President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (courtesy of Wikipedia)
When Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won last year’s presidential election with a landslide 54% of the votes, it was not only the amount of support but how far she was ahead of her competitors that made the victory so impressive.
The 46% of the votes she did not win were split between six opposition parties, with second-placed Frente Amplio Progresista (FAP) obtaining a meagre 17%. It was a pretty good reflection of the situation of government and opposition at the time.
After the government lost its parliamentary majority due to a disastrous result in the 2009 election, the opposition did not manage to live up to the expectations placed upon it. Renamed “Group A”, the illusion of a strong, coordinated opposition capable of snatching the political initiative from a weak government quickly faded away. It soon became evident that, unable to set a common agenda, the only thing holding “Group A” together was its animosity towards the government. To paraphrase Borges, they were not united by love, but by horror.
The lack of initiative and fragmentation of the opposition were apparent in the poor performance of an almost paralysed Congress throughout 2010 and 2011, when only 70 and 65 bills were passed respectively, well below the ten-year average of 116.
And so we arrived at October 2011. In the two years since the fateful 2009 election, the government managed to regain control of the agenda, aided by its own initiative, the shock caused by the death of former president Néstor Kirchner, and the lack of a serious and organised political opposition.
It only takes a quick look around, however, to realise that there is an important, and very vocal, sector of society that does not feel represented by the government. As opposition is an integral part of democracy, the question of who represents those people is one that must be asked.
It has become quite evident for many in the past few years, specifically since the campo crisis of 2008, that the weakness of opposition parties has resulted in certain economic groups affected by governmental policies taking political matters into their own hands. At the forefront of this new opposition are those with the most influence on public opinion: the media corporations.
The 'cacerolazos' in Plaza de Mayo (Photo: Luciano Signorelli)
In Argentina, politics has become to a large extent a war between pro and anti-government media groups unabashedly campaigning for their own interests, without much regard for the traditional laws of journalistic ethics.
An interesting debate about the role of the media has since ensued, not only in Argentina, but also in Latin America and other parts of the world. The sanctity of journalism and its classic role as the “fourth estate” have been brought into question as big media groups are, analytically speaking, stripped bare and shown for what they mostly are: businesses. Powerful businesses, with political interests and a massive influence over public opinion and politicians alike.
There is a positive side to this situation, as nothing in a democracy should be immune to analysis, discussion, and criticism. Media groups have always had political and economic interests, and it is a positive thing that people have become more aware of this and can see through their supposed neutrality.
The obvious negative side is that businesses are not elected and are not accountable to society as politicians, government officials, union delegates, and other political institutions are. This is not exclusive to media businesses, as it is becoming clear all over the world that uncontrolled corporations are openly displacing elected politicians from their decision-making roles.
In Argentina, this situation has evolved from a more-or-less open support of certain media groups to specific political parties and candidates, to the current situation where they seem to have mostly given up on politicians altogether. Nowadays, it is journalists like Jorge Lanata with his Sunday TV show that seem to set the opposition’s agenda for the rest of the week.
The debilitating effect of such political weakness was demonstrated by the recent cacerolazos in Buenos Aires. They were small, unorganised gatherings of individuals without any clear direction or common ideas, other than a visceral rejection of the government. It is worrying that for many, being unorganised was seen as a virtue rather than a weakness.
A political movement without solid ideas and organisation is doomed to fail. And politics, like nature in Aristotelian physics, abhors a vacuum. If the vacuum left by a weak opposition is not filled by legitimate and solid political institutions, it is going to be filled by whoever has the power to impose their point of view.
Thank you for this short analysis. Simple and clear. Those who oppose and feel disillusioned with the govt in power should get involved and develop creative initiatives. It is as simple as that. Get involved. Get organized. Get active. The rest is mere whinging.
Winston Churchill once said that the strongest argument against democracy was a five-minute conversation with the average voter. The problem with parliamentary democracy is that it is, essentially, a British, middle-class invention that has, with varying degrees of success, been exported. It has flourished in some cultures and failed in others, not least because the middle class is a little understood economic and social phenomenon in cultures long dominated by a “caudillo” and peasant mentality. I am not singling out Argentina, as most of Europe, especially southern and eastern Europe have, relatively speaking, adopted democracy with varying degrees of success. In order for a middle class to flourish and add members of the peasant/working class to join it, the rule of law must be absolute. There can be no confiscation of private property, restraint of trade or any normal supply and demand activity without due legal process, or the people who create jobs, invent things and take economic risks will take their education and ideas elsewhere. CFK’s government may have been justified in confiscating YPF, but where was the legal protection for the owners? Where was their right of appeal against this seizure? Why didn’t the law tell the government they could not do this? If a government can take people’s property, for whatever reason, without legal repercussions, then there is no protection for the weak. An oil company is an easy political target and that makes them weak, politically. It may be satisfying in the short term to stick it to a large, foreign-owned multi-national, but the message is that the citizen’s needs and wants are not as important as the government’s. When the U.S. Declaration of Independence said so eloquently, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” it was a cry against the tyranny of governments who impinge on an individual’s right to pursue his or her interest as he or she sees fit, and not according to the dictates of the powerful.