It is usually because whoever grabbed power in that place fooled the people to garner their support, telling them that they would actually become a democracy, socialist, or communist, and then, once they are in power, they mask off and never relinquish that power. Sometimes they may excuse that as a "transitional period" before moving on to the promised state. But those are obvious lies.
There are other reasons, tho, like confusing voters and muddying the waters so the people can't really know who is actually working for them, or just mockery, like the nazi.
This is why the way countries do elections is very wrong. Votes should not be for parties; they should be for policies and objectives. Then get in power people who claimed to aim for the same policies and objectives, and heavily punish them if they don't really work towards them once in power.
Better than nothing is something, but not the thing. Calling it the thing doesn't make it the thing, when it isn't enough to deserve to be called the thing.
Calling that reparations would be like calling "car" to something that has just 1 wheel, and I don't mean a car after losing 4 wheels it used to have. I mean just graving a well, plopping it on the ground, and going: "here, have a car".
Just taxing a middling billionaire the way they should be taxed would get enough budget to enact actual reparations.There's just no will for that.