The social upheaval that the country is going through creates the necessary conditions for the activation of a state of emergency in which the next election period will be held. A state that tests the sovereign power of citizens to exercise their right to vote with the responsibility, commitment and courage necessary to protect political freedom and democracy.

True political freedom, since it is constitutional, runs the risk of being an apparent freedom, because it is political. It is obvious that our political freedom is disguised as plurality, equality and legality; but in reality it is conditioned by the manipulation of political forces that use blackmail, revenge and violence to win or maintain power, calling into question the rule of law and the value of democracy as a political system.

This atmosphere of tension and political violence directly affects the development of democratic electoral competition. On the one hand, the process of alternation and electoral competition is exposed to the social function of fear, which could tilt the voting results towards candidates representing a “strong hand” or autocracy. On the other hand, political fragmentation, the result of legislative suffrage, could institutionalize party structures devoted to patronage pacts or even criminal groups; turning our political system into a machine of ungovernability and structural political instability.

In the democracy-violence-elections trilogy, political action is violent action in electoral dynamics, which violates political freedom, which is reflected in the loss of citizens’ rights, which threatens the development of the electoral process and affects both the free right to vote and the ability to form a political association. Citizens lose their sovereign power and their will is minimized into a rhetorical repertoire, with little or no democratic functionality. Both the political leadership and citizens must be aware of the possibility of falling into the trap of this tragic trilogy of political violence, which would call into question our freedoms and our democratic integrity.

Voting and being voted in is an opportunity to make full use of political freedom; make a civic effort so that democracy works and can be improved at every election moment, in every legislative consideration and in every executive decision, because the only trilogy that strengthens governability is the balance of the three powers of the state, where political consensus is built by a strong and efficient state in harmonizing public policies for social welfare and economic progress with high standards of public safety and institutional integrity.

We must protect the political system with firm, strong and responsible voting; aware that the sovereign voice maintains political control and where there is no room for indifference, indecision or denial, because what is at stake next Sunday is our civic will, it is our political freedom. (OR)