Latin American redemocratization
By: Luis Beltran Guerra G. - 02/06/2023
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Latin America, if we speak frankly, is the victim of a "tremendo", for which it trembles with fear, horror and cold. Countries that were prosperous today are extremely poor.
The governments entangled and no less than the legislators and judges. The criteria in the "Summit of Presidents in Brazil", convened by Lula Da Silva, who has stated that "authoritarianism in Venezuela is a constructed narrative", for "the media" an accolade to Nicolás Maduro, are still fresh. The appreciation was questioned by Gabriel Boric, for whom the violation of human rights in Caracas is a reality. Also, as reported by the journalist Alberto González, mentions were made of “authoritarianism and anti-democracy”. In the same tone as the President of Chile, Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay, expressed himself, describing the “Caracas regime” as dictatorial. These are two young heads of state, popularly elected, whose countries, despite their mistakes, are governed by democracy.
In the rest, it is difficult to deny that politics, as heard in the towns themselves, "gives everything and for everything", not only in relation to the words to define it, but also with respect to those who decide to lead it. It has become a trade for the exercise of which neither a profession nor a defined art is required. "Presence and speaking without fear or synderesis" seems the determining factor.
The terminological entanglement leads to jumping, without the slightest hesitation, from democracy to dictatorship, from communism to socialism, from the left to the right and vice versa, from the intervening State to the "minimum", from the market economy to the intervened and from globalization to the regional and local. It is an indiscriminate use of "swear words", whose meaning has hardly been heard, not only by "the pseudo-leaders". Also, "the directed".
The "coliseum" in Latin America, Ortega and Bukele in Nicaragua and El Salvador, with respect to those who make comments, Fernández and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, who give the impression that they could not even see each other, Boric in Chile and Katz in search of to give him a blow, Peru with Dina Boluarte, Vice President of the hat, an atypical government and 3 former presidents in jail, Ecuador tied up with thick ropes in "the cross death" of Lasso, Colombia, with Petro, facing a crowd that does not want to see itself in the same crisis that affects the rest of the continent, Bolivia, the so-called Plurinational State, with Lucho Arce, in a duo with David Choquehuanca and under the anxieties of Evo Morales, the Brazilian giant with the mandate of Lula, about to unknown, barely elected, inclusive,by sectors of the Armed Forces given the closeness of these with Jair Bolsonaro, Uruguay, with better luck than Paraguay and he is still under the magnifying glass from wherever the Asuntino and author of the classic "El Supremo" is, Augusto Roa Bastos, and Venezuela, under a bouquet of difficulties like never before in its history.
The particularities could be summarized as follows: 1. The astonishment for having lost democracy, 2. That the coup d'état has revived, 3. The hindrance to the development process, 4. The human disintegration, typified in the non-understanding and devaluation of some and others, 5. Limitations to freedom and human rights, 6. Irrational management of public resources, and 8. A marked social inequality. Homogenization doesn't matter. We all want to govern and few wish to be governed. And like the lid that was missing from the bottle, a diabolical concurrence of drug trafficking and corruption.
These circumstances have to lead to a process of "liberal redemocratization", which demands the concurrence of wills and why not say it, converting the most pertinent messages of Simón Bolívar into a kind of "Lexicon for Legos", among others: 1. If a country is run by a single person, it will always be a dictatorship, 2. At some point it will end up having quite few freedoms for its citizens, 3. The way to govern well is to use honest men, even if they are enemies, 4. When a leader remains in office sooner or later will fall into the hands of corruption, 5. The perfect government system is the one that produces the greatest possible amount of happiness, the greatest amount of social security and the greatest amount of political stability. Will there be a will for it? The doubts, a few.
God willing that the opposition in Caracas, today shaken, divided and beaten, manages to define its role in the vicinity of the 2024 presidential elections, since it will compete, most surely, against the current Chief Justice, who should understand democratic alternation , consistent with “Bolivarianism” that Hugo Chávez, his mentor, postulated, at least in theory. Allow us to recall the title “The People are Bravo”, from a speech that at the end of 1987 we heard in Congress by Eduardo Fernández, present in the Chamber Carlos Andrés Pérez, candidate for presidential re-election, in order to reiterate that today “the bellaquera” is to the highest degree and that we could confront “a catastrophe”.
Aspiring to see those who govern today like Saddam Hussein hanging from a rope, as a "sine qua non" condition for the "redemocratization" process that must be carried out does not cease to constitute a manifestation of the so-called "Retaliation Law", typical of past times. Democracy judges crimes and offenses in accordance with the laws. Otherwise, it is denatured. Transitional justice is the qualification attributed to the formula in the most suitable political research centers. "The Nuremberg trials" with the so-called "Santiago model" help to understand the transitional typology and design policies to make it more efficient. That's how it reads.
The return to democracy in Latin America demands serious activism and this does not go through the multiplication of candidates to replace the one who governs undemocratically. Rather, this is the most absurd and counterproductive. In Chile, where a redemocratization process began, which is still continuing, as revealed by serious analysis, it had to resolve inconveniences, permanence, and continuities of the Pinochet regime, incompatible with a democratic transition, a task in which they have put their invaluable efforts. Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo Frei-Tagle, Ricardo Lagos and Michele Bachelet. Today Gabriel Boric does everything possible.
May the President of Brazil forgive us, but he has to convene another summit to reach conclusions regarding the redemocratization of the continent, in which he governs 8.5 million square kilometers. With all due respect, let us suggest the work of J. Samuel Valenzuela, professor of sociology and PHD at Columbia University, in which he deals with "the return to democracy in a country with an authoritarian regime, having previously had a long-standing democracy." .
President Lula, "Rectifying is wise."
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