The main objective of all despots and most politicians is to stay in power. How do they manage to achieve that?
The experts say fear, control of information, reward, and being somewhat nuts goes a long way to holding on to power. There are a few sub-rules as well...depend on as few people as possible to keep yourself in power; let the cronies that help keep you in power know they can be easily replaced; tax the people as much as possible to enrich yourself and pay off your toadies; distribute as little tax revenue as possible, just enough to give people the impression you care about them while keeping hope alive that things will get better.