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).
It would seem that the war in Eastern Europe, except for the impact of the related economic crisis and the expectations of a "new global order", is a foreign issue for Latin America.
Guatemala is a country in which the State has been captured for decades by an alliance between business and organized crime, on the one hand, and the political class on the other, in a clear interconnection.
Political representation has been fragmented to extreme levels and people's preferences are left to the randomness of projects meticulously designed by communication experts who accompany the personal drive for power.
Academia per se does not provide exceptional politicians. It is a matter of using one's voice with loyalty to the common good to offer solutions to the quagmire in which we find ourselves. But ensuring that this voice is not a preaching in the wilderness is beyond the competence of political science.
Rarely does a commonplace help to understand complex issues. The stereotype of the duality between proximity and remoteness that defines relations between Latin America and Spain is one that has marked them for decades.
In Latin America, the events of recent days in countries such as Brazil and Mexico, and more seriously in El Salvador and Nicaragua, have obvious components of this semi-legal nature in government behavior.
Fear is one of the main feelings that overwhelms people. The history of mankind cannot be understood without its presence, since it articulates human coexistence, from the simplest to the most complex social forms, from the tribe to the state.
Democracy was configured as a form of exercising power in which elections play a crucial role. Therefore, the relationship between elections and democracy is univocal. Democracy does not exist without elections, but elections alone do not bring democracy.
"I don't know if one can admire politicians, people who dedicate themselves to agree, to bribe, to smile, to be portrayed and, excuse me, to be popular? Borges took little interest in politics, but the Latin American scenario updates the interview he gave to Vargas Llosa in 1981.
