We’ll Meet Again

President of Bolivia Evo Morales (from El Comercio).

This week the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies approved a reform to a law that would allow incumbent Evo Morales to presenting himself to the presidential elections in 2014, opening the possibility for a third term in power. This reform comes after a decision of the Supreme Court that rules this eventual re-election as legal. This will come to force once it is voted in the Senate.

The Bolivian Constitution allows the President a maximum of two consecutive terms. Evo Morales first came into office in 2005. He was the first presidential candidate in the history of Bolivia to obtain the absolute majority in the polls. Furthermore, he received wide popular support: he introduced himself as an outsider from the political system, a true representative of the people, contrasting with the leaders of the three strongest parties during the 1980’s and 1990’s who had struck a deal to distribute power exclusively among themselves. Being able to mobilize coca producers and peasants, Morales was a key organizer of massive protests against the privatization of the water supply system and against the construction of a gas pipeline, which among their outcomes were the cancellation of those projects and the resignation of the Presidents that supported them.

In 2005 Morales campaigned under the promise of re-founding the country in order to protect the interests of Bolivians and to give them voice in the political processes. One of his first actions once in power was to call to elections for a Constitutional Assembly. The new Constitution was approved in 2009. Under its regulations, Presidential elections were held and Morales again achieved the absolute majority, with an even larger support than four years earlier.

Some months into his second term, Morales said that he would like to participate in a third election. The opposition argued that such a desire was impossible, given the two-consecutive-term limits mentioned in the Constitution. Morales replied that as the state was re-founded in 2009 when the new Constitution was approved, his first administration should not be included in that count. This was the controversy that the Supreme Court has just resolved in favor of Morales, opening the door for his third participation in an electoral contest.

Without question, the President is bringing the law to its limits, backed by the Supreme Court. This opens the door to a marginal but constant lengthening of his term in office, similar to what the late President Hugo Chávez did in Venezuela, proposing amendments to the constitution’s limits on terms in office as he needed. Additionally, the opposition has been unable to come up with an alternative to Morales: besides his Movement Towards Socialism, no major party has survived from one presidential election to the other since 2003. However, there is still almost a year and a half for the contest to take place. It is within this lapse of time that a coherent opposition to the government could emerge, preventing the further alteration of Bolivia’s institutions.

The Return of the Prince?

Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah of Iran (from Le Monde).

This weekend Reza Pahlavi, son of the ousted Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, participated in Paris in the founding meeting of the National Council of Iran (NCI), comprising 18 organizations that have agreed on the necessity to change the regime of the country. In an interview offered to the French newspaper Le Monde, he explained that the short-term goal of the NCI is to have truly democratic elections in Iran, without the government approving the candidates neither controlling the press. With the presidential contest taking place this summer, Pahlavi said the NCI expects to pressure for change by means of “civil disobedience […] and massive strikes in the industrial sector that will bring a total paralysis to the country.”

Pahlavi mentions that he would eventually like to have the role of uniting the opposition and keeping it united. According to him, the NCI already represents a clear step into that direction, as it encompasses organizations from the whole spectrum of the opposition, including monarchists, social liberals, and members of the Green Movement. Under such diversity, he further acknowledges that the next iteration in the transition of the Iranian regime would necessarily be to promote dialogue and tolerance amongst all the factions of the opposition, a requirement for the full democratization of the country.

It is not possible to make a definite assessment on Pahlavi’s plan and on the future of the NCI, but it does not seem to be very optimistic. In his favor, Pahlavi has been an active figure of the opposition in the exile to the Islamic Republic. With relative frequency he participates in interviews to the press or as a keynote speaker in conferences about his country, mentioning the dislike of many Iranians with the current regime and the daily problems they endure, including the incapacity to always bring food to the table. Additionally, trying to win the support the international community, he stresses that a democratic Iran would cease in its ambitions to produce nuclear weapons or in continuously threatening the stability of the region.

However, more likely than not Pahlavi could face a very hard time trying to promote dialogue among all the factions of the opposition. Notwithstanding the support he could have inside Iran, the fact that he is the son of the ruler against which the revolution occurred (before becoming an Islamic regime) crucially plays against him. Furthermore, he is not the only high-profile figure of the opposition in the exile. For instance, Maryam Radjavi is the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which functions as a quasi-government in the exile and that was one of the key organizations that fought against the Shah. It is unclear what the relation between Pahlavi and Radjavi would be if they sat down in the negotiation table in a post-Ayatollah Iran.

