The Winner of the Election

The 2023 elections, coinciding with the Republic’s centenary, will be a subject not only of today’s political debates but also of our recent political history. For in our hundred-year history as a republic we had never seen a period like this, in which law, democracy and fundamental human rights were used up for political interests.

The wreckage piled up before us at the end of the past 20 years is no small thing. We have grown tired of being ruled by a conception of power that is professional in lying, organised and accomplished in theft, devoid of any settled sense of mercy, that incites the people to grudges and hostility, humiliates and demonises those who think differently, spreads hate speech, uses religion as a political tool and, beyond that, exploits the religious feelings of the people, and lacks every kind of ethical value. It is obvious that repairing the damage this conception of power has done to the individual, to society and to the machinery of the state will take a long time and much effort.

Battered Hopes

Let us not delude ourselves by expecting honesty, respect for the law, regard for human rights, mercy and justice from the leaders of a government that has committed many of the crimes against persons and the state listed in the penal code. Likewise, let us not hold great expectations of absolute justice, freedom, tolerance and love from an opposition spectrum of which we cannot be sure that it has internalised the discourse of rights, law and justice. Otherwise we may suffer great disappointment and be left alone with our battered hopes.

We have no choice but to call a system of government that brackets every dissenting voice as “terrorist” a “dictatorship”. Calling a dictator a dictator is courage; applauding the dictator and praising him to the skies is cowardice. And then there is the side of this that concerns the political opposition: the politicians who walk the route drawn by the dictator and do politics with his rhetoric. For them we can safely say “a company of fools”.

The Dirty Wheel of Politics

One does not expect virtue, honour, democracy and justice from people who place their personal interests, their hopes of advancement and their material well-being at the centre of their lives. But we often hear their speeches about these concepts. There is nothing surprising in this. Such is the nature of those integrated into the dirty wheel of politics. As long as every word and style that pleases the people is voiced with a new air and a new phrase, this dirty wheel turns smoothly.

Another point that brazen political cadres have accurately identified is this: the broad masses make no effort to read the language of events. Every word of the political figures they support is absolutely true and right for them. And if their rhetoric is marked by recklessness, swagger, reliance on power and a tendency to cite religion as a reference, it makes no difference at all whether their hypotheses and sentences represent the truth.

The Logic of Politics

As long as it serves their individual interests, crowds keep applauding the political and ideological camps they claim to believe in or pretend to. Even if the politicians they support sink to the bottom in pits of bribery, corruption and immorality, this attitude does not change! From this point, the logic of recruiting supporters in domestic politics can be summed up in four points:

• The people like jingoism more than scientific data.
• Politicians like sycophants more than plain speakers.
• In the right conditions, the two find each other like a pot and its lid.
• There are always exceptions, but the general rule does not change.

The people’s weak spots open to exploitation are clear: partisanship, falling for simplified narratives, emotional reflexes, tribalism, nationalism and fanaticism. The “lock and key” arithmetic used by every cunning politician who notices these sensitivities rests on this simple logic.

Evil and Democracy

Today political and ideological views are used as instruments of revenge. It is hard to explain this to those who trample on human rights, but people with good hearts must achieve the difficult.

Where evil has become banal, every word spoken and every step taken to raise the voice of goodness is very valuable. As long as wishes and actions are warm enough to embrace people from all walks of life, and lasting. Evil is simply evil. And the person who makes evil banal is the centre of diabolical deeds; he is the devil himself!

Advocacy of democracy and human rights is lofty enough to deserve support regardless of political identity. Expecting dwarfs of thought, morality and conscience to understand this is naive. On the other hand, if the political identity of a person who has been wronged keeps us from crying out against this injustice, our speeches about rights, law and justice remain nothing but absurd rhetoric.

In Spite of Everything

In spite of everything, let us not hold back from combining the positive feelings in our subconscious about good days worth living with our self-confidence and our determination to struggle. For law is not just courtrooms, prisons and compensation cases. Every injustice and oppression suffered today will surely be judged in the consciences of wronged peoples and in the innocent minds of days to come. On that day, those now scrambling for a corner at the table of power will be remembered with curses. And the just jurists of that day will surely do their duty.

We must keep nurturing our hopes for the future. We will do this regardless of the colour, ideology and promises of the governments of the day.

When we choose one of the options put before us in the elections, let us avoid expectations that will batter our hopes. We have no choice if belief in rights, law and justice is to prevail.

Should we as a society have nothing in common? For example, at the very least, the sanctity of human life!.. We need not new enemies but new friends. All of us.

With the wish that, in the Republic’s centenary, we walk hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, from the darkest point of the night towards the days when we will lay the foundations of bright tomorrows!

Whoever comes out of the ballot box, may the winner of the election be our pure hearts!