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.

Red Corruption

This weekend the Chinese Ministry of Supervision informed that it was conducting an investigation for “serious discipline violations” against the Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (in charge of economic planning), Liu Tienan. As of Tuesday morning no more information has been officially released on the specific charges faced by Liu or what sanction he faces.

At first glance this seems another case of a high-level public officer in China accused of some form of corruption or misbehavior, with prospects of being fired, expelled from the party, exposed in a media scandal, stripped off from any kind of benefit he would have right to for his years of militancy in the party and of service to the state, and being barred out of the public light for the rest of his life. Undoubtedly, Liu’s case contains all those elements. But this time the investigation was prompted by the commentary on Weibo, the country’s Twitter version. The government-sponsored English-language Chinese newspaper The Global Times indicated that since the most recent Party Congress in October, in which citizens were called to have a more active role in supervising the government, 17 investigations against public officers have started after citizens blew the whistle, many times using the internet. What is more, this is the first time that a journalist is the source of the denunciation.

In December last year, Luo Changping, editor of a financial magazine, said that Liu had authorized fraudulent contracts in the name of the Commission for which he works, had sent death threats to a former mistress, and had lied about academic credentials. Quickly, the press office of the Commission dismissed the information. The case remained silent until now, that a Ministry confirms the investigation.

It is a good thing that governments prosecute corruption, mostly if it involves high-level officers. The question in this case is that given the opacity with which the Chinese public administration works, there is always some room for suspicions around the real motivations for the investigation of officials accused of corruption. Is he really guilty, or will he be used as a token of President’s Xi Jinping’s efforts in combating government corruption? Is the fact that the denunciation originally came from the internet supposed to indicate that the government has not diminished its capacity to review the activity on the web and act when something undesirable appears? What are the limits for citizen supervision of the government? Is it possible that a larger reliance of the government on the internet to obtain denunciations will play against it in the medium or long term? Will anyone be benefitted by the eventual conviction of Liu? Maybe all of these questions are mere over-speculation about the Liu case; he might be guilty of all the offences mentioned by Luo and that is the end of the story. But, again, in authoritarian governments the point of combating corruption is not so much to ensure a good utilization of public resources, but rather to eliminate any activity that could endanger the position of the ruling group. And China has frequently shown that is a goal it constantly keeps in mind.

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.

The Persistence of Justice

General Ríos Montt leaving the Court Room after one of the audiences in the trial against him (from Reuters).

On Friday, the trial against the former President of Guatemala, General Efraín Ríos Montt, was suspended. He is charged with genocide and gross violation of human rights due to the repression of the Mayan population during his government in 1982-1983. In particular, there are accusations pointing that over 1700 Mayans were killed and an undetermined number more were raped by the Army while he was in power.

The first steps for the trial were given in November 2011 when a lawyer of the victims filed the case. Prosecutorial immunity for Ríos Montt, granted by virtue of a position in the legislature, prevented him from being processed. Once his tenure was over in 2012, a path that lasted almost one year began in order to amass the required documentation to demonstrate that a trial should effectively take place. As mentioned earlier in this blog, in January 2013 the file was admitted, making it the first time in Latin America that a former President would be trialed in his country for human rights violations committed during his tenure. Finally, the process started in late March.

Expectedly, the defense team of Ríos Montt has tried to prevent the court from beginning its work, and afterwards to delay it. For instance, just before the trial had its first audience one of the General’s lawyers was fired. Ríos Montt asked that the start of the process be postponed for five days, so that the new lawyer could familiarize with the case. The petition was denied. Similarly, later on Ríos Montt’s defendant left the courtroom arguing that the judge in charge of the case, Jasmín Barrios, was being impartial, reason for which the whole process could not be continued. Finally, this Friday a superior Court, following an instruction of the Supreme Court, ordered the annulation the process, taking it back to November 2011, when the file was originally presented. Barrios said she would follow the order, but called it illegal.

Apparently, the reason for the annulation of the trial is that procedural mistakes occurred during its initial phases, arguably compromising the reliability or legal validity of collected testimonies and evidence. However, some analysts have mentioned that the pressure from conservative groups in the country were behind such a decision. A fact is that diverse protests and campaigns were organized publicizing the message that the trial against Ríos Montt would only make old wounds to resurface, instilling a will of revenge and providing a context for the emergence of violence. According to this perspective, wealthy and powerful families, to which retired members of the Army belong, would not want their names to be mentioned in the trial not only because some of the former officers could have been involved in crimes against humanity, but also because they would be trying to cover any other benefit they could have obtained (such as embezzlement) as a result of the government of Ríos Montt for which they could be made accountable. It has been also suggested that the defense of the General, who is 86, is just buying time trying to extend the process as much as possible.

The appealing label of this trial as the first former President in Latin America being processed for abuses against human rights during his government is fading into yet another illustration of the defeat of justice before power and money. The arguments saying that rich families linked to the dictatorship has not been entirely proved. But the surprising decision of the Supreme Court to suspend the trial provides a foundation for many Guatemalans to suspect of some kind of intervention of the rich families into the judicial power.

The future of the trial is still very uncertain. One option is that the instruction of the Supreme Court to nullify the process is deemed illegal, as Barrios suggested, and everything is resumed as if nothing had happened. Another possibility is that the Supreme Court’s instruction is not reviewed. In such a case, the file could be presented again. But it is unclear if all the people that have participated in audiences telling the abuses they and their families suffered are willing to repeat such experience. Not only because of the psychological impact of reliving those memories, but because they have the antecedent that the previous effort was worth nothing.

The suspension of Ríos Montt’s trial has severe implications for the rule of law in a country that still tries to strengthen its democratic institutions. It could show not only that the advancements were weaker than thought, but also that steps are taken to block justice.