And, even more, there is the little room for any kind of opposition in Iran. With a very tight control over candidate-approval procedures, the media, and practically all political processes, it is very doubtable if democratization is any closer to Iran than it was in the last presidential election of 2009. In any case, Reza Pahlavi will try to continue pushing forward his project. In the upcoming months it will be seen what he exactly does to build a democratic Iran.

Icelandic Elections

Bjarni Benediktsson, Prime Minister-to-be of Iceland (from Le Monde).

On Saturday Iceland celebrated elections for its unicameral parliament, the Althing, under an open-list proportional representation system. The Independence Party (right), led by Bjarni Benediktsson, won with almost 27% of the vote. On second place is the Progressive Party (center, agrarian), chaired by Sigmundr David Gunnlaugsson, with 24% of the vote. The incumbent party, the Social Democrats, fell to the third place. The Independence and Progressive Parties each won 19 of the 63 available seats, for which a center-right coalition government will rule the country.

It has been widely underlined by the press that the victory of those two parties is, in a way, very surprising as they were in power when Iceland had the financial crisis in 2008 that almost drove the country to bankruptcy. However, the story is not so different to what happened and has happened in other places of Europe, a political swinging going from resentment against the parties that were in power when the economic crisis began and that had to agree on rescue measures, to anger against the opposition parties that had to implement those measures.

In Iceland banks were lending cheaply a lot of money, but on 2008 this scheme became unsustainable, and the whole financial system collapsed, followed by debt and currency exchange crises. The incumbent government Independence Party lost support from the Parliament, a political crisis emerged, and the then third party, the Social Democrat, headed by Johanna Sigurdardottir, obtained the relative majority in the special elections of 2009. Its task, of course, was to apply the austerity measures negotiated by the previous administration with the International Monetary Fund, which translated into tax increases, unemployment, and reductions in the welfare system.Now that the legislature is over and elections were scheduled, the Social Democrat party is paying the price of implementing a policy it did not negotiate that had tangible social costs. Electors are upset with the negative effects of the austerity reforms, and a relevant element of support for the social democrats, negotiations to join the European Union (EU) which could facilitate the economic recovery, has waned due to the fading of the signs of the crisis. In addition, Sigurdardottir’s promises to deliver a new Constitution and a protection wall from eviction to morose homeowners failed. Thus, platform under which the Independence Party is running includes propositions such as tax reduction, forcing banks to assume losses in order to reduce mortgages, and stop negotiations to join the EU.

Commentators that showed surprise about the return of the Independence-Progressive alliance to power wonder if Icelanders have forgotten that those were the parties that caused the crisis with similar policies to the ones they promote now. It might be the case. However, it is also true that the Social Democrat Party arrived to power by default (it had always been a relatively minor party) and, once in office, had the infamous charge of implementing unpopular and harsh measures that it did not negotiate. The outgoing Prime Minister Sigurdardottir said she felt sad about the electoral results. Now, the Social Democrats have to work to constitute themselves as an attractive political alternative if they want voters to vote for their candidates again.

An Appeal to Order

Second place in the presidential poll, Henrique Capriles in a press conference accusing President Nicolás Maduro of stealing the election (from AFP).

A new feature of the current political system of Venezuela is pluralism. This is something the late President Hugo Chávez did not face until his last election, when he competed against Henrique Capriles. Chávez won, although Capirles got the largest share of the vote for an opposition candidate ever since Chávez got to power. Before dying, Chávez anointed Vice President Nicolás Maduro as the leader of his so-called Bolivarian Revolution. But Maduro still had to be elected President. In the election of last week he won. However, he got a very small margin of victory, a little above 1.5% of the total of the vote over Capriles. Not only Chavismo has stopped being hegemonic in Venezuela, but the support for the opposition is almost the same as that for Chávez’s project.

In order to strengthen his popular support (the issue of whether or not the bureaucracy and the army back him as successor of Chávez could lead to a different discussion) it can be argued that Maduro has two options, not necessarily mutually exclusive. First, to augment the patronage delivery system to large sectors of the population, that constituted a fundamental pillar of Chávez’s popularity. Some public works, some health care, some education or some housing always given with a lot of pomp. This could work as long as public revenue in the form of oil sales, debt, or taxes continue flowing into the state (which we can assume happens) and as long as the economy sustains sloppy spending (which we can assume does not happen, given the recent but little publicized devaluation of the national currency). In any case, continuing with this strategy is not very difficult in this moment, as bureaucratic momentum will more likely than not keep it going for some time. The problem is that doing the same thing will produce the same results: a waning support for Chavismo.

