In a P. Maldonado A.
For these days of unusual crisis, insecurity and violence, uncertainty and long misrule, and not very encouraging forecasts about the presence in the country of the next El Niño event; Also finished off days of a short pre-election period that, on the one hand, allows a glimpse of a slight hope of “change”, but on the other, confuses more than one conscious voter about the chameleon image presented by various candidates for the elections on 20 August, I write this installment, divided into two parts, with the intention of remembering some confusion.
Precisely in this pre-election period is when the national media jargon talks again about politics and politicians, democracy, ideology and, by the way, about “lefts”, “rights” and “centres”. Possibly driven by the tendency of various candidates to proclaim themselves, some “apolitical”, others without “ideology”, others “progressive” and “democrats”, others from the “left” and “center-right”… But all “capable of fighting the insecurity and corruption in a short time”. When in reality many, with diffuse political ideology, respond more to strange and even perverse slogans, and few to what the vast majority really want: a better government with good and honest leaders and legislators.
As for the adjectives that our “politicians” use for themselves, not because they feel they are, but as a strategy to receive the vote, all of them (I mean the words) are closely linked to each other and lead to the great historical concept of Politics, defined for more than 2,500 years: Politics is the science and art of directing the State well; science and art that, with ups and downs, has allowed to constitute and build the world of today.
It is worth recognizing that the important Science of Politics was strengthened with the help of Democracy: collective decisions are adopted by the people through mechanisms of direct or indirect participation, with a tendency towards social equity. And Democracy, in turn, depends on Ideologies: if they focus on society they are generically called “left”, if they focus on the individual, “right”.
Let us remember that this denomination of a political nature was born in the French Revolution, when in the Constituent Assembly of 1792 the deputies were divided into two opposing groups: that of the Gironde, which was located to the right of the president, and that of the Mountain to the left. left, and in the center an undifferentiated mass, the Llano or the Marsh. The Girondins wanted to restore legality and monarchical order, the Mountain advocated a revolutionary state, against royalty and in favor of the common people. Robespierre, Danton and Marat were the leaders of the first French political party to be on the left. In short terms: the left ideology focuses on society, the right on the individual.
Since then, the concepts of left and right, as the main analyzers and definers of the political position and the conformation of parties, have fallen into a frank confusion of their original referents. Both concepts have been plunged into a kind of populism, left-wing populism and right-wing populism (quite similar), to gain followers among the poor and unprotected masses. An overlap of complexly evolved political currents that, at the present time, makes it very difficult to discern who is to the right or to the left of whom, especially when it comes to populism. These, branded as lacking in ideology, with enormous demagogy and blinded by illicit enrichment and power.
And in this “pull and pull” between right and left populism, with agreements under the table between corrupt leaders, the life of our republics, particularly that of our Ecuador, has passed without pain or glory.
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