Director of CIEPS - International Center for Political and Social Studies, AIP-Panama. Professor Emeritus at the University of Salamanca and UPB (Medellín). Latest books: "The profession of politician" (Tecnos Madrid, 2020) and "Traces of a tired democracy" (Océano Atlántico Editores, 2024).
In this attempt to summarize the situation at the end of the year, we have endeavored to concisely mention a few prominent names, recognizing that this entails the risk of omitting equally relevant others.
Polarization is emerging thanks to the combination of the zero-sum game imposed by presidentialism, electoral campaigns that exacerbate differences and societies that are more disjointed and distrustful.
The absence of consensus has been the most repeated mantra when judging the document delivered to President Gabriel Boric by the Constitutional Council that will be submitted to the plebiscite.
Today, the discussion in the public square is absent, not only in the face of any electoral call with the consequent trivialization of the offers, but also when seeking solutions to the problems of society.
September 11, 1973, marked not only the violent end of a political process in Chile, which had to bear its dramatic imprint for decades, but also had a significant impact internationally.
The impulse to maintain power vicariously is a long-standing issue present in politics, even when it adopts democratic forms of government in which there is a minimum of assured competition.
There are currently three worrying cases in Latin America in which the restriction of power is being questioned for reasons of strict application of its temporal limitation.
