Elections have become a high-risk exercise in our region. The 91 politicians assassinated during the recent electoral campaign in Mexico or the persecution and imprisonment of all the candidates for the next elections in Nicaragua are a brutally obvious indicator.
But these statistics, scandalous and outrageous, are also part of a deeper crisis, which fuels doubts and mistrust in our countries about democracy and its procedures. The denunciation of invisible fraud, the disqualification or the attack from the power to the electoral tribunals, are also ways of violating the electoral processes, of undermining the already fragile institutional framework of our nations. In the 2018 Latinobarómetro survey, satisfaction with democracy reached only the 24 percent in the region, up from 44 percent in 2010. It is a worrying prospect in a continent with a long authoritarian tradition.
The name we give it does not matter too much: polarization, populisms, crisis of political representation, neototalitarianism of the right or of the left … The truth is that the events and mechanisms of political choice are increasingly affected by different forms of harassment and, each time less, they get the legitimacy they seek. Now it is even more evident: democracies depend on institutions.
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–What is currently happening in Peru represents very well what is happening or can happen in a group of countries in the region. With the 100 percent Of the ballots counted by the National Office of Electoral Processes of Peru (ONPE), Pedro Castillo has the majority of the votes. The difference is narrow – less than 45,000 minutes – but the results are clear.
Despite having assured that accept and acknowledge the results, despite all the promises and having offered the Vargas Llosa brand as a guarantee, despite the statements of the United States, the European Union —Who congratulated the country for holding free elections— and from international observers who certified the contest, Keiko Fujimori insists on denouncing fraud, disavowing official electoral procedures and instances, promoting among his followers the idea that there is an invisible deception, a crime that cannot be proven. It is a political bet that installs a fault of origin in the next government and emotionally shakes the worst ghosts of a divided society.
The resignation Luis Arce Córdova, one of the members of Peru’s electoral authority, only further muddies the process. Arce, who is currently being investigated for influence peddling and corruption, invokes transparency and accuses the other members of the institution of bias. Although none of his electoral complaints have been legally successful, Keiko Fujimori does not back down, he asks for votes to be annulled and on Saturday, June 26, he called a public vigil to pray for the “defense of freedom and democracy.” That same day, the head of ONPE, Piero Corvetto, denounced that he was attacked for allegedly endorsing an electoral fraud for which there is no evidence.
During Saturday’s vigil, Fujimori He said, fueling mistrust: “We want to know the truth.”
Invoking these great causes, acting as if the country were facing a definitive schism in history, is a fundamental part of the conflict. In Latin America, with increasing frequency, political alternation is presented and perceived no longer as a natural form of democratic life but as a tragic apocalypse.
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–This is not free, of course. There is a painfully visible file, initiated by Chavismo in Venezuela and followed – with less pretense of dissimulation – by Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Hugo Chávez turned his popularity into a modern form of tyranny, showing that it was possible to come to power democratically and – from there – destroy democracy. Ortega, with less popularity and less dissimulation, has ended up imposing himself by blood and fire as a dictator in his country. However, this is not a common experience in the broad spectrum of the region. With the difficulties of each case, the political alternation has nevertheless been maintained in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, even in some way in Bolivia. And Nayib Bukele in El Salvador shows that authoritarian temptation is not an ideological problem.
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–Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, strictly speaking, continue to be isolated and minority cases on the continent. And their experiences have also generated a special alert in the other societies of the region. It is not by chance, for example, that —beyond the fatal violence during the previous campaign— the success of the recent elections in Mexico is measured and weighted more on the basis of the reactions to the results than on the basis of the results themselves. For many Mexicans, the most determining factor in the elections was the response – respect for the votes and the electoral body – that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena party would have after the voting.
Associating the idea of political change with catastrophes and hysteria does not seem to be the healthiest thing in a continent that, in short, still does not solve its great problems of inequality, poverty and impunity. More than demonizing political alternation and electoral processes, it is necessary to strengthen the institutional framework in Latin America. Only in this way can differences be settled with votes and not with bullets. The future begins with the referees.
Alberto Barrera Tyszka (@Barreratyszka) is a Venezuelan writer. His most recent book is the novel Women who kill.
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