The Insanity of Manipulated Representation

Given the close and growing relationship between the administration of President Manuel Zelaya and the government of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela prior to Mr. Zelaya's ousting on June 28, it is reasonable to assume the Constituyente in Honduras may eventually have come to resemble the National Assembly of Venezuela, which is a unicameral body made up of 167 representatives. According to Wikipedia, these diputados are elected by "universal, direct, personal, and secret" vote on a national party-list proportional representation system.

I get the "universal and "direct" parts. Not too comfortable, though, with what "personal" and "secret" imply. The proportional representation seems okay, particularly given that most of the world's democracies use this system rather than one based on the “winner-take-all” system used in the United States. I understand that elections where a candidate only has to win a plurality of the votes in order to be elected to represent a particular district has the unfair effect of leaving significant blocs of voters unrepresented.

In-and-of-itself, there is nothing wrong with a proportional representation-based National Constituent Assembly. The question is, "Could it work in Honduras?" Venezuela's Asamblea Nacional includes three seats that are reserved for representatives of the country's indigenous tribes. Seems fair enough, given that they were the original inhabitants of the land.

I think the more critical question, though, is, "Could a National Constituent Assembly remain any more independent and less swayed by private interests than the Congress?" We know that Congress has a strong lean in favor of the economic and social interests of the wealthy business class in Honduras. It's not right and it's not fair because it leaves the vast majority of Hondurans at a huge disadvantage. To whom would representatives of a National Constituent Assembly established under the Zelaya administration have answered? To their constituencies? Maybe.

If you look at the recent history of Venezuela's Asamblea Nacional, notice that in 2000 it granted Mr. Chavez temporary power to rule by decree. Rule by decree? Sounds a little too much like a dictatorship to me. According to Wikipedia, Mr. Chávez approved 49 laws by decree. Then, in January 2007, the Asamblea Nacional granted Mr. Chávez another 18 months to rule by decree and push through a series of revolutionary economic and social laws that would transform Venezuela into a socialist society.

So essentially what Venezuela's Asamblea Nacional has done is place its faith and trust in one guy. One guy. That is about the farthest thing from democracy that I can imagine. What if that one guy just happens to get up on the wrong side of the bed one morning? What if he's got some bad habits that cloud his judgment? What if he's got too much of an ego for his own good? What if he's got prejudices toward certain races, ethnic groups or religious faiths? What if he suddenly gets the urge to nationalize everything in town? What if he simply wants to stick around forever?

One of the defining elements of a democracy is a system of checks and balances. In countries like Honduras, this system unfortunately is manipulated by the segment of the society that is wealthy and privileged. This has to change. But to trade this kind of system in for one that can potentially be manipulated by a single person is, well... insanity. (photo of Hugo Chávez courtesy Internet)