In messaging countless Argentine friends on the Sunday morning Javier Milei was sworn in as president, some were decidedly bashful, even reluctant, to celebrate what I saw, as a veteran journalist married to an Argentine and living here.
"Yes, we have many issues, some about the man himself, yet surely this is a day to celebrate democracy," I surmised. "And to celebrate a transition in peace."
Some 46 years separate me from first visiting, reporting, glimpsing Argentina as a young foreign correspondent. The years teach much which the days never know, that’s a slice of wisdom from US thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson. Well, the years have taught me that Argentina has walked such a long way down the road on democracy in the past 40-odd years.
And yes, while we have so much to worry about, from the national debt, to the inflationary spiral, to the temperament of the new leader, well democracy remains a given. How heartening to see thousands of people become fiscales the day of the final vote in November, monitoring the people’s process across the country. It speaks volumes that all parties, whatever their bitter disagreements on the future, united in concluding Argentina had a free and fair election, exemplary in many ways.
Then ponder the timing of this. This past year saw our world possessed by the thought that the global arena has entered the age of autocracy versus democracy. Think Vladimir Putin and Ukraine. Or Xi Jinping and Taiwan, or Hong Kong, in truth the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s 1.4 billion people. Cast an eye on Europe nowadays, and consider a dictatorial Viktor Orban in Hungary, controlling everything from the judiciary to the media.
Finally, consider the number one superpower, the United States. This past year saw a former US president indicted for any number of reasons, but the scariest surely is the charge that Donald Trump sought to defraud the American people of a fair election, and overturn the people’s vote with false ballot numbers of his imagination.
This new year is likely to make Trump the Republican party candidate with a genuine shot, if the polls are to be believed, of winning back the White House. There he promises to be a dictator, just on “day one,” although he calibrates that timeline with warnings that he would “execute” a former head of the military, have shoplifters “shot” as they leave stores, and insisting he will charge a TV network that criticises him with “treason.”
Vamos la libertad, carajo. So much for freedom in the mother of modern democracies, the United States. The tension between autocracy and democracy is writ large now.
Across our world 2023 was a year when the battle was joined, quite literally when you see the Middle East conflict through the lens of a ruthless dictatorial Hamas taking on the only democracy in the region, the state of Israel. Whatever our view of Israel’s response, we have to acknowledge that the country has been a beacon of democratic institutions all its life, I know that from being based there as a correspondent.
And this new year brings such a tombstone period in the world’s democratic odyssey. For the first time more than half the people on the planet, some 4.2 billion, live in countries that will hold elections, India and South Africa the democratic giants going to the polls in 2024, Russia and Iran representing the dictatorial counter-narrative. Because we know, don’t we, that Putin and the Ayatollahs will win re-election by massive landslides.
According to Freedom House, the US democracy watchdog, the contest is so finely balanced. Their annual report, at the end of 2023, had 35 countries experiencing a decline in political rights and civil liberties, 34 nations with overall gains. The tyrants did not have it all their own way. “The effects of corruption and a focus on political control at the expense of competence exposed the limits of the authoritarian models offered by Beijing, Moscow, Caracas or Tehran,” the report concluded. Good news.
But the other major report on global freedom, and the conflict between autocracy and democracy, is sober indeed. The Civicus Monitor, the annual investigation from the multi-national NGO Civicus, reports : “Our country ratings in December 2023 indicate that civil society faces an increasingly hostile environment….some 118 of the 198 countries and territories are experiencing severe restrictions in fundamental freedoms.” Click on their global map, and there are jaw-dropping evaluations. The United States, “freedoms narrowed.” Britain, “freedoms obstructed.” Only the likes of Canada, Scandinavia and New Zealand receive the designation “freedoms open.”
Understandably, the map of Latin America offers such a mixed picture. Think Venezuela, Nicaragua, let alone Cuba, and you have deeply repressed, dictatorial societies. But consider Chile, or Colombia, where democracy has seen leftist governments win elections and in Chile’s case dare to hold a plebiscite on the constitution. Or Brazil, back and forth between a right-wing, semi-militaristic leadership and a left-wing icon who has returned to power. Point is the ballot-box has been decisive in much of Latin America. Again, good news. Which leads some of us, come this New Year, to believe that Argentina’s journey is indeed worthy of quiet celebration, whatever the doubts about Javier Milei’s chainsaw politics and style. The country said “basta”! Enough of failure. Enough of poverty in the land that is so rich. Enough of politics that kept folks, some of them deeply corrupt, in power forever. Argentina, I like to tell outsiders looking in, is never boring. Well, in 2023, it lived up to that reputation in spades, and celebrated 40 years of democracy with an election that screamed a word which should never be taken for granted, right? Freedom.
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