• by Oscar Arias Sanchez
• Tuesday, February 07, 2012
• Inter Press Service

Certain Latin American governments have fallen into the trap of believing that being democratically-elected gives an official the mandate to modify the rules of democracy to advance a given political project. If a government restricts individual liberties, limits the freedom of expression, and scales back the freedom of commerce without justification, it is subverting the very bases of democracy that brought it to power, writes Oscar Arias Sanchez, ex- president of Costa Rica (1986-1990/2006-2010) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 1987.

In this article, the author writes that the dilemma here, to which no solution has been found, is how to fight against democracies whose leaders behave in an authoritarian manner and yet are not dictators. Because in truth, there is but a single dictatorship in all Latin America: Cuba. The other regimes, whether we like it or not, are democracies in varying degrees of deterioration or fitness. To try to overthrow these governments, or remove them through violence or in violation of the constitution or the law, is to fall into the same mode of autocratic behaviour that we are trying to end.

The only way to take away the power of those who have concentrated it after winning popular support is to weaken that support through a process of civic education, opportunity, and ideas. The people themselves must learn to see through the illusions of demagogy and populism, because the problem is not false messiahs but rather the populations that welcome them with palm leaves and adulation.

(*) Oscar Arias Sanchez, ex-president of Costa Rica (1986-1990/2006-2010), won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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