Analysis of the results of the June 2009 legislative elections in Argentina

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In the elections of June 28, 2009, the Argentine people chose half of the representatives of Congress and the third part of the Senate. According to the results achieved by this vote, the forces opposing the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner were winners, getting together 53.7% of the votes counted, while the Kirchner's party received only 31.03 % of popular support.

That is, for every vote received by the president's party, those parties who reject her administration won nearly two, which reflects disenchantment with the current Argentine government.

There is no doubt that the corruption scandals, the constant attacks on the media and the farmers, the alliance with Hugo Chavez and government inefficiency are the main causes behind the deterioration of the legitimacy of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's government, who will now have to learn to govern with the legislature controlled by the opposition.

Related articles:

- Argentine legislative election, 2009: Polls

- Cristina Fernandez's leadership deteriorates

- Mexican legislative election, 2009: Polls

Crisis in Honduras, June-July 2009: Coup if it is rightist, revolution if it is leftist

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Latin America's leftist leaders and Jose Miguel Insulza claim that the Cuban dictatorship of the Castro brothers should not be excluded from the OAS. However, these same people say that the new de facto government of Honduras should be isolated until it returns the democratically elected President to power.

Ironically, Castro came to power in Cuba through a violent coup and do not share power with anyone, because apparently only the Castro's blood has the right to rule in Cuba. So, with all its undemocratic flaws, this regime is supported by the Latin American left as an example of social achievements.

But those who executed the coup in Honduras, despite having set the date for elections to return the country to democratic normality, are mercilessly attacked by the leftist Latin American governments, and even received an ultimatum from Jose Miguel Insulza .

It is as if being left-leaning meant an excuse for some governments in the region to justify their human rights violations.

Related articles:

- Coup in Honduras: Zelaya's responsibility

- Questions after 50 years of Castrist revolution in Cuba

- First criticism of Liberation Theology

We will be interviewed today on Radio Unica 1010AM (KIQI), San Francisco, California, USA

Today, approximately at 2:30 pm Venezuela time, or 12 pm California time, we'll be interviewed by Radio Unica 1010AM (KIQI) located in San Francisco, California, United States of America.

In this interview we will be talking, with the journalist Edi Monterroso, about the political crisis in Honduras.

Coup in Honduras, June 2009: Manuel Zelaya is the main responsible

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

The removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya through an irregular decision of the highest court of justice, and the high command of the Armed Forces of that country, is undoubtedly a coup d'etat.

Our assertion is based on the fact that the President in question was removed from office by the military, after a controversy between the executive and judicial branches of the Honduran government, which is unacceptable in a democracy where power is subject to the Constitution.

It is enough that the Armed Forces have to act, in Latin America, as if they were over the other organs of the State, because this habit conditions the people to solve their problems violently and believe in military dictators.

However, we also must say that the crisis that today face Honduras did not begin on june 28, but started since President Manuel Zelaya allowed a foreign government, in this case Venezuela, to meddle in the internal affairs of Honduras and manage its political agenda to suit the interests of Hugo Chavez.

The Venezuelan control over Zelaya can be seen in his plan of government, very similar indeed to that of Evo Morales and other Chavez's puppets in the region: rejection of dialogue with dissidents, strangulation of the private sector, attacks on independent media, the imposition to all the country's television and radio stations to broadcast simultaneous interviews with the President and government ministers for two hours a day, confrontation with the Church and other national sectors, hostility toward the United States, desire to amend the Constitution to establish the indefinite re-election of the president, and additional legislative reforms that emulate the radical leftist political system of Chavez.

That is, when President Manuel Zelaya violates the Constitution of his country, putting national interests and politics of Honduras under the convenience of a neighboring government, provokes a crisis in institutions and other sectors involved in Honduran politics, forcing them to react against the establishment of a puppet government in Honduras, directed from Venezuela.

In conclusion, the submissive attitude of Zelaya do not justify that the sectors that oppose the intervention of Hugo Chávez in Honduras overthrow the president in ways that are not acceptable in a democracy, but it makes clear that the major responsibility for the crisis facing Honduras is the same Manuel Zelaya.

Related articles:

- How acts of oppression lead to political self-destruction

- Why the Castros do not want to return to the OAS

- Iran's election 2009: Questioning Iranian democracy

Global financial crisis of 2008-2009: The left was wrong again

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

At this point of the international economic crisis, leftists imagined that the United States would already be immersed in a desolation like that of Terminator Salvation, with the new T-800 robot wreaking havoc in the human resistance.

