Propaganda and the agony of civility turned elections into a banal act; in a kind of marking of redeemers, who are not, wise men who show off, characters who smile, gestures that mean little or nothing. We vote agitated by promises, overwhelmed by confrontations, sick of mediocrity and knowing that the substance is never discussed, because it is not convenient, or because few understand the essence of these issues.

In democratic theory, voting meant surrendering part of our freedoms to power, legitimizing obedience to the system – not to man -, transferring the possibility of choice, consent and authorization of government action. Voting, therefore, seriously implied relinquishing some rights to the servants of the state, with faith in the country, identifying with its history and its destiny. This was in political theory and when democracy was not yet a method of domination, the foundations of which were diluted in pragmatism.

In the conditions that all the paper republics that exist in the world are going through, voting means handing over a good part of your destiny – children and family – and a significant part of your rights, to be decided by them. , in favor of any interest, or under the pretext of some diffuse idea, some characters who told us a story about paradise, a novel about privileges, a soap opera of progress.

Elections do not serve to ascribe “sovereignty” to someone, because sovereignty belongs to every human being.

If democracy is reduced to an electoral event, its essence would be lost – tolerance, public ethics, responsibility, transparency and respect – and then there would be no guarantee of rights, and the Constitution would not be a plus protective shield. individuals and minorities against the government. The problem is that mass democracy, characterized by populism, leaves behind its liberal virtues. Illusions that should never have been lost have died.

Politics, and by the way mass democracy, are trapped in the great error of believing that elections are used to attribute absolute power to individuals or groups. No, they are not for that. They actually serve to assign duties and responsibilities to leaders and legislators, who are servants of the community, not their bosses; they serve to temporarily, conditionally and revocably entrust a destination that does not belong to the powerful, in a country that does not belong to dominant groups.

Winning elections is always misleading, if you consider that whoever wins has to rule for everyone, including minorities, for the losers, and this, in my opinion, is a clear limit of power, because democracy is not a system of domination, on the contrary, it is a regime of tolerance. It is not absolute, unless it is intended to be a mask for totalitarianism.

Elections do not serve to ascribe “sovereignty” to someone, because sovereignty belongs to every human being. Thus, voting means “commanding”, and representative means obedience to the will of the people and respect for minorities. (OR)