By ANGELITA MATOS SOUZA*
All the Venezuelan military needs to do is establish the agreements desired by American oil companies and Venezuela will “immediately become an example of democracy”
Officially, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, won yet another election, a result contested by the opposition in the country and even by progressive political leaders from other nations. To talk about it, let's start from a realistic definition of democracy.
In the manner of Joseph Schumpeter and his followers, democracy is a method of choosing political leaders through free electoral competition. That is, from time to time, the social majority chooses the political minority that will govern, offered in the electoral market by political parties, generally “influenced” by those who hold economic power. A definition that has little to do with any ideal of popular sovereignty.
For our part, we prefer the meaning defended by Décio Saes, who identifies the democratic form of State with the existence of a representative body (Assembly) elected by popular vote, with which the unelected bureaucracy and the government at the head of the Executive have to divide the exercise of power. And its existence is not enough, this body must actually have power, although the author dismisses the need for balance between powers, which is difficult to find in concrete realities.
In other words, for Décio Saes, the criterion is fundamentally that of the existence of the “organ of direct representation of the exploiting class”, a condition that demands free electoral competition (the democratic political regime). Organ of the exploiting class, because, despite being elected by the social majority, it is generally controlled by the wealth holders.
The advantage of “minimalist” visions lies both in their capacity for comprehensiveness and in their distance from idealism. It serves as the lowest common denominator, from which we can move forward, but should not regress. It is worth noting that the criterion of alternation in power is not included in a core concept, since it must encompass both the presidential and parliamentary systems.. In effect, any concept must serve to understand the same phenomenon in different social realities.
In turn, adhering to this “simplistic” approach does not imply discarding the importance of maintaining liberal democracy. Especially in times of the rise of fascist ideologies, we must be politically liberal and resort to their idealized versions in the fight to maintain and expand rights for the social majority. In the gaps, there is always something left.
Returning to Venezuela, someone could object that even in light of undemanding definitions, democracy requires free electoral competition, restricted in the neighboring country. Honestly, we don't know exactly what the political situation is in the country, but in the Age of Social Media, there are limitations everywhere.
In the Venezuelan case, from what we read, in addition to periodic elections and the existence of a well-funded opposition, there is a Parliament with power (mostly pro-government because it was elected). Therefore, the qualification of democracy would still fit, perhaps uncomfortably, but it does.
In the progressive camp, whether or not we support the president of Venezuela has to do with a certain detachment between the economy and the State. This seeks to assert itself as a non-dependent State, but corresponds to a very dependent economy.
The gap, for those interested in Venezuela's oil, must be resolved with the reestablishment of the dependent State, which is characterized by the strong presence of foreign interests among those that must be taken into account in the process of defining state policies. In enclave economies, these interests tend to be those primarily served by the State.
In Venezuela, on the contrary, the State has sought to keep oil under national control, at the cost of a certain disregard for rights that shape the liberal political regime. For Brazil, diplomatically, this is a difficult choice, especially given the rise of the extreme right in the world. As indicated, in the political struggle it is time to embrace the most idealized versions of liberal democracy. However, if Nicolás Maduro seems to have a tendency to be a dictator, the opposition has links with the international extreme right, which tends to be fascist.
Be that as it may, the solution to the problem of democracy in the neighboring country has already been (ironically) pointed out by Liszt Vieira in article posted on the website the earth is round: all the Venezuelan military needs to do is establish the agreements desired by American oil companies and Venezuela will “immediately become an example of democracy (…). See the case of Saudi Arabia, the most bloodthirsty dictatorship in the world and treated as a democracy by the media in general”.
In short, poverty is not part of the concept of democracy presented here.
*Angelita Matos Souza is a political scientist and professor at the Institute of Geosciences and Exact Sciences at Unesp. She is the author, among other books, of PT Dependency and Governments (Appris). [https://amzn.to/47t2Gfg]
Originally published on GGN newspaper.
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