Transition to democracy in Latin America, case study of Mexico.

Michael Sowa

POLITSC 4140

Bog Post -2

09/25/16

Democracy has become a worldwide political system in which majority of the inhabitants of contemporary world want their state’s political authorities to adopt. Democracy is therefore seen as a solution to modern political problems. Nations across the globe have demonstrated tremendous efforts in their transition to democratic regime. According to Huntington, (1999), transition to democracy in the world happened in three main phases (waves). Mexico, Latin America, Africa and other developing countries fell under the third wave of democratization. Transition to democracy is basically referred to as the movement of states from authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes. Some states like Mexico had a peaceful transition, avoid of political or armed conflicts while others like Sierra Leone democracy was ignited by civil conflict and military intervention into the state’s political arena.

However, transition to democracy from authoritarian regimes in Mexico and other developing nations as in Africa, took a slow pace. This could be mainly due to the failure of leaders to lose their grip on political power to allow free and fair elections. Democracy can hardly succeed without periodic free and fair elections, through which states experience peaceful change of government base on the choice of the majority. The lack of free and fair elections is one of the major factors that deteriorated the process of democratization in Mexico, Latin America and other developing nations.

When the indigenous people took up the mantle of state’s power from their colonial masters in Latin America and other nations in the world, they promised to liberate their people from the socio-economic and political depressions and exploitations they faced during the era of colonial administrations. These leaders however deviated from these goals and resorted into enriching themselves and their supporters at the detriment of the masses. This was particularly so for the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in Mexico took up to seventy years in power which eventually delayed the nation attainment of full democracy. Similar events happened in other Africa where the one political party or leader stay in power for decades. Thereby delaying democratic dispensation. In Zimbabwe, for instance, the Mugabe has been in power since 1980, when the country gained independent. Shiaka P Steven’s APC party in Sierra Leone ruled over twenty years, Gadhafi in Libya rule over forty years and so on.

According to Magaloni B, (2005), the incumbent has lots of advantages over the opposition parties which make them continue their grip on power even when elections are held. The electoral body is always bias because  the ruling party like PRI in Mexico control both the legislature and the executive and other state apparatus (military, police, vehicles and other national resources). It also determines electrical outcome. This was also a common feature of authoritarian regime in the Latin America and their Africa counterparts.

One thing I admire about the Mexican PRI long stay in power which make it different from the one party rule in Africa is that, the PRI didn’t constitutionally ban or systematic repress the opposition parties (Mogaolni. 2005). The opposition parties continued to peacefully contest elections until when the PRI was finally defeated in 2000. In Africa, elections during authoritarian regimes were characterized by violence and intimidation of the opposition parties. In Sierra Leone, several parliamentary candidates in the APC led elections in the 1970s and 1980s were declared unopposed in many polling stations across the country.  Mugabe is well known for intimidating his opposition and the use of force to manipulate elections. The republic of Guinea, Nigeria, Congo and the likes share the same episode of electoral fraud and suppression of opposition. Some of the authoritarian regimes in Africa and Latin America were overthrown by the military who later handed power to democratically elected government. For example, Sierra Leone in Africa, Angola in Latin America etc. These states enacted multi party constitution which paved way for democracy.

Even though modernization, urbanization, liberalization of trade and economic development can enhance democratization (Lipset, 1959; Pzeworski et’al, 2000), institutions also provide the basis for the attainment such democracy (Magaloni, 2005). For example, the independent of electoral body in the through constitutional reform of 1994 in Mexico made the PRI the loose the 2000 elections as it provided no room for election manipulation by the incumbent. The constitution empowers the electoral body to conduct election without fair or favor. Also, the 1991 multi party constitution and subsequent constitutional reforms in Sierra Leone provided for the independent of election body. It has made ruling party to accept defeats in elections. For instance during the 2007 generations in Sierra Leone ruling SLPP party to the APC party. Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast was defeated in the 2011 election by the opposition. He too came to power after twenty 20 years of opposition.

Therefore state institutions play significant role transition to democracy from authoritarian regimes as indicated above. Libya was economically doing well during the autocratic regime of M. Gadhafi but never got democracy because there were no institutions to facilitate any process of democracy.