Media Center

Press Release

OAS Secretary General Discusses Challenges to Democracy in Latin America

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, delivered a keynote address today during the Fifth Latin America Democracy Forum in Mexico City – Strengths and Weaknesses of the Democratic Systems in Latin America – in which he warned that although democracy in the region is experiencing one of its best moments, if the challenges facing it are not addressed, they could weaken it.

At the beginning of his address, Secretary General Insulza recalled that “25 years have now passed since the last dictatorships fell, more than 20 since peace was achieved in Central America and fortunately the existence of democratic systems is today the common denominator in the Americas. America and Europe are the most democratic regions in the world.” He added “all the governments that take part in the OAS have been elected by their citizens. Democracy is founded above all else on this, the cornerstone of the system. The legitimacy of the political process has its origins in democratic elections, increasingly clean, competitive, and inclusive.”

Along those lines, he noted that “democracy also encompasses the realization of a series of conditions, values, and rights, such as defense of human rights and the freedom of expression, respect for the rule of law, political pluralism and the balance of powers, respect for fundamental liberties, non-discrimination and the promotion of human development and social inclusion, defined as goals of the democratic process and also as means to consolidate its stability.”

Secretary General Insulza said, “in the Americas, democracy is no longer defined, as it was for a long time, as an aspiration of the peoples. It is now recognized as a right, and to promote it and defend it is the obligation taken on by governments, according to Article 1 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” and set forth that “any evaluation of the situation of the democracies in the Americas, more than a decade since the approval of the Charter, has an important and positive starting point: the democratic generation of its authorities. Our elections are not perfect, but from a comparative point of view they are a true example of democracy and participation.” He recognized on this point that “there is progress to be made on various aspects, particularly on issues of political financing, gender participation, minority participation and other areas, but no one debates the legitimacy of governments from the point of view of their generation.”

From that solid basis, continued Insulza, “we can talk of a second achievement: the stability of the governments. To be able to develop and strengthen democracy, countries must be governable. In this respect we have also made enormous strides in the last decade. Our democracies began fragile and that was made evident in the instability of many governments in the beginning of this new democratic era. From the transition to democracy in Latin America in the 1980s, to 2005, 17 elected presidents finished their terms prematurely, for coups d’état, resignation, impeachment, or from pressures resulting from social upheaval. I am referring here to presidential governments which incorporate the existence of fixed terms.”

However, in moving forward in his analysis, the OAS leader warned that the strengthening of democracy also depends on how challenges facing it are addressed, and noted among these challenges poverty and extreme poverty, inequality, discrimination, problems of violence generated by organized crime, and transparency, which deals with the issue of accountability.

The leader of the hemispheric institution placed special emphasis on the importance of the concept of accountability for addressing today´s challenges to democracy. “In democracy, each power must be responsible to some other or other members of the system,” said the Secretary General noting that “in recent years there have been situations of subordination or attempts at subordination of some powers of the state to others, limitations of the judicial or electoral powers, restrictions on press freedoms – that do not only come from governments, but also from the concentration of media or even from organized crime -, limitations to the organization or ability to act of civil society, undue intervention in electoral processes, that constitute risks of democratic backsliding that must be avoided.”

In another part of his address, he said “it is not only fiscal and institutional weaknesses that conspire against the strengthening of the state, but also the distance that many of our citizens, particularly in the middle classes, maintain from politics and public administration.” He added that “this distance makes it fundamental to defend the cleanliness of the political processes not only to combat drug trafficking or to avoid that factional interests or those of illegal groups infiltrate the public sector but also to guarantee the equality of citizen participation, and to care for the fragile trust that the citizenry has in democracy as a system of government.”

In order to care for that trust, said Insulza, “institutional and fiscal reform of the state are essential requisites in the strengthening of democracies to address the realities of a Hemisphere that is no longer poor, but remains fundamentally unfair.” “The strengthening of the state is not only necessary to maintain governability, but also to adopt public policies and create public services that improve conditions for the people of Latin America, who believe in democracy, but who expect their governments to advance toward solutions for these weaknesses and threats.”

Secretary General Insulza emphasized the importance of “strong democratic governments and the building of institutions that can give them that strength” to address the challenges facing democracy. The building of these institutions, in turn, “requires a broad, transparent and participative political dialogue between political forces and social actors; requires long term agreements on governability.”

The Democracy Forum, organized by the OAS General Secretariat in cooperation with the National Electoral Institute, the Colegio de Mexico, the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), and the Fund for Economic Culture, aims to generate an exchange of experiences and knowledge among key regional actors on the state of democracy in the current Latin American context.

It has become an opportunity for a discussion about current hemispheric politics that brings together politicians, academics, and specialists in public opinion as well as electoral experts to debate the possible paths leading to the consolidation of democracy in our region.

This event is part of the strategic alliance between the National Electoral Institute of Mexico, and the OAS that was created with the objective of strengthening democracy in Latin America. 


More information is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-432/14