Fredo Arias-King*

For years now, the Cuban economic and political model seems to be lacking legitimacy among both common people and the elite—which relies increasingly on repression rather than ideology to delay the inevitable. When Cuban reformers (both outside and inside the regime) start to think of foreign models for the changes ahead, where will they turn to? Since the Cuban regime is a classic example of a Soviet-type socialist dictatorship, it would be logical to study the processes of change in Eastern Europe (some of them highly successful). However, because of geography and Cuba’s natural cultural and linguistic affinities, some reformers will likely be inclined to look for inspiration in Latin America.

Unlike Eastern Europe, there are unfortunately no model countries in Latin America (perhaps with the exception of Chile), although various aspects of reforms carried out in these countries – carefully picked as in a salad bar - can prove useful in Cuban democratic future.

Let’s look at the menu of what we have to choose from.

Brazil has demonstrated that by opening the country to foreign investors, the economy can experience periods of advanced growth and industrialization. In the 1950s, when the opposite development models were fashionable, the democratically elected president Juscelino Kubitschek had a political vision of Brazil’s opening to the world and succeeded in putting the country on the industrial map.  After that, Brazil was lead by several dictatorial and corrupt governments until Fernando Henrique Cardoso demonstrated that an irresponsible populist Left can indeed evolve and adopt strict inflation-control measures, which mainly benefited the working and middle classes. However, this did not prevent an overt ally of the Cuban dictatorship from being elected the next president (although the new president could not dismantle the positive aspects of the previous reforms).

Mexico is living proof that a country with an advantageous geographic location, natural resources and markets open to the world can be incompetently administered by a single-party regime, while the opposition “democrats” are bought off by a group of oligarchs who destroyed value while becoming the richest people in the world through their monopoly concessions. It is the dead weight of the public sector and a hostile attitude towards entrepreneurship that explain why half the country lives below the poverty line and why the demographic hemorrhage. One of the few positive things Cuba can learn from Mexico is that, despite its size and weight, Mexico does not aspire an ambitious and self-destructive geopolitical role, and that its openness to trade saved the country from being even poorer. What Cubans can also learn from Mexico is that, even when incompetently managed, democracy brings better results than dictatorship, and that civil society can be mobilized to put an end to a one-party dictatorship.

Argentina is a story of a political and economic roller coaster. The main lesson here is that a country prudently managing its economy with neo-classical economic tools and its politics with constitutionality and modesty, could have continued as a great power, as in the 1920s. It was the country’s deviation from constitutionality during and immediately after the presidency of Hipólito Yrigoyen that made Argentina suffer irreversible decline. High financial deficits, an excessively strong role of the state, bureaucracy, centralism, populism, Peronism and lack of monetary, fiscal and commercial coherence as well as insufficient respect for property rights have condemned Argentina to several decades of decay and seclusion. It is instructive to look at the parallel with Cuban “golden age” of constitutionality and prosperity followed by a collapse caused by those advocating the messianic “easy path.”

Peru has proven wrong the popular belief that democratic regimes cannot take harsh measures necessary to reform a country governed by special interests that stand in the way of progress. Some of the greatest deeds of Alberto Fujimori were in his “democratic” period, having reached office with a mandate to reform and by a healthy socio-political movement (Cambio 90) – before his self-coup, before Vladimiro Montesinos and before he went mad. His economic reforms (privatizations, opening the market and decentralization) bore fruits and his successor Alejandro Toledo did not reverse them. However, what Toledo did reject was the compromised networks of the fujimorato. He purged the army and the legal system, revealed the legislators bribed by Montesinos and maintained the pressure. The country has seen a relatively high rate of economic growth and a constitutional regime.

The situation in Colombia should encourage the regional democratic Right since it shows that a political force that promises to act firmly against guerillas and drug trafficking, responsibly manages the economy and is an ally of the United States, can not only be successful in elections but can also be highly popular. Colombian president Álvaro Uribe has confirmed the words of the first Czechoslovak President Tomáš Masaryk: “Just because a democracy is democratic does not mean that it is toothless.” Most of the time, the popular disappointment with “democracy” in Latin America is due more to the incompetence of the leader rather than with democracy per se. Uribe’s good example shows that a democratic regime has all the tools necessary to reform a country and take tough measures, which in the end will be welcomed by common people: "Firm hand, big heart,” as his slogan reads.

Chile is the good pupil of the group. However, its success is mired with myths that can be counterproductive. Although Chile has tripled its real income in the last 3 decades, the success cannot be attributed to Augusto Pinochet but to a radical liberal economic model with solid policy. Lesser known is the fact that in the last 17 years the Chilean democratic governments managed to lower the poverty rate from some 40% of the population to the current 12%, without the need to change the “neo-liberal” model—an unlikely achievement if the regime of Pinochet continued.

Venezuela is implementing an economic policy that has already ruined more than one country in the region. When this bubble bursts, it will likely be similar to the situation in Mexico in 1982. By then the damage would have spread beyond its borders because the government sponsors anti-constitutional and antidemocratic elements in the whole region. This disease came about because the country hardly experienced anything better before. One analyst called that pre-Chávez system a “bicefalous PRI,” in reference to the corrupt Mexican one-party dictatorship. In Venezuela’s case, two parties colluded to share power, oil riches and privileges between them and their cronies. The elites failed to act and did not respond to the needs of the country. In such stagnant conditions, a messianic leader who promised to just burn it all down could count on genuine popular support. Venezuela proved that holding elections is not a sufficient condition for democracy, and that an election can bury a democratic regime if this one exists in order to just benefit the governing elites.

Central America also has more than its fair share of good and bad political and economic lessons. In brief, El Salvador is an example of how a country can resist guerillas, which are sponsored from abroad, recover from the traumas of a near civil war and moreover adopt profound economic reforms, which are also appreciated by the population. The party that introduced them has been reelected several times with the neo-communist opposition unable to conquer the power in elections. Contrary to this example is Nicaragua, with its pathetic transition. The toxic remnants of the Daniel Ortega regime were not purged from the new government after its victory in 1990, and for this reason (plus the usual disunity of the opposition) Ortega and his cronies were able to return to power recently. Nicaragua’s model is the most appropriate for the Cubans: if they conduct their transition as did Violet Chamorro, they can enjoy the return of the communists in a few years.

All things considered, Latin America is—after Africa--the region with the least economic dynamism in the world, suffering from poverty and marginalization, a recent rollback of democracy, geopolitical confusion and an identity crisis. Only rarely does the region enjoy a great leader, most of whom are either incompetent, illegitimate or corrupt, but most likely a combination of all three. There is one thing that Latin America can successfully teach us: how not to do things.

*Fredo Arias-King is the founder of the academic journal Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of the Post-Soviet Democratization, published since 1992 in Washington. Between March 1999 and July 2000 he was a foreign affairs advisor to the National Action Party (PAN) of Mexico. He also advised the democratic forces in Moldova, Russia, Peru, Cuba, Belarus and the Ukraine. He writes on transitions to democracy and has published two books, the second of which, Transiciones: Las lecciones de Europa del Este, was published by CADAL in Buenos Aires in 2005.