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Same-same - Miriam Coronel Ferrer

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WAYS OF SPECIES | MIRIAM CORONEL FERRER | 07/03/2009 1:10 AM

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A brief glance at world news the past weeks shows some glaring similarities with the main issues hounding our own politics. Here or there, the news is “same-same,” as broken English in Southeast Asia would say.

Example: Iran. Charges of massive election cheating in favor of the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have sparked protests and hugged world headlines for almost a month now. This is déjà vu for us. In 2004, we saw our votes erased or padded to favor the incumbent.

To their credit, Iranians went out in the streets to protest the cheating. “Where is my vote?” has become a much photographed lament. Citizens braved bullets realizing how the state in a closed society enjoys relative ease in using counterforce to quell opposition.

Despite this outpouring in the streets, it seems that the incumbent will get away with it. Same-same.

This week, we read the startling news of a coup in Honduras that deposed president Manuel Zelaya.

A coup is hard to welcome. It perpetuates the meddling of the military in politics, which has been the long, unwholesome tradition in the political development of most of the central and southern parts of the American continent. But, interestingly, the circumstances leading to the ouster revolved around the attempt of the president to wrangle a constitutional referendum that would lift the cap on the president’s single four-year term.

Despite protests from the legislature and the judiciary, the referendum was to be held this week. A positive outcome could have staved off Zelaya’s departure from the post in January 2010.

Zelaya is not the only LatAm leader using the constitutional amendment tack to lift term limits. In fact he got the inspiration from his neighbors. In 2004, Colombian president Alfaro Uribe successfully engineered a congressional amendment to the 1991 Constitution, which allowed a consecutive reelection after the first four-year term. Colombia’s Constitutional Court subsequently approved the amendment. This paved the way for Uribe’s reelection.

In December 2007, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez orchestrated a referendum that would let him stay beyond his maximum second six- year term ending in 2013. He tempted voters with additional proposed amendments like the reduction of work hours from eight to six, and increase in social security benefits. But he narrowly lost, with 51 percent of those who voted going against him (a huge 44% of the voters abstained).

In February 2009, Chavez moved again to lift term limits. This time he succeeded, with 54% of the votes in favor, making him eligible to be president for life, and proving that if at first you don’t succeed, you should try again.

Uribe and Chavez show that the constitutional change is one path to uninterrupted legalized power. While Ferdinand Marcos already proved this, the two Latin American cases provided more contemporary example – models without the stigma of being preceded by a declaration of martial law. What an inviting scenario to both Manuel Zelaya and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo!

With this spate of leaders removing constitutional obstacles to term extensions, provisions that were put there precisely to serve as obstacle, one is tempted to say that the propensity with which those in power want to stay in power is a universal human trait. But this is not necessarily so. In countries referred to as “first-generation democracies,” losers in electoral contests gracefully accept defeat and turn over the reins of state to the opposition.

But in the corrupted, second- and third-generation democracies like the Philippines, willingly giving up power is exceptional. Among the exceptional case is Corazon Aquino. Cory never schemed to stay on and faithfully observed the constitutional ban not to run for reelection. Fidel Ramos and Joe de Venecia initiated constitutional change that could have benefited their political futures, but gave this up when public opinion worked against cha-cha.

This president may not give up as easily. Until the official start of the election period, or maybe even after, there can still be all sorts of attempts to change the rules. Or break these outright as a last resort. Watch out.

Next week: “No same”

E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com