Rodolfo Rodil
09/01/2021 7:55 PM
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 09/01/2021 19:55
At the end of the 20th century, the French philosopher Bernard Manin, in his book The principles of representative government, describes the process by which mass party democracy is gradually transformed into what he calls "audience democracy", the main characteristic of which is the metamorphosis of parties into propaganda machines and the supremacy of leaderships over political structures.
Citizens are informed through the media (now also through social networks) and decide their vote without the need for party mediation.
The model has transformed political image and marketing consultants into the most relevant figures in electoral campaigns, since the image of the candidates is a more important attribute than the project they defend.
These transformations resulted in a degradation of the doctrinal role of the parties and emptied politics as an area of debate of ideas in the search for the common good.
Today we are witnessing a campaign where political identities disappeared, thus the ruling party is called “Frente de Todos”, the most important opposition coalition is called “Together or Together for Change”, and another alternative has opted for the name “Vamos con vos ”. In none of the denominations of the alliances is there any indication of the ideas they claim to represent; What's more, we could compose a sentence that includes everyone's name without falling into any ideological contradiction (Let's go with you in front of everyone together for change).
The strategy is to prioritize a supposed closeness to the voter, whatever their convictions, over the identities that express political ideals known as Peronism, Liberalism, Social Democracy, etc.
Marketing consultants have surely enforced the rule: the lower the definition level, the greater the likelihood of recruitment.
Together, Come on, Everyone, they do not connote any principle, no ideal, no compromise, they are denominations that hide ideas and are suitable to contain any position.
Although the invisibility of political identities is a serious problem, it is not the most serious.
Along with this undifferentiation in the denominations there is an almost absolute absence of plans.
The campaign takes place proposing, on the part of the ruling party, a new "main contradiction": love versus hate, the fight against "haters" has come to replace the Liberation or Dependence of other times.
A campaign in these terms becomes surreal in a country with around 45% poor people, 50% annual inflation, 43% informal workers, 10% unemployment, an educational system in crisis, increasing levels of insecurity, and the advance of drug trafficking. and all this in the middle of a pandemic that has cost the lives of more than 110,000 Argentines.
The political forces that compete in the legislative election (and their candidates) have the non-delegable responsibility of strengthening democracy and for this it is essential that they commit themselves to one of the principles of political representation: Make known to the eventual represented (citizens) which It is the program that they will carry out to respond to the challenges facing our country.
A serious credibility crisis affects the parties and leaders.
One of the ways to regain trust is to find new ways that allow citizens to participate in the debate of ideas and regain the ethical commitment of political action.
Citizen participation can avoid leadership manipulation in the formation of lists and revitalize parties, otherwise disbelief will advance while the leadership abides by the directives of specialists in political marketing and observes, resigned, how representative democracy weakens.
Rodolfo Rodil was a national deputy and vice president of the Chamber of Deputies.