left the scene.

The list of non-democratic regimes that have seen significant reforms since 2001 is long and significant.

The raids on Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, the Adenauer Foundation, and other groups helping Egyptians move toward respect for democratic politics and human rights were of a piece with the practices of Hosni Mubarak - only bolder and more repressive.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Latin America moved decisively away from military rule and toward civilian democracy.

You don't get the fox to be in charge of the chicken coop. You don't give the outgoing regime - which has been practicing dictatorship, is an authoritarian system, it's a bunch of military people - the task of changing Egypt into a second republic, a new Egypt with democracy, freedom, rights, etc.

It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

My father was criticized as a dictator, but that should not overshadow his accomplishments in restructuring the country. He brought Korea out of 5,000 years of poverty. What he left unaccomplished was democratization of the system.

Political systems in the Middle East are totally dysfunctional and we are going to have to open them up.

Democratization is not necessarily the best way to fight Islamic extremism, because the transition to democracy has been found to be an especially vulnerable period for states across the board.

From this day the presidency of Mexico ends. The dictatorship of Mexico begins.

The peaceful path out of totalitarianism has never been tested.

The army and the government needs a dictator.