We are overwhelmed with misunderstandings. Misinterpretations confuse us and cloud our perspective. Assumptions and invented hypotheses abound in the media, on the networks, in interviews. Many analyzes start from simple perceptions.

Political discourse is a constant misunderstanding, when it is not a pure and simple strategy and calculation. The most common topics are “welfare of the people” and “national salvation”, and perhaps restoration of sovereignty, liquidation of liberalism and other issues of similar dimensions. We all know, however, that the rhetoric that resonates in campaigns and saturates the media and networks serves to win elections, build majorities and govern according to the slogans of parties, leaders and other types of bosses. For nothing else.

Mistakes are not the result of mistakes or the enthusiasm of circumstances. They are a constant that has poisoned politics, they are a way of being, a line of behavior that confuses those who are not in the secrets of the government. The point is that democracy as a form and republic as a basic theme require a minimum of truth and the same amount of consequences. Voting implies the decision of each citizen about the supposed truth that the candidates sell to us with a powerful propaganda resource. People choose because of the hope the candidates have, because of the alternatives they propose.

The apparent decline of representative democracy is linked to the repeated inconsistency of rulers and legislators. For whatever reasons, the offers never match reality and people soon feel disillusioned, either because campaigns make impossible promises, or because, in the need to survive to govern, and interests to pass laws, they look for loopholes in landings and excuses to explain what was obvious from the beginning: that reality is a great opponent of discourse, propaganda and image.

The decline of democracy is accompanied by the crisis of the republic and institutional decay. And if that is not enough, there is the devaluation of legality, the uselessness of bureaucratic structures and of course corruption. And of course, insecurity. Not predicting such dramas, ignoring reality and covering up problems is perhaps the biggest mistake. And so speeches fall apart as soon as wolf ears appear.

Latin America, and especially Ecuador, live anchored in misunderstandings, in false speeches about democracy, when the system needs truths, not rhetoric; in offering impossible salvation, in blaming others for one’s own mistakes, and in promoting the impossible. No leader, nor civil society, wants to face the “sour test” of truth. Because there is no political culture, no republican tradition or respect for institutions and laws.

We are living the consequences of the structural crisis of democracy and the nullity of the system of political representation. They are symptoms of a serious decline. (OR)