The Carter Center 35 years later

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 08/10/2024

As President Jimmy Carter turned 100, the eyes of most American think tanks were focused on his most visible legacy: The Carter Center. Created at the end of his presidential term in 1982, but really launched to the world in 1989, the Carter Center, led by Robert Pastor, launched itself into the defense of the right to self-determination of emerging nations by creating an electoral observation division that enjoyed bipartisan support in the United States. Stars of the geopolitical firmament such as James Baker II, Bill Richardson, Andrew Young and Dante Fascell participated in electoral observation to give strength to the authorities in charge of safeguarding sovereignty, such as the electoral powers of the entire world. And although there were setbacks in countries such as Panama under Noriega and Venezuela under Chavez, the Carter Center emerged as a bastion of light in the midst of the totalitarian semi-darkness that began to envelop the continent.

But until now, observation had been limited to producing reports that recorded the results of the vote as they had been counted in the ballot boxes. In the case of Venezuela, the Carter Center has taken a step forward by safeguarding and delivering to the Organization of American States the original voting records issued by each voting center in Venezuela on July 28 of this year. This step reflects a deep understanding by the Carter Center of the origin of the threats to democracy in this 21st century. The Inter-American Democratic Charter only considers violent armed uprisings, mainly carried out by the military, as a threat to democracy. But the reality is that democracy is more threatened by internal political forces that, using their operating systems, seize positions of power to empty the system of all democratic content. Another silent enemy is transnational organized crime, whose leaders use the huge profits from criminal activities to finance political leaders committed to their business strategies. Methods to empty democracies of content include the weakening of the powers of control such as the justice system and parliaments. There is also recourse to the perversion of electoral systems in order to have the people vote without electing. The latter is more dangerous because sovereignty resides in the faculty of a people to elect its leaders. When this is mocked, the resulting regime has international legitimacy at the cost of the confiscation of sovereignty. And therefore independent electoral observation is essential since it is the guarantor of sovereignty. In the case of Venezuela, the electoral system created over many years of professional work is perhaps the best in the world because it provides proof of the final result of the votes counted at each voting center to all political parties participating in the election and to national and international observers. For this reason the results cannot be modified as the regime of Mr. Nicolas Maduro learned on the night of July 28. For this reason the regime was never able to present proof of Mr. Maduro's defeat.

The Carter Center's actions expose once and for all the fundamental tactics of Latin American neo-totalitarianism. It is about emptying democracy of content without changing constitutions or laws. It simply hijacks the right to self-determination. Therefore, its actions will be decisive in the revision of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and in the establishment of efficient and transparent electoral systems such as that of Venezuela, thanks to which it was possible to prove the fraud concocted by a regime that depends more and more on transnational organized crime for its support and that is clearly rejected by the people of Venezuela. For Jimmy Carter, the actions of the center created by him to defend democracy must be the best gift for his centenary that life has given him.

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