The Valves of Democracy

Hugo Chavez Statue meets its fate after a Venezuelan election that keeps the Governing regime in power.

The recent election in Venezuela was met with a result, that while surprising, was somewhat expected. Since the Chavez regime, election results in Venezuela have often favoured the incumbents, and when they did not, the incumbents still won. Venezuela’s outward appearance of democratic virtue demonstrates an electoral exercise mirrored among common regimes in recent history. While not reaching the 99% popularity of a Saddam, the Maduro campaign is thought to have been on the verge of finally losing popular support and leaving Chavismo in the history books. As expected, elections under Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro is not always determined by popularity, the number of votes, or the desire of Venezuelans, many who have fled Venezuela due to a generation lost under their authoritarian regime. With a political stranglehold on all checks and balances, a system that allows for attacks on the judiciary, arrests of political rivals, and assaults on human rights will never run a clean election. While the vote is being appealed, it is not expected to change the result of the election, one that was likely predetermined by the Government according to many Venezuelan policy experts.

The slow burn that resulted in democratic values dominating nations was not a creation that appeared out of the blue sky, but was one developed over generations of theoretical debates on the nature of humanity, and the best and most fair manner to govern a community. Cultural traditions and philosophies from ancient religions, to the Greeks, Magna Carta, French Revolutionary ideals and the 20^th Century’s battle of Liberalism against extremist Socialism and brutal Fascism sought to create societies where rationality and proportionality in Justice would dominate all aspect of social, political and cultural life. A values system was set up to manage humanity’s innate desire for greed and absolute self benefit so that proportionality between neighbours would become the norm, ever resisting the past pressures that would create an unbalanced system. The entire system is based on a philosophy that prevents putting power into the hands of a few corrupt elites, or simply an unelected king.

As these systems developed over time, so did the extremes of power in creating those systems. While the English traditions of the Magna Carta established a person’s right to their own property, even apart from the Crown, it did not fully eliminate the power of the Crown in their democratic system. The Franco-American Republics took their cultures of Liberty from an overarching power and fought many severe battles in establishing their own Constitutional systems, away from European monarchy, towards a system run by the people. While these democratic systems are not perfect, and humans are not perfect in their intent, it allowed for a living system of laws with errors being acknowledged and challenged in tedious legal processes established over time by their not too distant ancestors. As history has shown in the development of these national traditions, democracy is not simply a vote as discussed by Latin American political analyst Guillermo O’Donnell, but a progressive development of different democratic norms in a messy process that seeks justice in a global order where power and strength was always the only determinant of life and death. Democracy came out of debate, conflict, and even revolution, but its intent was to never give absolute power to one entity, its was formed to relieve the pressures of a lack of justice so that solutions can be formed without resorting to past lived bloodshed of our ancestors. It does not seek to oppress groups in society for their class or their race or nationality, but seeks fairness and justice, even if humanity often chooses their own best interests over their neighbour.

A lacking system of democracy is a community that is unable to relieve the pressure of injustice in their system. A healthy democracy seeks to balance justice, so there is not a normalisation of disproportionately oppressive laws and an oppressive state over its citizens. Simply being the person with power who can wield a population and security structure to their own benefit only works while one is in power, and dooms them to oblivion once their regime falls, which is almost always inevitable. A system that corrupts the justice system often simultaneously tries to normalise absolute power, and once a system is corrupted it often cannot be reformed without great popular support, external pressures or the more common severe revolutionary movement. Such systems always lead to chaos, and often the agents of chaos are not the ones seeking proportional justice, but simply power for their own means. In reality, most governments in 2024 are not democratic, do not possess the ability to release pressure from politically tense situations, and people will often choose justice and freedom over oppression if there is no valve or means for them to survive. Movements that use terms such as justice, freedom, and democracy do not necessarily honour in whole or in part of any of those values when violence and threats become their norm, they just utilize those traditional terms to manipulate the narrative. Extreme violence is often committed so stability is accepted at all costs. Normalising disproportionality against the long process that created modern democracy simply eliminates the pressure valves so that chaos and violence become destiny in the erosion of free societies.