Do you mean the Global South?

I don't think the poverty in the Global South is a pre-existing condition, or in other words, something that was inevitable. In fact, there's a bunch of scholarship that examines the links between colonisation and the poverty in the GS. A huge basis of this is that industrialisation of the Global North happened at the benefit of the GN to the detriment of the GS because of colonisation. So in other words, whilst Europe/North America were industrialising they were doing it off the backs of their colonies / resources from the South.

An interesting book that's always stuck with me on this topic is "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" - although its got aim (highlighting Marxism in Africa) it's clear to see that economic exploitation from colonisation inevitably lead to the poverty we see today.

Also, going back to colonisation, when Empires were dissolved it left power vacuums in various areas of the GS. These vacuums tended to be filled by dictators, and as you say, conservative law makers, who then saw their rule dominated by scandal, nepotism, etc, etc. Decolonisation was usually abrupt, and since a vacuum was left so suddenly it allowed the rise of these right wing movements, so we saw people like Idi Amin rising to the fore. If decolonisation had been slower and allowed for democracy to take root in a more gradual way, arguably, these kind of rulers would never have taken power.