The recent elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo highlight the problems with democracy in poor countries. Free and fair elections in most countries rely on the assumption that participants in the democratic process will do the right thing and not go out of their way to corrupt the outcome. In countries which do not have well-developed institutions and functioning systems of checks and balances, such assumptions cannot reliably be made.
Thus poor countries are likely to experience higher levels of illicit election tactics including vote buying, voter intimidation, theft of ballot boxes, ballot stuffing and cheating during vote counting. As a result, there is often a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the legitimacy of the electoral outcome, and as a consequence there is a higher propensity to post-election dissatisfaction which can be manifested as violence.
Parties dissatisfied with the declared outcome of elections can appeal to the courts, but if the judges are susceptible to corruption or if, as has been alleged in the case of DR Congo, the courts have been stacked with judges loyal to the regime, then there is no mechanism by which redress can be gained other than by revolution. Thus democracy in poor countries often inadvertently perpetuates poverty resulting from insecurity.