Did you know that, as a result of the dichotomy between the “value of democracy” and the “value of life”, generated by the brutal coronavirus pandemic, between February 21, 2020 and June 21, 2021, national elections were postponed in 78 countries?
In countries where elections have not been suspended, it has not been easy to decide whether to prioritize the right to health or the right to choose and be elected, both of which are human rights. The first protects the biological dimension of human dignity, i.e. health and life, and the second the political dimension, without whose protection it is not possible to assert any human right.
For those of us who survived the pandemic, the danger of death as a direct or indirect consequence of covid-19 was real, WHO estimates that the number of deaths worldwide was between 13.3 and 16.6 million, double the official figure. Despite this alarming figure, the high or low number of people vaccinated against the coronavirus had to be taken into account when calculating the probability of infections and deaths that was certainly done in each country to decide whether or not to hold the elections.
My guess is that, in countries with high vaccination coverage, such as Mexico, there was no reason to suspend elections; Conversely, in countries where the vaccination rate was low, elections were suspended. Although, as the book to which I will refer later shows, there have also been authoritarian regimes that have taken advantage of the pretext of the pandemic to suspend elections.
Fortunately the pandemic has come to an end; but some of its effects continue, we have not recovered from the shock; On the streets, many people continue to wear masks and it is not uncommon to see people driving their cars wearing masks, even if they don’t even have a carer.
The inventory of the different types of damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the experiences lived during the two years of confinement is already underway. Gradually studies and reflections on different experiences and lessons learned during more than 600 days of confinement in which, especially the elderly, we left the house only for a real need begin to emerge.
One of these experiential experiences that is widely reflected upon is exposed in the collective book that I recommend, “Elections under covid-19 in Latin America”, coordinated by the Spanish political scientist and sociologist Manuel Alcántara Sáenz, professor at the University of Salamanca. , Spain; and the Mexican political scientist and jurist, professor at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL), Mario Alberto Garza Castillo, a work coedited by Tirant lo Blanch and the State Electoral Commission of Nuevo León.
The UANL, through the Center for Political Development and Transformative Government, and the INE, through the Local Executive Board, have convened the presentation of the aforementioned book.
The appointment is tomorrow Thursday at 9 at the Colegio Civil Centro Cultural Universitario. In charge of making a concise summary of each of the eleven chapters of the book, as presenters, will be Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, jurist, political scientist and president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), and Juan Alfonso Mejía López, former head of the Secretariat of the Sinaloa education and professor at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa.
Efren Vazquez Esquivel
