Democracy without a Republic can become the best system for choosing the worst; it can become a pretext for legitimizing tyranny, a method for inaugurating authoritarianism and a source for planting dangerous “tropical dynasties”, in the style of Nicaragua, Cuba or Venezuela. Populism and propaganda pervert voting, suppress political rationality and find reasons to abolish the rule of law.

Faced with the experiences left by populism in Latin America, the disastrous consequences of 21st century socialism and parliamentarism without brakes and rules, it is worth asking whether democracy reduced to a system of elections between demagogues and “celebrities” is legitimate; if it is legitimate when voting and conjunctural pacts are not based on the hope and illusion of change, but on the exploitation of hatred, calculation, “advantage” and denial of tolerance. Should democracy be something more than an electoral system, should it express values ​​or just transform the calculations of parties and leaders and the dark funds that every society has? Should we democrats turn a blind eye to the perversions of the system?

A la carte dictatorship

It is not about renouncing democracy. It is about “adding more Republic” to the electoral system and the parliamentary regime. It is about justifying tolerance, transparency, alternative as ethical and necessary elements of politics. It is about raising the moral and intellectual conditions of rulers and legislators. The rule of law, effective methods of checks and controls, effective division of state functions should be added to the regime of absolute majority rule, and an insurmountable limit must be set for the actions of rulers and representatives. The game of giving and receiving in assemblies cannot become a false dogma or serve as a support for authoritarianism.

Sergio Ramírez Mercado, Ecuadorian writer

We live electoralism without a Republic, parliamentarism without effective representation, speech without responsibility…

Therefore, the concept and validity of the Republic must be justified. We must assume that liberal democracy is inseparable from the rule of law; that democracy needs institutional channels and that rulers must adapt the exercise of their will to legality, political and economic rationality, prudence, ethics of tolerance and the understanding of power as a tool at the service of everyone – even from the opponent. Democracy is a way to come to power. The republic is a system that will subjugate it, divide it and prevent it from becoming a dictatorship, that is, a tropical monarchy, as proven by the experiences of Venezuela and Nicaragua.

We live in electoralism without a republic, parliamentarism without effective representation, speech without responsibility, the desire for power without limits, the systematic denial of the proclamation of the power of the people. Institutions are being destroyed, values ​​are being distorted and denied. Distrust grows, fear spreads. And the state… who and what does the state serve? Do we have a Republic?

Inevitable, uncomfortable, necessary questions. (OR)