In different epochs, leaders have created cultish followings with the help of state apparatus and sycophants. Democracies are not immune to such upheavals. Indeed, this might easily be happening in a supposedly democratic Malta without our immediate awareness.

Indeed, a personality cult can be developed in any country by any leader with a combination of massive self-projection, praise from self-serving sycophants and repression by the instruments of governance-in short, a cocktail of fear and intense publicity. Under such circumstances, lies can become truths, and citizens, deluded by the fantasy created by the leader in the figure of a prime minister propped by his party and his acolytes and the overwhelming fear created by his propagandists and bureaucrats, can sing the same tune.

A clear illustration of the above frightening scenario slowly emerged during former and disgraced prime minister Joseph Muscat's administration.

Democracy is not a sufficient bulwark against the emergence of leaders with dictatorial tendencies. We have seen in more than one traditional democratic country how the instruments of democracy could be warped and twisted. Democracy depends on the fairness and neutrality of institutions. The same formula for the aggrandisation of authority can also be used in democracies.

If the leader chooses to magnify his image at the cost of the exchequer and with the help of a few sycophants around him, if he captures institutions and bends them to his will, if he uses his regulatory and investigative agencies to crush those opposed to him, if he creates discord within society to consolidate his power, a democratic country too can be ruled autocratically. A great deal depends on the leader's choices.

When the state acquires all powers, both political and economic, the result is a decline in dharma.

A cult will always diminish if it is not sustained; it may decay or diminish even before the death of the leader. Periodical proof must be furnished of the powers claimed by the leader. So leaders see institutionalisation as an inevitable phase in the development of a personality cult.

This is apparently what is happening currently in our country.

The institutionalisation of the personality cult refers to a wide array of practices to codify the commitment to the leader and the mission he or she embodies as an integral part of the political, social, economic and cultural systems the followers live in. Codification is the process by which disciplines in behavioural and intellectual practices relating to the leader and the mission are defined.

We see ministers, parliamentary secretaries and Labour propagandists daily exalting and glorifying their leader, our prime minister.

The aim is to insert practices of the cult of personality into the indispensable working and living systems of Robert Abela's followers, so that the spirit of the cult is continuously repeated and reaffirmed and eventually becomes psychologically persistent in the followers' minds.

A wide variety of measures can be taken to institutionalise the cult, ranging from choosing the leader's successor(s), establishing an organisational structure for routine reiteration of devotion to the leader and the mission, and integrating the spirit of the cult with daily economic and living practices.

A personality cult and democracy don't mix.

The Labour Party's zealous devotion to getting rid of anyone who challenges the Robert Abela dogma feels entirely too familiar. The PL has now transformed into a party that is largely defined by a cult of personality that idolises Abela and requires its senior leadership to repeat his lies - or else. This had already happened during the Dom Mintoff reign and, more recently, during Joseph Muscat's administration.

Malta remains a democracy, albeit a more fragile one than it once was. But alarming dynamics within the modern Labour Party, with no room for internal dissent, do mirror the underlying logic of authoritarian cults of personality.

As strange as it might seem, however, a personality cult is a rational mechanism to enforce control. It serves as a loyalty test that sorts zealots from dissenters. Sometimes, it can be reasonably innocuous. But it morphs into a dangerously authoritarian phenomenon when two criteria are met. First, if party members are required to publicly idolise a single political figure to be fully accepted, you have a problem. Second, if party members are punished for refusing to publicly parrot lies on behalf of that figure, things have gotten out of control.

It's not hard to find democracies that lurched towards authoritarianism because they embraced similar dynamics.

Take Poland, for example. Polish politicians who want to show their bona fides as devoted members of the authoritarian Law and Justice Party know that they have to toe the leader's line. This sort of corrosive loyalty test has caused tremendous damage to Poland's democratic institutions.

Poland offers a warning for Malta. A personality cult based on lies creates predictably destructive results in democracies. Fewer partisans are willing to speak out. The flip side is just as worrying. Some cynical politicians realise that they can rise within the party's ranks by going further than others in publicly demonstrating their fealty to the cult of personality.

At the extreme end, a personality cult is not just dangerous; it's also absurd.

Poland's authoritarian slide shows what can happen when devotion to lies becomes central to partisan identity. Labourites would be wise to keep that in mind, and voters would be wise to vote against a party that purges politicians for telling the truth.

Mark Said is a lawyer