You become president of your country.

What do you do?

I would:

-Put people loyal to me in all important positions
-Have loyalists found several parties, like fascists, communists, liberals, socialists, but all of them would be loyal to me in parliament
-Crack down on free press, making media corporations loyal to me purchase media outlets and banning opposition media
-Reach out to disenfranchised urban youth, giving them self-confidence and a steady income by paying them to harass/beat opposition activists. They will also receive a monopoly on drug dealing.
-Reform justice system:  Threats to society (political activists) should be locked away forever, murderers, thieves and rapists can be rehabilitated into the security forces if they can keep their murdering/thieving/raping somewhat under control.
-Reform education system: schools should focus on teaching obedience and science.

Depends on stuff like plans for the place, and the size of it.
As for just being an evil dictator clinging to power…

Assuming the country is any bigger than a mailbox;
- make it easy for my friends to acquire all news and entertainment media
- do the same with any big corporations liable to make any kind of big bucks

- make a network of straw companies to own the central bank while making it look as if it's not me owning the whole lot; try to make it untraceable (secret stock ownership etc)

- have all media focus on the depravities following …insubordinate figures and activities, e.g.:
-- supply opposition leaders and -icons with free hookers&blow (obviously not traceable to me), let their spouses find out, and have the media feeding-frenzy into whatever divorces or other immorality-caused misery they can make out (or up)
-- put all conspiracy theorists on my payroll (again, untraceable), feed them stories that a) are inconsistent, and b) contradict each other; have them all look like incurable nutjobs
-- implicate all hackers in criminal activities (use the word «hacker» whenever a computer is found near a crime scene, and such) – except those that work for me; they're «computer security personnel»; actually, do this with any sub/counter-culture that includes any kind of technical know-how (that can threaten me)

- create whim-laws, so as to have legitimate(-sounding) reasons to lock up troublesome people; that way, the won't be locked up for being in the opposition, but for «supporting terrorism» or somesuch

- demand all religious societies acknowledge my authority above all else on Earth – preferably also above their god(s)

- demand all journalists have government-issued (and -retractable) journalist licenses to be able to work, with a wide definition of what constitutes «journalism»; make it possible (even easy) to retract the license based on all kinds of reasons, for the sake of «journalistic integrity»; this can obviously be combined with the hookers&blow deal and/or whim-laws

- have the schools teach the glories of their nation – and all of the shortcomings of any system that isn't mine



Assuming the country ain't bigger than a mailbox;
Don't bother too much; just steal any amount of money &stuff that I can legally get away with (and stash away in a safe spot or two) while in office (including the aforementioned central bank ownership deal), secure a safe exit or two for when shit starts homing in on the fan. Or I just decide it's time to retire.

If I can lay low on the international radar while doing it, then I can stay a little longer (and steal a little more).