In the 2001 novel The Constant Gardener, author John le Carré answers the question What is a failed state?:
I allow myself to suggest to you that, these days, broadly speaking, the requirements to be a civilized State are equivalent to electoral suffrage, the protection of life and property, justice, health and education for all, at least at a certain level, then the maintenance of administrative infrastructure, roads, transport, drainage, etc. And what else is there? fair collection of taxes. If a State cannot deliver at least a quorum of the above, then it has to be said that the contract between the State and the citizens starts to look quite unstable, and if it fails in all of the above, then it is a failed State.
Therefore, the failure of the State can be summed up in the loss of the capacity to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Over time, the inherent weaknesses will cause the state to lose any legitimacy in the territory. Nations become “governed” by criminal cartels, and populations become hostages of organized crime bigwigs. In our region, the narco-states are the visible sign of failed states.
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia are countries where drug trafficking has destroyed all democratic institutions. The murder of the defenseless civilian population, the arrests, the physical torture, the political prisoners, and the application of Cuban methods of psychological torture are fully documented. In addition, the relationship between cartels and police forces is common news.
But the question now is why do states fail?
There are several ways to bring down a state. But in the case of this note I am going to concentrate on, the closest to our reality, the criminal action of third-generation gangs.
Gangs are non-state actors, but whose violent action destabilizes governments. These groups take power through: the control of certain territories, the adoption of a populist discourse that allows them to win the support of certain sectors of the population, and the simultaneous generation of several sources of violence, often camouflaged under the nickname of « social protests.
State failure is an evolutionary process. However, the fact that the State fails does not mean that it will disappear, but rather that the gangs will use the state mechanisms to exercise greater violence. The gangs turn the State into an annex of their criminal organization. They establish a dictatorship that submits all institutions to the hands of the high command.
There is ample evidence showing how Evo Morales, Nicolás Maduro and other members of the Sao Paulo Forum have established mechanisms to control all power in their countries.
And all the power means the justice organisms, the electoral mechanisms, the legislative assemblies and the executive.
Absolutely, all decisions go through the knowledge and authorization of the bosses. Prosecutors, judges, mayors, businessmen, journalists or even simple citizens have been forced to subordinate themselves. Many did it to get big profits and ostentatious positions, but others just to survive. The message is clear: «You can do wonders, you can be successful, and even make a lot of money, but never question us. You also have to be generous when we ask you for something.”
That something, in many cases, means participating in cheating elections. Since – especially when they urgently request loans from international organizations – the gangs show a mask of democracy.
For Thomas Bruneau, an analyst at the Naval School for Advanced Studies of the United States Navy, the gangs destroy any possibility of free and transparent elections. Well, they use fraud or violence to overthrow electoral results that are adverse to them.
In conclusion, in failed states there is neither democracy nor freedom. In any case, they are elections where the citizen votes, but never, read it well, never chooses.
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