They said that the United States was crumbling, that capitalism had reached its end, that Marx was right, that the free market was unsustainable, that private companies should be nationalized, that this crisis will be worse than the Great Depression, that more bankruptcies will happen, that the dollar was finished, that we had to withdraw money from the United States, etc, etc, etc. Trying to turn the current financial crisis in evidence to prove the inviability of capitalism.

But unfortunately for the left, Marxist thought was wrong again. By late 2009, experts agree that the crisis that led to the Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcy will begin to overcome in the developed world, as we said here last year.

With this recovery, the free market will maintain its place as the best economic model known since it was born in the seventeenth century. While socialism, due to its irreparable defects, has not endured 100 years anywhere in the world.

Since the nineteenth century, Marx and the socialists have been making failed prophecies, incorrectly trying to link every economic problem with the end of capitalism. “It will end now, it will end now” they say in each crisis, but they always end up disappointed because the facts again and again are unfavorable to socialism.

So the 2008-2009 economic crisis will become another memory in the album of the obstacles conquered by capitalism. Its destination will be to accompany other remembrances like the Bolshevik revolution, the Great Depression, the Two World Wars, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the collapse of gold standard, the Arab oil embargo, the Asian crisis and the September 11 attacks. Events that, although ideologically shook the world, did not do to the free market what the fall of the Berlin Wall did to socialism.

At the end of the day, history's scoreboard is altered, as ever, in favor of the model with better results. By overcoming the 2008-2009 financial crisis, democracy and free market economy score another point, whereas socialism and the left are still losing the game.

Related articles:

- The 2008 U.S. financial crisis: Origin & ideological implications

- The Hispanic vision of the U.S. financial crisis

- The 2008-2009 crisis: Criticism of financial hypertrophy theory

Iran's presidential election 2009: Questioning Iranian democracy

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Although article 6 of the Iranian Constitution states that in the Islamic Republic of Iran the election of the president and representatives of the legislature must be decided by popular vote, and although President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said that Iranian democracy is an example for the world, big street protests in Iran, caused by the demonstration against the vote counting during the presidential elections on June 12, 2009, show what many have long known: In Iran, people sovereignty is not respected because an elite has special powers over politics.

This time doubts about the counting process are so overwhelming that, in addition to the organizations that traditionally make pronouncements on human rights violations, the main European leaders asked Iranian authorities to open an inquiry into allegations of electoral fraud, and to show restraint against protesters.

That is, the world is realizing that in Iran apart from existing a strong censorship against freedom of speech, women's oppression, persecution of dissent and other human rights violations, the people's opportunity to choose their own government in free and fair elections is denied.

So Iran should enter into a process of democratic reforms, to resolve the lack of real citizens' rights and reconsider the constitutional figure of the "Leader", which is a position with greater powers than the president but that is elected through a council of "Experts." This council of "Experts", for its part, is elected by direct vote from a selected list controlled by the regime, therefore someone who is not appropriate for the oligarchy will never be eligible for the position of "Leader”.

About this plenipotentiary figure -"Leader"- described in the Iranian Constitution, citizens should consider how can it be qualify as democratic a nation where the highest authority of the state: 1) is not elected directly by citizens, 2) is above the President and 3) has constitutional powers to guide national policies, command the armed forces, police, judiciary and the official media.

Related articles:

- How acts of oppression lead to political self-destruction

- On the Obama's decision to close Guantanamo

- Questions after 50 years of Castrist revolution in Cuba

Mistakes of Chavez's opposition in Venezuela: Personalistic political parties

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In Venezuela, opposition political parties are struggling against the dictatorial pretensions of Hugo Chavez, a former military who, among many other things, is criticized for the excessive personalistic character of his government.

But contradictorily, many of the organizations that oppose Hugo Chavez work with the same defect. Most of Venezuelan opposition political parties are headed by untouchable persons, who always occupy the same positions and that tend to neglect the grassroots views.

The opposition parties generally appear to be private companies controlled by a majority shareholder with full powers, where the others members only have opportunity to get secondary positions, unless they win the favor of the party's leader.

In these associations senior members derive legitimacy from themselves -because they are founders, won an important election sometime in the past, or any other pretext- which absolutely contradicts the functioning of democratic institutions.

So when we look at the main opposition parties in Venezuela, it is easy to see that each one has its own touch of autocracy: Manuel Rosales in Un Nuevo Tiempo, Julio Borges in Primero Justicia, Ramos Allup in Accion Democratica, Salas in Projecto Venezuela, and the same pattern in almost all others.

Unbelievably doing within their parties -in micro- something similar to the personalistic practices that Hugo Chavez applies in macro.

Related articles:

- Most popular Venezuelan opposition parties in 2009

- Venezuela after February 2009: Extremism - rising tensions

- Focus Group: The opposition and Chavez's radicalism in 2009