POLITICS-ARGENTINA: The Challenge of Strengthening Democracy

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 27 1999 (IPS) - Nearly 70 percent of those interviewed by a recent Gallup International poll in Argentina believe that 16 years after the end of the 1976-83 dictatorship, the country is still not governed according to the people’s will.

That critical view of how democracy is functioning in this Southern Cone country – shared by 80 percent of university graduates – is accompanied by a negative image of the government of former president Carlos Menem, described as “corrupt” by 61 percent of respondents.

Menem handed power over to President Fernando de la Rúa, who represents a centre-left alliance, on Dec 10.

A total of 50,000 people in 60 countries were interviewed for Gallup’s “Millenium” survey, carried out from August to October. Globally, 62.1 percent said they did not believe their countries were governed by the people’s will.

The new authorities and the public in Argentina hope perceptions will begin to change with De la Rúa in office, after 10 years of government by Menem.

De la Rúa, whose strongest political capital is his image as an honest and even “boring” politician, won the October elections on a platform emphasising the need for a more transparent public administration, greater austerity, increased participation by civil society, and an all-out effort to fight corruption.

Argentine political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell, whose area of expertise is the transition to democracy in Latin America and eastern Europe, was brought in from the University of Notre Dame in Paris as an adviser over the next year to the De la Rúa administration on reforms of the State.

Under Menem, reforms of the State consisted of privatising public enterprises and cutting the public payroll. But the basic services that remained in the hands of the State – health, education, public order and justice – went into a sharp decline.

Today’s challenge is to build a small but effective State, close to the citizenry, one which exercises control over privatised public services – electricity, transport, telephones, gas and water – and invests in upgrading basic services, said O’Donnell.

The political scientist believes that a friendly relationship between citizens and the State is key, and that the State must be made “more efficient and vigorous, in order to successfully navigate the sea of globalisation.”

O’Donnell coined a concept he says is key to understanding processes of transition to democracy: “delegative democracy”, under which presidents believe that because they were voted into office, they can make decisions without listening to the other branches of power.

But that concept of democracy was precisely the one that generated disenchantment among those consulted by the Gallup poll in Argentina, said O’Donnell, because the public knows that voting is not a guarantee that the chosen representatives will govern for the people.

“Presidents like Menem or Peru’s Alberto Fujimori successfully embody that conception of power,” said O’Donnell in an interview published by the local newspaper ‘Página 12’ this month.

Both Menem and Fujimori have spent two consecutive terms in office, and both tried – or are still trying in the latter’s case – to stay on for a third term, by attempting to push through new laws and constitutional amendments.

One of the biggest criticisms of Menem was that he steamrollered the judiciary and parliament. In his first term in office, he signed nearly 500 emergency decrees, which enabled him to bypass Congress.

In O’Donnell’s view, De la Rúa’s challenge is “to move from delegative democracy to representative democracy” – in other words a government that truly represents the interests of all citizens and respects the decisions taken by all branches of power.

De la Rúa made the unprecedented decision to confirm all of the current Supreme Court judges, going against the practice by which new presidents in Argentina traditionally name new magistrates aligned with their government.

To move towards representative democracy, a smaller and more effective state is necessary, dispersed social policies should be concentrated, and the law for financing political parties should be amended, said O’Donnell.

The political scientist said Menem was “excessively theatrical” at official ceremonies, by contrast with De la Rúa’s sober and austere style, demonstrated once again the day he took office.

And that difference is not merely superficial, said O’Donnell. “Style is seen as the opposite of substance, as if it were incidental, but it isn’t. Style in this case is austerity and a republican posture that favours the care of public matters, and has substantive, not just formal, significance.”

Democracy in Argentina, restored in 1983 after six years of a de facto regime under which 10,000 to 30,000 people were forcibly “disappeared”, “has yet to be created,” he maintained.

“The State must recognise that we all have rights, no matter what hat we are wearing, and that all voices must be heard,” O’Donnell stressed.