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Valeria Guerra Reiter

Writer, historian, actress, theater director, professor, and columnist.

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In times of "unenlightened despots," what is the best democracy?

"The atmosphere we breathe now is dreadful; without a doubt, our compatriots live off the crumbs of knowledge."

In times of "unenlightened despots," what is the best democracy? (Photo: Paulo Pinto/Agência PT)

Could a model in which the three branches of government are established, along with party coalitions and minorities participating in the Executive branch, propel a country forward through the consensual approach of age-old democracy?

We are now operating under the other lens, that of MAJORITY DEMOCRACY; in fact, the blank check that the people offer to their "elected" representatives is already being filled with their blood through unemployment, inflation, and hunger. and a terrible state of social welfare. within a so-called democratic model.

The United Kingdom and other countries that adopt single-member constituency voting tend to develop two-party systems. In this situation, a party can win a majority of parliamentary seats with a very small majority of votes or even, due to differences in the number of voters in the constituencies, with a minority of votes. However, this small majority of seats gives that party power over the entire ministry.

 In contrast, in countries where the consensual model of democracy predominates, ministerial positions are divided among the parties with the greatest representation. In Switzerland, the three largest parties occupy the seven seats on the Federal Council, according to a formula approved in 1959, respecting the proportion of linguistic groups in the population. In Belgium, the equal participation of linguistic groups is enshrined in law, and since 1980 all governments have been coalitions of four to six parties.

In short, majoritarian democracy is concerned with defining some majority, however small, that enables a majority government. In turn, the focus of consensual democracy is the ever-increasing sharing of power, with the permanent expansion of the number of those who exercise it.

These differences are not only manifested in theories of democracy, but mainly in the institutional arrangements in which democratic rule is materialized. In terms of relations between the Executive Branch, political parties, and interest groups, majoritarian democracy is associated with single-party ministries, the predominance of the Executive Branch over the Legislative Branch, two-party systems, majority voting, and pluralism and competition among interest groups. In turn, consensual democracy shows an affinity with coalition ministries, a balance in relations between the branches of government, multi-party systems, proportional representation, and interest groups organized in a corporatist and non-competitive manner. We are not discussing here the usurping and corporate corporatism that seeks to form its exploitative clans, but rather the union of egalitarian forces of groups that desire otherness as a source of social primacy.

The atmosphere we breathe now is dreadful; without a doubt, our compatriots live at the expense of the crumbs of knowledge. The executive reins are in the wrong hands, and a lordly and colonialist regression prevails on the backs of the eternal slaves of the world. Read the following excerpt: “For Foucault, the school is one of the 'institutions of sequestration,' like the hospital, the barracks, and the prison. 'These are the institutions that forcibly remove individuals from the family or broader social space and intern them for a long period to mold their conduct, discipline their behavior, shape what they think, etc.'"

We aspire to misery in this immense, buffer country... Brazilian misery is lodged in pro-poverty policies, which, starting with the mistreated education system, cruelly remunerate its teachers, who spend decades "begging" for crumbs from the "commanders of misery" who are paid by the "big shots" of the globe. The word resistance does not exist to embellish rhetoric: it is a sign, a signifier, and an action.

May there be a change in the winds blowing over the national Republic, which welcomes a new court in the guise of the court that arrived here in 1808: with all sorts of unenlightened despots...including false evangelicals, with very dubious past lives...

#ValReiterhistoricaljournalism #247VANGUARD

* This is an opinion article, the responsibility of the author, and does not reflect the opinion of Brasil 247.