Another strategy, available mostly (but not only) in undemocratic environments, is attacking, although still not crushing, the opposition. Failing to get a vote recount in the immediate aftermath of the election because he said there had been fraudulent actions against him (he pressured organizing protests which resulted in the death of at least eight people), on Wednesday Capriles gave a further step in his post-electoral protest and blamed Maduro personally for “stealing the election”. The new president seized the opportunity and in several occasions in Twitter called Capriles and his supporters (though without saying their names) the “oligarchic loitering”, “the new fascism”, and “the desperate right”. He accused them of sabotaging the “peace and hope” of a country. He even created the twitter hashtag #tropa (troopers) to rally the rejection of the opposition while at the same time he appealed to order and to ignore Capriles’ call for demonstration.

It is too early to being thinking what Maduro’s administration will look like or what will come of the interactions between his and Capriles’ supporters. Furthermore, it remains an open question to see if Capriles is able to maintain support for himself. If he falls into the game of accusations started by Maduro he might lose. He must work to keep the opposition united if he wants to continue being an alternative to Chavismo and Maduro. At least, for the time being we can see that plurality will not have an easy entrance into the current Venezuelan political system.

Elections in Paraguay

Horacio Cartes celebrating with his supporters his election to the Presidency of Paraguay (from Al-Jazeera).

Last Sunday, Paraguay held general elections. Horacio Cartes, from the Colorado Party (Red Party; formally the National Republican Association), won the presidential contest with 45.8% of the vote. The Colorados also got a relative majority in the legislative chambers.

This electoral result marks the return of the Colorados to power after five years of absence. The alternation of the party in power is seen as a healthy, even desirable, electoral outcome for democracies. However, there are some doubts about the democratic credentials of the Colorado party. It first came to power in 1947, and left by means of elections in 2008. General Alfredo Stroessner, who repressively governed Paraguay between 1954 and 1989, was a member of the Colorado Party. Afterwards, the party remained in power, but by means of civilian and democratically elected governments. Although multiparty elections were recurrent after Stroenssner’s rule, the Colorados retained a hegemonic position in the Paraguayan political system.

Not only there were historic reasons to cast some doubt about the democratic nature of the Colorado Party. The presidential candidate in this occasion, Horacio Cartes, has also been criticized. A political outsider (he mentioned that last Sunday was the first time he voted in his life), he is one of the richest men in the country, owning a tobacco company, a bank, ranches, and a drinks factory. The problem is not his wealth, but that, according to one of the diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks, the U.S. government suspected that he used his businesses for money laundering and drug trafficking. Additionally, there are many reports about people from the Colorado party buying or inhibiting votes throughout the whole country. Some argue that Cartes’ political inexperience and his obscure businesses, next to the election rigging practices of the Colorados, do not make a good cause for the democratic feature of this presidency.

This does not imply that the Colorado Party represents a return to authoritarianism or that the Liberal Party and its presidential candidate, Efraín Alegre, who got the second place in the election, were completely democratic. President Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) sacked Alegre out of his cabinet under accusations of corruption. In 2012, Alegre was one of the main promoters of the impeachment and eventual ousting from power of Lugo. This act, in spite of its constitutionality, was considered as a technical coup d’État by domestic and international observers (the impeachment was the final aftermath of a confrontation between the police and peasants that ended with 17 dead people). For many Paraguayans, Alegre was part of the group that wanted to personal obtain political benefit by removing Lugo from office.

The transition to democracy in Paraguay gave its first big step in 1992 with the writing of a new constitution. An alternation of the party in power (what happened on Sunday) would be a token of the consolidation not only of abstract democratic regulations, but of concrete democratic actions. However, it seems to be that in Paraguay the party in power, the President, and the opposition experience mutual mistrust. It could very well be, however, that the past of all those political actors becomes irrelevant when sitting down to discuss the current challenges that Paraguay has, including a 0.5% of GDP growth or the concentration of land ownership in very few families, with all the problems of socioeconomic inequality this implies. Democratic transitions are not complete just by writing rules or complying with them. Democracy also requires some level of confidence on the actions of politicians. For the moment, this feature seems to be absent among their peers and citizens.