Crime in power

The liberal democracies that we know and enjoy since World War II, more or less, depending on the countries of the world we are dealing with, suffer serious and diverse threats from external and internal enemies, which are the most dangerous as it is being demonstrated. If we take as a reference the last 40 years, we can give examples as clear as worrying.

The threat of constructivism and authoritarian populism supported by technological advances, the bastard use of social networks that allow a wider and almost instantaneous dissemination of false news, hoaxes and disqualifications to achieve power and manipulate it for their own benefit, is seriously eroding the foundations of our civilization by the loss of basic principles and values to maintain a solvent society and guarantor of the basic elements of respect for the laws, defense of institutions and with political leaders with credibility and coherence.

Unfortunately, the examples of atrocious populism that swept the world by the hand of the Nazis, Fascisms and Stalinism based on a sweeping Leninist communism have served as a lesson for some generations, but in recent years we are witnessing a lethal degradation for democracies as established and relevant as that of the United States, with the Trump phenomenon, compared to models assumed in other superpowers with capitalist communism in China and caudillismo in Russia.

From here, Europe suffers a very worrying populist dynamic with a political and social weakness that has been aggravated by the economic and financial crises we are suffering since 2006, the coronavirus, and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the struggle between the United States and China. Latin America has been in the background during this time. Not to mention Africa, where the coups d'état of the last few months sponsored by Moscow have abruptly opened our eyes to the enormous risk suffered by the black continent and also by Europeans.

In recent days, the harsh reality in too many Latin American countries, in this case in Ecuador, has set off all the alarms. Crime holds and exercises power. The assassination of the presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, has shaken the country and the threats of narcoterrorists demonstrate an unacceptable impunity and an extension of the influence of organized crime that conditions life, politics, economy and coexistence in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, among others.  

Narcoterrorists corrupt institutions, personalities and officials at all levels with the money produced by consumption in too many countries. In Spain, we must take note and firmly prevent the growth of youth gangs and drug trafficking. And that also means publicly condemning the murder of Villavicencio.