Mark Leon Goldberg interviews Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue for the UN Dispatch blog about the Honduras situation. Hakim calls the situation an aberration in the region and says it points more to the weaknesses of the OAS as it concerns regional governance. In response to a question about whether or not a new regional mechanism is needed to promote stability and democracy in the Americas, Hakim answers as follows, during 1:15 to 3:30 of the abbreviated interview here, which corresponds to 14:50 to 17:10 in the full interview, accessible here.
"What is clear is what the challenge is, what the problem is emerging for democratic rule in Latin America does not have to do with the kind of overthrow, the kind of coup d'etat that we saw in Honduras. What we are witnessing is a first for many countries, a deterioration of democracy in the sense that presidents have used the mechanisms of democracy - elections, referendums - to essentially acquire more and more power, centralizing power, become the center of decision making and fundamentally reducing the ability of opposition groups to function. In other words, it's more the erosion of democratic rule, the erosion of the rule of law and the centralization of power, and not the kind of abrupt coup d'etat that often happens over many years. We're witnessing probably its most egregious turn in Venezuela, where it's hard to call Venezuela a democracy anymore. But there was no one-day-to-the-next break the way we saw in Honduras where the leader was ousted or where from one day to the next the country moves from democracy to a form of authoritarian rule. Over the years we've seen Hugo Chávez certainly eliminate many of the elements that are normally considered essential for democratic governance."
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