Hosni Mubarak's Egypt was a democracy. Well, it was not, but if we apply to Mubarak's regime the gauge used by some to analyze Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, then the Egyptian dictator was actually the head of a broad and fully democratic Executive.
The orphans of Chavismo who preserve some mental sanity and a minimal dose of shame - except, therefore, Boaventura Sousa Santos and the PCP - are uncomfortable with the scenes that come to us from Venezuela and, continually, tell us that before it is That it was good, that beforehand there were no elections, that Hugo Chávez was a Democrat. Now, if Chavez was a Democrat, then Mubarak was.
In Mubarak's Egypt the elections were free since there was rarely manipulation of the votes cast in an urn. In addition, some electoral events were monitored and validated by independent international organizations.
The problem of Egyptian electoral freedom was upstream, that is, parties and individuals who were allowed to compete. The electoral squeeze imposed by the regime was so tight (and flawed) that the elections only featured the party in power and called the "loyal opposition." In Mubarak's Egypt the elections were free because manipulation (oppression, in fact) happened before voters went to the polls. In Chavez's Venezuela, the logic was similar: dissident judges were detained, businessmen who were disenfranchised from the regime were expropriated, union leaders who dared to raise their voices were investigated, free media were closed, state resources Were placed at the service of the political interests of the leader and, as if that were not enough, a constitution was made favorable to the incumbent power.
When this is the field of play there is no great need to manipulate elections. From these two glossy examples of authoritarianism we see that when we speak of democracy we do not limit ourselves to the requirement of free electoral acts in "stricto sensu".
In Venezuela today the manipulation is evident, as is evident the grotesque attack on the political freedoms of citizens. There is no doubt - at least for the Democrats - about the authoritarian nature of the Maduro regime, a creature that the streets of Caracas properly dubbed Maburro. However, the worsening of the ongoing political and humanitarian crisis is opening up a space for the rehabilitation of Hugo Chávez, a revisionism that could hardly be sustained if it were not for the lack of collective memory.
Today, as in the Chavista past, Venezuelan democracy is a Potemkin village.
