Human rights: Food for a cat and mouse thought ‘HR and electoral contests’
HRR 756
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about how HR are not even in the radar in un-representative ‘democratic’ elections. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–Children believe in Santa Claus. Adults do not. They do not believe in Santa; they vote… (Pierre Desproges)
The people vote, but they do not exercise sovereignty (Juan Pablo Cardenas) –wither human rights (HR)
1. Evidence indicates that electoral contests have taken a substantive turn. It is no longer the traditional propaganda, nor the massive mobilizations of supporters that set the tone for what will happen in the polls. We can now properly speak of the ‘silent majorities’ that no longer take to the streets to support their candidates and that rather make their choice based on what happens in the social networks where the political Right is far ahead of the efforts of the progressives. It is perfectly explainable, although ungrateful, that it is the young people that show to be especially in favor of the Far-right referents. It is further very common for the Left to cling to traditional proselitism, to the discourses of their leaders in squares, theaters and marches, ignoring that virtual communication is much more effective than banners, street graffiti and other resources increasingly unnoticed, and even repudiated, by the citizens and, especially, by the youth dependent and even addicted to their cell phones and computers (where HR issues are the needle in the haystack). (J. P. Cardenas)
2. Large sectors of the working class stopped voting for social democratic and progressive parties, and began to vote for the extreme-right. Governments that define themselves as progressive are largely responsible for this. Bottom line here is that, in order to truly democratize the state, it is key and urgent to recover public policies of redistributive character and empowerment of the popular classes. In the meantime, more interventionist public policies are also required to regulate economic activity, breaking with the excessive and abusive power that the business class has over state elections. (Vicente Navarro)
All over the world, in all democracies, there are de facto powers that rig elections
3. The business oligarchies, the armed forces and, in the case of the Americas below the Rio Grande, the U.S. Embassy can be suspected (or proven) to covertly instigate rigging. To counter these powers, progressive forces have always shown contradictions. As they become dogmatic, they fail to see the real adversaries that are colluding and crouching behind the scenes. Internal fractures show them weak –and internal fights make them/us forget the greater strategic enemies. Within the national popular bloc, there is thus a loss of a clear strategic horizon so as to face and target the real adversaries. Add to this the entanglements of personalized and very petty struggles, all impinging on elections. (Álvaro García Linera)
4. Countries with constitutions that emphasize multi-party elections have increasingly seen the gradual establishment of what is effectively one-party rule. This one-party rule may at times be masked by the existence of two or even three parties, concealing the reality that the difference between these parties has become increasingly negligible. (Vijay Prashad) (Does the situation in the US ring a bell here…?)
If voting would change anything, it would have been banned a long time ago (Coluche. French comedian, 1944-1986)
—Do you really choose when you choose? Do not vote for what others want!
–An autopsy of past head of state elections reveals that they are more ‘selections’ than presidential elections, i.e., referenda in totalitarianism. (Nazanin Armanian)
5. Several recent elections have revealed an unimaginable rise in neo-fascism while the Center-right (or the Extreme-center, the-geometric-place-of-all-betrayals, as somebody said) is reduced to its minimum expression. The ‘panoramic’ Left, (that goes from the Center-left, to the Serious-left), has only achieved honorable electoral results —becoming a hope rather than a force.
6. Does this movement of the pendulum tell us anything? The so much mentioned ‘political alternation’, allegedly the cornerstone of representative(?) democracy, consists mostly in changing the puppet, to put into practice exactly the same neoliberal policies favorable to big capital and harmful to the great majorities. The alternation, therefore, is nothing more than the cycle of betrayal towards popular, majority interests. There comes a day when the mass of citizens awakens and explodes –but, regrettably, many times, falls into the trap set by Fascism… (Louis Casado)
The Right and the Left have turned towards ‘electoral engineering’ schemes
7. These schemes are aimed at hand-picking candidates to compete for the attractive public offices in a country where the administration of the state seems to be much more lucrative than the private enterprises in any branch of activity.
8. Above any other purpose, electoral pacts involve the complex task of satisfying party pretensions. It is evident that many parties do not want to be part of an alliance if they are not guaranteed a sufficient number of candidates (and positions). In a disciplined way, Right and Left parties exercise what they call ‘civic alliances‘ to face elections*, as well as to share quotas in the fiscal positions.
*: The ruling political class cannot risk high abstentions that cast so much doubt on the alleged democratic solidity that keeps them in power. (J. P. Cardenas)
Bottom line
9. What is proven in every election –often referred-to as ‘democratic festivals’– is that the people do not elect their representatives. The electoral machine, well financed by the oligarchy, prevents it. Those who are elected are those who, once and a hundred times, later abjure their promises, even when they have promised us that their ideas were going to re-found the country to give us an institutional regime more ‘participatory’ and human rights-respecting than ‘indirectly representative’. (J. P. Cardenas)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com