The 21st century socialism either castrochavism has succeeded in expanding the model of the dictatorship of Cuba to Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, with indefinite usurpation of power and impunity, replacing the “rule of law” with the “right of oppression”. However, with so-called left-wing governments, it has not been able to establish dictatorships and democracy is maintained in most countries. The difference is in the conduct of the political oppositions, which in the case of dictatorships are part of their creation and permanence, and which in democracy prevent dictatorial imposition.
The formation of the dictatorships of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua began with the electoral seizure of power with proposals to re-found democracy and change the country, they proposed ending the worn-out and corrupt traditional political system and a long range of populist proposals that a few years later they resulted in misery, violence and organized crime. Already in power Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaraguauniformly implanted “a political system contrary to democratic principles and the rules of the rule of law.”
Ecuador recovered democracy thanks to the vision and leadership of President Lenin Moreno, which restored the essential elements of democracy, ceasing political prisoners, persecution, exile, torture, ending the narco-state. Although those affected and detractors seek to manipulate the causes of the process, in light of the results, Ecuador is proof that it is possible to get out of the Castro-Chavista dictatorship.
The constituent assemblies have been the mechanism to destroy the democratic system and replace it with the dictatorial one in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador., having used reforms and modifications in Nicaragua. In countries where the political oppositions have lent themselves to these manipulations with agreements, submitting and even voting, dictatorships have been established. In all the cases in which the dictatorship has been consolidated, there was participation and agreement of the regime with the opposition with parliamentary representation or with part of it, with various arguments and pretexts but with dictatorship as a result.
Governments of 21st century socialism in Uruguay with Mujica, Paraguay with Lugo, Brazil with Lula and Rousseff, Argentina with the Kirchner spouses, Peru with Castillo, have not established dictatorships and they have handed over power due to the electoral results or due to the process against President Rousseff and the impeachment due to the coup perpetrated by Castillo. This is how the governments of López Obrador in Mexico and Fernández/Kirchner in Argentina are goingthat although they permanently insist on breaking the democratic order, they are stopped by the opposition, the free press and the democratic institutions.
To distinguish between the real opposition and the one that surrenders to the implantation of the dictatorship to later be integrated as a “functional opposition”, it is enough to observe the place and condition of its leaders. Some remain in the environments of the dictatorship, with spaces for public participation and activity with the appearance of normality, while the others are persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, attacked and subjected to all kinds of violations of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. This is proven today in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia by the lists of political prisoners and those of the bureaucracy of the dictatorial system.
The opponents who have delivered democracy are those who try to present the dictatorships of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as normal governments, revolutionary processes of change or simple crises.. They are the functional opponents who participate in the electoral dictatorship in which the people vote but do not elect, but that legitimize the institutionalized fraud of the regime. They are the ones who ignore torture, the persecuted, prisoners and political exiles or refer to them as a problem of justice or police abuse with those who cover up the dictatorship.
The dictatorial or functional opposition is a simulation at the expense of people’s human rights and also acts in the international arena, confusing and discouraging allies with multiple, diverse and contradictory proposals, disqualifying leadership, to destroy credibility and harm cooperation to real civil resistance.
The most infamous and usual practice of the functional opposition in the dictatorship is to maintain and promote division, to divide the opposition and prevent a unity project. -with ideological, programmatic or personalist arguments- so that organized crime dictatorships with an average of 80% popular rejection continue pretending to win elections.
*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Demoracy
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