Antonio Navalón
The essence of democracy is that what happened on the first of July – or any other day – is not forever.
Democracy. According to Greek etymology, demos mean people, and Kratos means power. The power of the people. It was never made clear to anyone, not to the Greeks or the Romans or anyone, that peoples are fickle and changeable. Therefore, the power of democracy depends on the fact that it can be changed from time to time. If you do it right, you stay in power. If you do it wrong, but you are able or have the ability to convey that you are doing it correctly, you also stay. On the contrary, if you do it wrong and people are aware of it, the same people that elected you fire you.
The essence of democracy is that what happened on the first of July – or any other day – is not forever. Its basis rests on the fact that power only lasts as long as it lasts or has to last; that is, it has validity. In the case of legislative representation, the mandate is for three years, while in the case of presidential power, the term is six years. With a fact of absolutely irreproachable and democratic origin, is it legitimate to change the essence of democracy? We are at a point where many countries have already experienced it. Democracy is a living being. It is not a fixed place, nor is it a right. Democracy is like a survey, like a photograph of a moment. Change is a constant in human life. We change. We all change. Therefore, wanting to take advantage of a photograph, a moment, a dream, a love, or a conviction to change the game’s rules is wrong; it is even undemocratic. Today the world is an unknown person stuck to a pandemic and hopeful in a vaccine, but what is true is that the procedure that we choose, that we have and that we want to institute to elect our leaders, is essential and is a critical question.
We are approaching the decisive day. Some think that so much tension and so much disqualification of the referees is only due to one reason. This reason lies in the fact that it is possible to do whatever is necessary to have an argument that can explain the suspension of the electoral process, postpone it, and – changing the Constitution and the laws – be in a position that favors or goes according to your interests. However, this possible hypothetical situation or scenario is extremely worrying. They are theories, but sometimes the worst theories managed in human brains end up becoming a reality. That is why, to this day, at this moment in which there is little more than a month left until the day of the elections arrived in Mexico, for D-Day to arrive and the landing of democracy to take place, it is important to know in which territory we are playing.
If you look closely, the least relevant of the electoral contest is the message of the political parties, while the most important is the interpretation of democratic purity. In one corner of the ring are the authorities elected to govern the National Electoral Institute. In the other corner is the blessed, wise – but not incontrovertible or eternal – will of the people. It is a game of legitimacies, only in this case, the only legitimacy above the one that protects both is the possibility of being able to change. The possibility of rectification and the possibility that the people can argue that, although on one occasion they had the ability to choose their leader, the next day they are also capable of rejecting him.
Today, as things are, it is very easy to bet on the failure of the States. As I write this column, I am in Europe, and it amazes me that this continent does not burn in the face of the collective failure of its governments. So many taxes, so many charges, and so much money spent, and, despite this, they cannot vaccinate their people. But most important of all – despite inactivity and inefficiency in immunizing populations – Europe is not burning.
In Europe, taxpayers pay taxes and other collection tools, approximately 40 percent of their income to their states. The question is, if they are not able to administer a simple prick to save their lives, what is the use of paying that 40 percent? However – and what is worse – there are places where we do not even get to the syringes or vaccines. And faced with this, the real question is whether – despite the fact that we do not pay the amounts as high as is done in Europe or that, sometimes, we do not even pay the State -, considering all this, it is necessary to determine if the fact that killing us is free.
Among the many functions of governments, one of their main responsibilities is to keep us alive, safe, and, in the face of any danger or threat, defend us. In this regard, it is necessary to clarify that the seriousness of the crime for being murdered in Celaya is equal to losing his life for not having received the vaccine on time. States are in the doldrums. They have failed. They have failed us. They have failed their peoples. The time for the big change may have come. But the main problem is knowing where to start. A good option to start is to dispense with the exercise of asking the people completely – sometimes wise and sometimes fickle and deceived – what they want and go directly to the choice of what seems best to us or what is considered best.
States are in deep crisis. In addition, it is necessary to take the accounts out of this situation and collect them from the pandemic. However, not all bills will have to be paid solely for the pandemic. And here, I want to make a clear difference. Winston Churchill used to say that “democracy is the least bad of political systems.” I think the same. With everything and everything, with the mistakes, with the follies, and without forgetting facts such as what meant that Adolf Hitler was also elected democratically, what is evident is that democracy continues to be the least bad of the systems. The problem is about when and how we teach the rulers that democracy is a value that flows, that does not stay, and that no matter how much democratic success you achieve one day, that does not give you permission to kick the table or to carry out all kinds of occurrences.
Democracy is useful as long as its process is maintained. In other words, the democratic exercise is only useful to the extent that its cycle is respected, which lies in the fact that an election –after a certain time– has to be preceded by another electoral process. Otherwise, if you use an election so that there are no more electoral processes, it means that you are ending democracy.
I do not want to think or devise a scenario in which the pandemic destroys us since against that, I can do nothing, but what I can prevent is that democracy is destroyed. In this regard, at least I want to say that the problem is not only going to vote against those who believe that democracy is forever but that it is a cultural and political problem to teach that the trick of democracy – I insist – is that you can continue to be a democrat; that is, voting and giving opinions on how they administer us. These are times for survival, times to reform and change states. But they are also times in which, if we liquidate democracy – amid the dictatorship of fear, the pandemic, and the disappearance of democratic values - we will have already fallen into total dictatorship.
