A LIVING HURRICANE

“A living hurricane”,that was how the ex-president of Uruguay, José Mujica, referred to Hugo Chavez. And expressions like that one have been said about Chavez by most of the Presidents of South and Central America. “The continent of Bolívar”, “the Bolivarian continental revolution”, “the Bolívar sword around all Latin America”, “the land of Martí and El Che”, are one of the most popular expressions.

How can be explained that the most corrupt country in Latin America had widely influenced the international relations in the region for more than ten years? While the so-called “Bolivarian revolution” was promoted around Latin America, Venezuela has been suffering the consequences of an historical institutional weakness, the absence of independence in the judicial power, the persecution to opposition leaders, and the violation of the local and regional autonomies.

Fuente: http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

The current Venezuelan government presumes to have the most democratic system in all AL because of the social investment, the several electoral processes and the political participation of the poorest Venezuela citizens. But when the socio-economic indicators are analyzed in detail, Venezuela has the highest inflation rate of the region, the worst transparency index of all Latin America and political participation instances are strongly dependent on the Executive Power.

The same thing happens at a regional level.

America is the most unequal region of the world and because of that reason, the strengthening of democratic system is linked with the eradication of poverty and the overcoming of social inequalities. The causes of those inequalities are several, but most of the American countries share a common history signed by militarism, corruption and institutional weakness. Right now, even when in the last decade many left governments have raised, with political speeches focused on social matters, social inequalities still remain as well as corruption and institutional weakness.

Now well, far from promoting regionals democratic instances based on the strengthen democratic institutions as well as making emphasis on overcoming social inequalities, far from this, the current regional instances have become clubs of presidential solidarity. In the case of Venezuela, the same leaders who say passionate political speeches against USA are the same that deny encouraging a better democratic system for Venezuela.

While Mujica praised to the living hurricane, the government of Uruguay announced the sale of 235.000 tons of products  to Venezuela such as milk, cheese, soy, chicken and rice, for an mount of 300.000.000$. A big deal for a Bolivarian country. Besides oil, Venezuela has exported a miserable way to make politics in the region. God bless the living hurricane.