In countries like Guatemala, political participation is particularly marginal and excluding, especially when it comes to contributing to structural changes and State transformations.
Social movements are of a diverse political or sectoral nature and present a heterogeneity in terms of methodologies and forms of action; their range of interests is very wide and not necessarily oriented towards a common goal.
Political parties, precisely because of their institutionalized nature, are little democratic and highly excluding vertical entities. For the most part, they answer sectoral or power groups’ interests.
To form alliances or broad-based movements, it is necessary to have well-defined common goals that rely on a consensus, which is generally hard to achieve.
Seeking a political articulation between social groups and political parties is not a common process. Those two entities are indeed deeply contradictory by nature and extremely vulnerable when it gets to making decisions on financial matters or electing power representatives.
In Guatemala, a country that experienced an internal armed conflict for 36 years followed by a 13-year-long post-war period, a country facing deep and increasing social and economic inequalities and characterized by its pluri-cultural and multilingual society, where terrorism and fear are still part of daily life, it is complicated and generally difficult to achieve a consensus between society and the State, or between social movements and political parties.
There were times in our political history when social and sectoral organizations were formed in order to defend common political interests. Some of these organizations lasted in time but others only served as conditions for the existence of external elements such as the international cooperation or as short-term articulation points, which made them unsustainable in time. There is a diversity of experiences which can be shared in social, cultural, development-related, political, environmental, and circumstantial fields (crisis), among others.
In various political situations, people tried to form platforms or broad-based movements and agree on short-, medium-, or long-term objectives in terms of articulation in order to participate in seizing the political power.
A clear example of this is what happened in 2006-2007 with the creation of a broad-based left-wing movement named MAIZ (Movimiento Amplio de Izquierdas), a process which resulted from the initiative of various social groups and political parties. The purpose was to contribute collectively and on a wide scale to the formation of a struggle front with a left-wing perspective which would go beyond eminently short-term aspects (e.g. elections) and progressively grow stronger to become a long-term instrument of change of the political articulation.
MAIZ certainly became an innovative and interesting means of political articulation but unfortunately, on account of diverging interests and purposes, its history of contradictions, vertical practices, and little political tolerance, it was just one more experience and left more resentment about its practice than constructive elements to keep strengthening itself as a legitimate means of participation and political and social struggle. Here are a few lessons learned from this process:
Here are a few lessons learned from this experience:
- The need to articulate political efforts led to consider the MAIZ instrument as a necessity and a viable and possible project.
- The lack of political spaces with clear goals and approaches led various groups to join MAIZ: social movements and organizations, academic instances, social and indigenous leaders, and political parties.
- MAIZ’s constitution process was slow and led to wide and various debates. Fundamentally, the theme at the heart of all the discussions was the necessity to learn from the past and from the practices of political participation that had arisen in Guatemala with the revolutionary movement and left a big – and not necessarily positive – heritage. This heritage reappeared within MAIZ as something inevitable and necessary.
- Some of the key points in the constitution of a political gathering instrument are certainly the strategy and the political and ideological approach. This proved relatively less complex and difficult. All the groups interested in the initiative related to a left-wing and progressist practice. They agreed on the necessity to set objectives of social and structural transformation, and more importantly, to differ in their discourse and propositions from traditional electoral and partisan speeches generally used in such processes.
- In strategic terms, the debate’s main theme was probably the decision to consider MAIZ as a long-term political - and not necessarily electoral - instrument. Experience taught us to go beyond short-term perspectives, especially if the electoral processes are immersed in such dynamics. Without leaving out the electoral political part, on account of the existence of left-wing political parties among the Movement itself, MAIZ decided to take part in the 2007 elections but indirectly and jointly with a political party called URNG which played an active part in the process. MAIZ, as an instrument of political articulation, would not change into a party – the idea was to create something bigger on a long-term basis.
