But it was all going so well

Tragic news for fans of big dreams, big hair and big statues: The Turkmenbashi is dead. Dead at 66, and yet still with so much poetry to write!

The Turkmen have been on tenterhooks waiting for the old bastard to die, but what comes next may not be pretty. He made no provision for anyone to succeed him:

According to Turkmen law, the president is succeeded by the head of the legislative body, the People's Assembly. But this post was held by Mr Niyazov himself. [BBC]

I suspect that, however reasonable we consider we are, we could all of us, given an entire country all to ourselves, along with a massive secret police apparatus and enough people prepared to say “yes”, blossom into a dictator. It’s no wonder that every time the ego runs rampant and destroys all reason; what else were Stalin, Mao, Amin, Turkmenbashi etc going to do? Citizens of Me-town, Me-day is an appropriate time for the Council of Me to confer upon you the honour of listening to twelve hours of me reading my poetry. Also, today the Me-guard will be arresting everyone who looks like me, in case they were plotting anything. Go me!

Am I overlooking an obvious example of when untrammelled power has not led to insanity and brutality?