Totalitarian democracy claims to reduce social and economic inequalities but requires the exerting of extensive control over these areas in order to achieve its aims. Political democracy, in the sense of apparent popular participation in decision-making on societal issues, may be arranged by manipulation of voting and election systems.
For example, in Turkey in 1983, the military junta manipulated elections and defended its concept of a guided democracy, although it had already behind it several years of rule with mass arrests, detentions and executions of political enemies of the state, and other acts of totalitarian repression.