In fact, history will judge him, and his nearly 50 years in power, only when the results are in: when the initial achievements in health and education and combating inequality are evaluated according to international standards and with the transparency to which the rest of the region’s countries are subject. Only then we will know if the trade-off at least made sense, even if for many it was unacceptable: authentic social justice and progress in exchange for authoritarian rule, international ostracism, and a cultural desert.