The last 50 years Latin America has made substantial
progress in the democratic area.
We used to have almost all the continent or
the militaries through a military coup.
We have advanced enormously.
So the sky is bright in terms of democracy,
at least formally.
There is gray parts in that sky – Venezuela,
Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, ahora [“now”
in Spanish] Argentina.
But we have made a lot of progress.
Now, Cuba comes for a long time.
But God is going to take care of a lot of
them.
We have made progress.
But democracy, again, without strong democratic
institutions are very fragile.
Number two, if democracy does not deliver
concrete and measurable results to the poor,
people will not believe in democracy.
The last study that the United Nations made
in Latin America asking whether they will
they prefer a military regime or a democratic
regimes, 54 percent prefer an authoritarian
regimes provided that they give them jobs.
So there’s a lot to be worked out.
We cannot be complacent.
Elections are not just to going to vote on
an election day.
We need to take care of it.
We need to build strong institutions, repeat,
particularly on the presence of narcotrafficking.
When narcotrafficking penetrates the most
intimate fiber of a society, it’s really
done.
And it comes from Mexico all the way through
Central America, has gotten to Peru, to Colombia,
to Brazil.
And there’s one country where they have
to pay a big toll to pass the cocaine: Venezuela.
So we have a lot of work to do.
That’s why I created this foundation [the
Global Center for Development and Democracy
(http://cgdd.org/)].
I have 21 former presidents and 17 personalities
of the world.
We have to continue working.
I’m glad that there are institutions in
the United States, as I just – the National
Endowment for Democracy, the institute of
the Republican Party [the International Republican
Institute (IRI), which is independent of the
U.S. Republican Party], the NDI [the National
Democratic Institute, which is independent
of the U.S. Democratic Party], independently
of your own political differences that you
might have, but in democracy.
So I see Latin America as a very promising
continent for the next 10 or 50 years provided
we are able to confront the challenges that
I mentioned to you: the social part, the institutional
component, the environmental issue, the cohesiveness
and to fight narcoterrorism.
Now we need to begin distributing the benefits
of economic growth, because otherwise people
don’t feel it in their pocket and become
angry.
And that creates social conflict.
And that social conflict can stop economic
growth, because capital investment will not
come if there is uncertainty, insecurity or
changes of the rules of the game.
When you don’t have economic, political,
social, legal stability, I don’t know anything
more cowardly in the world than a dollar or
a Chinese currency or euro or real of Brazil.
They go there where there is stability.
And so we have challenges.
I see a very promising continent, but at the
same time, we need to resolve a lot of the
challenges that are there.