- After intense days of debate aiming at keeping the electoral situation from prevailing over the political priorities of the Movement, various working commissions were formed which initiated a serious process of reflection to come up with propositions. Within 3 or 5 months, MAIZ had defined its political basis and propositions. Once this first stage completed, MAIZ came to public light during an event which gathered various and broad social groups together who embraced the project and promised to work on this new attempt of political participation.
- The motivation and interest to join MAIZ did not last long. The general elections were at their peak of political effervescence. The stage of defining political criteria for the election of candidates (presidential and legislative candidates, and mayors) had begun. That was when we were to find out if MAIZ was a solid instrument with a long-term perspective, or if the situation and electoral trend would absorb the initiative. In the end, the electoral aspect overcame the rest. The procedures to elect the candidates were not to the liking of all the groups. The electoral procedures and political disqualifications between organized groups and other participants were criticized, which put MAIZ’s credibility and viability into perspective again.
- Eventually, in order to facilitate political participation in the elections, we entered a phase of forced tolerance, allowing URNG’s participation process to be as little conflictual as possible (URNG was the party representing MAIZ). The level of all the groups’ motivation and participation was not what was expected. The results of the elections were very low for the left-wing and for URNG as a party. Besides, other left-wing groups took part in the electoral battle: those groups had at first joined the MAIZ program and later withdrawn during the reflection process, as the program’s criteria and political content were being defined.
- What made the program definitely weak was URNG’s decision, once the electoral battle had come to an end, to legalize MAIZ in order to avoid that its acronym be misused. Thus, MAIZ became part of URNG’s legal person (URNG – MAIZ), which broke the agreement about MAIZ not constituting itself into a political party and not having any legality, which was supposed to guarantee its program’s reinforcement at a structural level and a better participation. This decision not agreed upon by consensus marked the definitive failure of MAIZ as far as its initial program was concerned. MAIZ still had work meetings once the electoral process was over, only attended by a few groups, but the post-electoral political logic put an end to the analysis and debate approach launched by the initiative.
- In practice, MAIZ had ceased to exist as an instrument of political articulation.
- One of the lessons drawn from this process was that a deeper reflection is needed on the “WHY” and “HOW” to generate processes of political articulation between parties and social groups, when the latter differ in their natures and contents in terms of political practices.
- Another key element for the analysis is the necessity to build political trust and above all to have clear postulates and methodologies of action. This would certainly guarantee some clarity and coherence regarding the strategies to be used on a short-, medium-, or long-term perspective.
- In this debate it is necessary to assert that the organizations’ political nature should be guaranteed and promoted. Social movements should never lose their political autonomy or their sectoral, professional or protest postulates. Likewise, political parties should be seen as a means and not as an end in themselves. Being able to understand this diversity and use it coherently will allow setting up processes of political articulation.
Currently, in Guatemala, various participation processes are newly emerging among social and political groups, who generally agree on the necessity to create a struggle front to face the political model and important structural problems and fight against the country’s political system. Yet, the first signs of distrust have appeared, resulting from people’s fear to live past experiences again, added to their uncertainties as they wonder how to make this (overall positive) political diversity result into a united force with more agency to reach the goals defined.
Once again, MAIZ’s experience must be learned as a lesson for us to strengthen our new initiatives without making the same mistakes.
It is necessary to create and promote a political culture that would reveal the capacities existing in our societies to address the structural and model-related problems which stifle our countries and limit their transformations.
An inter-generational dialogue is needed to give more participation space to young people and women, and to show that the processes are dynamic, dialectic, and that they need to be updated and adapted to the new international and national scenes.
It is necessary to make the community and social organization stronger. The change must come from below, i.e. from the very communities or groups. The latter will then make all the necessary transformations.
We must build alternative means of communication that would engender a critical political awareness rather than passive and alienated minds as is the case with 95% of the existing media worldwide.
It is important to globalize solidarity between peoples, cultures and organizations, and to consider the problems from a wider regional or international perspective. It is also important to transmit and share experiences.
