Latin America Is Growing Impatient With Democracy

[Karmadillo]

Not my idea of democracy when the poverty rate is 43% (in Argentina, the Red Cross stated the poverty rate at the end of 2002 was 57%).

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/international/americas/24PERU.html?ex=1088654400&en=2dcfe2961f86b15b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

ILAVE, Peru — On a morning in April, people in this normally placid spot in Peru's southeastern highlands burst into a town council meeting, grabbed their mayor, dragged him through the streets and lynched him. The killers, convinced the mayor was on the take and angry that he had neglected promises to pave a highway and build a market for vendors, also badly beat four councilmen.

The beating death of the mayor may seem like an isolated incident in an isolated Peruvian town but it is in fact a specter haunting elected officials across Latin America. A kind of toxic impatience with the democratic process has seeped into the region's political discourse, even a thirst for mob rule that has put leaders on notice.

In the last few years, six elected heads of state have been ousted in the face of violent unrest, something nearly unheard of in the previous decade. A widely noted United Nations survey of 19,000 Latin Americans in 18 countries in April produced a startling result: a majority would choose a dictator over an elected leader if that provided economic benefits.

Analysts say that the main source of the discontent is corruption and the widespread feeling that elected governments have done little or nothing to help the 220 million people in the region who still live in poverty, about 43 percent of the population.

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[Karmadillo]

1. Kick

n/t