Democracy, how many crimes are committed in your name.
Freedom, how many crimes are committed in your name. The expression, prophetic and tragic, refers to the exclamation of Madame Roland moments before being executed in the guillotine, in the name of the revolution of freedom that imposed the Terror in France in the late eighteenth century. Today, perhaps, we would have to express a sort of paraphrase: democracy, how many crimes are committed in your name. It is that the recent tragic events in Paraguay, once again deny the most painful contradiction of a form of government called democracy: that the same, left to its forces, becomes its executioner. Sadly, democracy, it can not redeem itself. It’s not for that. Democracy is just a means. Democracy pointed, indeed, to the origin of the legitimacy of power. Democracy, finally, refers to the popular sovereignty that is fundamental to a liberal government. But nothing more.
To suppose that a political system is only democratic is to fall into the deepest error, a mistake that – by the way – turns democracy into something it does not want to be: authoritarian, populist or, more accurately, “democratist.” Democracy is left, therefore, to the exclusive will of the majority with no limit. That is why the state or society can just not be democratic. That would be unhealthy, a morbid model – as Ortega y Gasset said – that swallows and downgrades society, leaving her helpless against the power of money, ambitious majorities, violence from periodic crises, and a dictatorial imposition of strident groups.
Hence a democratic system, as the will of the majority, must be shaped in a republican form. I insist the democratic pole does not mean the whole because the Republican dimension must be added as self-government. Thus, if democracy does not assume its republican character, it will suppose that the sovereignty of the majorities will have no limits. Or if there is one, by law or constitution, there is a risk of violating these according to the majorities on duty. After all, echoing Pedro P. Samaniego, that Paraguayan jurist of revolutionary times of 1936, who claimed that “the law follows the sinuous course of events, legitimatizing mere historical facts.” So the law becomes “servant” of the facts of history. And that has been the part, tragically, of Paraguayan political history.
It is the acceptance, merely interested, of the Rule of Law. The law serves, insofar as it defends the interests of major groups. And if it is not, it is ignored, or changed. That is what it may be called the “antinomianism,” or anti-normative-legal sentiment. Let’s see. Beginning with an example of stronismo, the Colorado Party, led by Argana, justified the reelection reform of the Constitution of 1967 in the fact of “peace,” in 1977. In the constitution of 92, the Colorado Party prohibited the reelection of Rodriguez, and shortly after, the same party justified the fraudulent defeat of the “stronista” Argana in the primaries against the other candidate Wasmosy.
Later, again, on behalf of national unity, the regime of Gonzalez Macchi left aside the legal forms of constitutional legitimacy, justifying his presidency. Likewise, the legal forms, manipulated and tortuous, provided support for Lugo’s impeachment. Ironically, Lugo himself ignored the legal prohibition of the Constitution of 92 and the Code of Canon Law to run for president in the face of the possible defeat of the Colorado party.
And today, it is not surprising that, based on the significant achievements, the coalition of Cartes-Lugo- majorities do not hesitate to want to “amend” the constitution for a “continuismo.” As the reader sees, that morbid notion of democracy where the political facts take precedence over the rule of law is not new. It is not surprising, then, that the lack of respect for what is the law, whether the Constitution or some other, is a dogma for the political class and that this morbidity has contaminated some sectors of the society.
But democracy is not unlimited. Democracy, if it is Republican, is limited by common agreement, by the same Constitution, where minorities and not only the majorities, are protected in their rights. There will be brakes and counterweights. It is not the only sovereignty of the majorities nor mere overflow of them the source of power but, and above all, respect for the law. For this reason, there is no democracy without a constitutional sense, not only of the State as an institution but of the citizenship as such. The Constitution is not there to be bastardized by the interests of groups or conjuncture majorities. Democratic republicanism is administered through institutions, not people. Today, unfortunately, tiny of that seems to nurture our democracy.
As long as one does not stop to think about this intimate duality, which must be distinguished but not separated, from republican democracy, we may be encountering more tragedies and more mutual accusations in the future. The illusion that some “new” politics, more “democratic,” that may solve all our shortcomings will continue deceiving us. And so, it will only continue to reign, that Machiavellian attitude, concealed and rapacious, that has made us believe that, in democracy, what are worth are facts, and nothing more.