2007-11-12. www.solidarnizkuba.pl
Fredo Arias-King*
For years now, the Cuban economic and political model seems to be
lacking legitimacy among both common people and the elite—which relies
increasingly on repression rather than ideology to delay the inevitable.
When Cuban reformers (both outside and inside the regime) start to think
of foreign models for the changes ahead, where will they turn to? Since
the Cuban regime is a classic example of a Soviet-type socialist
dictatorship, it would be logical to study the processes of change in
Eastern Europe (some of them highly successful). However, because of
geography and Cuba's natural cultural and linguistic affinities, some
reformers will likely be inclined to look for inspiration in Latin America.
Unlike Eastern Europe, there are unfortunately no model countries in
Latin America (perhaps with the exception of Chile), although various
aspects of reforms carried out in these countries – carefully picked as
in a salad bar - can prove useful in Cuban democratic future.
Let's look at the menu of what we have to choose from.
Brazil has demonstrated that by opening the country to foreign
investors, the economy can experience periods of advanced growth and
industrialization. In the 1950s, when the opposite development models
were fashionable, the democratically elected president Juscelino
Kubitschek had a political vision of Brazil's opening to the world and
succeeded in putting the country on the industrial map.
After that, Brazil was lead by several dictatorial and corrupt
governments until Fernando Henrique Cardoso demonstrated that an
irresponsible populist Left can indeed evolve and adopt strict
inflation-control measures, which mainly benefited the working and
middle classes. However, this did not prevent an overt ally of the Cuban
dictatorship from being elected the next president (although the new
president could not dismantle the positive aspects of the previous reforms).
Mexico is living proof that a country with an advantageous geographic
location, natural resources and markets open to the world can be
incompetently administered by a single-party regime, while the
opposition "democrats" are bought off by a group of oligarchs who
destroyed value while becoming the richest people in the world through
their monopoly concessions. It is the dead weight of the public sector
and a hostile attitude towards entrepreneurship that explain why half
the country lives below the poverty line and why the demographic hemorrhage.
One of the few positive things Cuba can learn from Mexico is that,
despite its size and weight, Mexico does not aspire an ambitious and
self-destructive geopolitical role, and that its openness to trade saved
the country from being even poorer. What Cubans can also learn from
Mexico is that, even when incompetently managed, democracy brings better
results than dictatorship, and that civil society can be mobilized to
put an end to a one-party dictatorship.
Argentina is a story of a political and economic roller coaster. The
main lesson here is that a country prudently managing its economy with
neo-classical economic tools and its politics with constitutionality and
modesty, could have continued as a great power, as in the 1920s. It was
the country's deviation from constitutionality during and immediately
after the presidency of Hipólito Yrigoyen that made Argentina suffer
irreversible decline.
High financial deficits, an excessively strong role of the state,
bureaucracy, centralism, populism, Peronism and lack of monetary, fiscal
and commercial coherence as well as insufficient respect for property
rights have condemned Argentina to several decades of decay and
seclusion. It is instructive to look at the parallel with Cuban "golden
age" of constitutionality and prosperity followed by a collapse caused
by those advocating the messianic "easy path."
Peru has proven wrong the popular belief that democratic regimes cannot
take harsh measures necessary to reform a country governed by special
interests that stand in the way of progress. Some of the greatest deeds
of Alberto Fujimori were in his "democratic" period, having reached
office with a mandate to reform and by a healthy socio-political
movement (Cambio 90) – before his self-coup, before Vladimiro Montesinos
and before he went mad.
His economic reforms (privatizations, opening the market and
decentralization) bore fruits and his successor Alejandro Toledo did not
reverse them. However, what Toledo did reject was the compromised
networks of the fujimorato. He purged the army and the legal system,
revealed the legislators bribed by Montesinos and maintained the
pressure. The country has seen a relatively high rate of economic growth
and a constitutional regime.
The situation in Colombia should encourage the regional democratic Right
since it shows that a political force that promises to act firmly
against guerillas and drug trafficking, responsibly manages the economy
and is an ally of the United States, can not only be successful in
elections but can also be highly popular. Colombian president Álvaro
Uribe has confirmed the words of the first Czechoslovak President Tomáš
Masaryk: "Just because a democracy is democratic does not mean that it
is toothless."
Most of the time, the popular disappointment with "democracy" in Latin
America is due more to the incompetence of the leader rather than with
democracy per se. Uribe's good example shows that a democratic regime
has all the tools necessary to reform a country and take tough measures,
which in the end will be welcomed by common people: "Firm hand, big
heart," as his slogan reads.
Chile is the good pupil of the group. However, its success is mired with
myths that can be counterproductive. Although Chile has tripled its real
income in the last 3 decades, the success cannot be attributed to
Augusto Pinochet but to a radical liberal economic model with solid
policy. Lesser known is the fact that in the last 17 years the Chilean
democratic governments managed to lower the poverty rate from some 40%
of the population to the current 12%, without the need to change the
"neo-liberal" model—an unlikely achievement if the regime of Pinochet
continued.
Venezuela is implementing an economic policy that has already ruined
more than one country in the region. When this bubble bursts, it will
likely be similar to the situation in Mexico in 1982. By then the damage
would have spread beyond its borders because the government sponsors
anti-constitutional and antidemocratic elements in the whole region.
This disease came about because the country hardly experienced anything
better before.
One analyst called that pre-Chávez system a "bicefalous PRI," in
reference to the corrupt Mexican one-party dictatorship. In Venezuela's
case, two parties colluded to share power, oil riches and privileges
between them and their cronies. The elites failed to act and did not
respond to the needs of the country. In such stagnant conditions, a
messianic leader who promised to just burn it all down could count on
genuine popular support. Venezuela proved that holding elections is not
a sufficient condition for democracy, and that an election can bury a
democratic regime if this one exists in order to just benefit the
governing elites.
Central America also has more than its fair share of good and bad
political and economic lessons. In brief, El Salvador is an example of
how a country can resist guerillas, which are sponsored from abroad,
recover from the traumas of a near civil war and moreover adopt profound
economic reforms, which are also appreciated by the population. The
party that introduced them has been reelected several times with the
neo-communist opposition unable to conquer the power in elections.
Contrary to this example is Nicaragua, with its pathetic transition.
The toxic remnants of the Daniel Ortega regime were not purged from the
new government after its victory in 1990, and for this reason (plus the
usual disunity of the opposition) Ortega and his cronies were able to
return to power recently. Nicaragua's model is the most appropriate for
the Cubans: if they conduct their transition as did Violet Chamorro,
they can enjoy the return of the communists in a few years.
All things considered, Latin America is—after Africa--the region with
the least economic dynamism in the world, suffering from poverty and
marginalization, a recent rollback of democracy, geopolitical confusion
and an identity crisis. Only rarely does the region enjoy a great
leader, most of whom are either incompetent, illegitimate or corrupt,
but most likely a combination of all three. There is one thing that
Latin America can successfully teach us: how not to do things.
*Fredo Arias-King is the founder of the academic journal
Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of the Post-Soviet Democratization,
published since 1992 in Washington. Between March 1999 and July 2000 he
was a foreign affairs advisor to the National Action Party (PAN) of
Mexico. He also advised the democratic forces in Moldova, Russia, Peru,
Cuba, Belarus and the Ukraine. He writes on transitions to democracy and
has published two books, the second of which, Transiciones: Las
lecciones de Europa del Este, was published by CADAL in Buenos Aires in
2005.
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=12553
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