Nepal, democracy and dalit women

This theme so far is complex. Now I have read a brilliant article about this and I had to share here in the blog.

To read this article of Institute IDEA, click here.


Unfortunately sometimes the reality changes slower than law...

El Tribunal Constitucional Español y Problemas no tan Españoles


Es conocido el hecho de que gran parte de los tribunales constitucionales de los países sufren un retraso en sus sentencias, no solamente por tratarse de materias de repercusión pública, sino también por la propia estructura procesal que deben atender.

Esta semana el periódico El País de España trajo un panorama interesante sobre la situación del Tribunal Constitucional español, que recomiendo la lectura.

Para acceder, clique aquí.

We, the people, as said Ackerman once... (About the Myanmar Elections)


Myanmar has had important political changes lately. The last one was the victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's Party (National League for Democracy - NLD), with 40 out of 45 parliament seats. Most of specialists classify this election as a fair and clean one, the opposite of the last one.


San Suu Kyi is a leader who can be compared as Gandhi in the fight for a unique and unified Myanmar, without ethnic divisions and with more human rights. Because of it, she was extremely punished by the military authorities, what caused her detention in 1989. In 1991 she won the Nobel Peace Prize, always focusing on her ideas about a pacific transition for democracy.


That's why I still believe in politics and in the democracy. Congratulations, Myanmar. We really hope that it's the beggining of a new era.


"What is important is not how many seats we may have won, but that … the people participated in the democratic process"

Umberto Bossi..... Il fine di un tempo che non ci manca a nessuno...

Después que he vivido en Italia, hubieron cosas que pensé sinceramente que jamás se acabarían allá, como la era Berlusconi (hecho este que me dio gran felicidad en verlo desde cerca, ya que estaba en Roma con mi padre justo en este día), y también la caída de Umberto Bossi...

Pero... ¿quién era él?

Umberto Bossi será para siempre recordado en la política italiana como un icono - par el bien y para el mal - líder de un partido marcado por la polémica, la Lega Nord. Era muy cercano a Berlusconi, ayudándolo a consolidar muchas de las ideas que hoy, lamentablemente, siguen en la sociedad italiana, como es la separación de Norte y Sur, la independencia de la Italia "vera", o sea, la que merecía ser llamada de Italia, la parte norte. Además, ha sido la persona que ha transformado demagogia y xenofobia como razones de Estado. En la Lega,  estuvo delante de la fuerza más antigua de Italia (o por lo menos la que no ha cambiado de nombre desde su fundación, en 1991), representando igualmente un electorado cansado por la corrupción de los demás partidos. Irónicamente, Bossi ha dimitido por la misma razón: corrupción.

Ya era esperado. Después de una semana que vino a la luz las escuchas telefónicas de fiscales de Milano, Napoli y Reggio Calabria que estaban fiscalizando a las cuentas del partido, él ha decidido salir por sí mismo. Como dijo Alessandro Trocino, periodista de Il Corriere della Sera y coautor de un libro sobre el irresistible ascenso de la Liga Norte, Razza Padana, no cae solamente un líder de un partido que ha logrado saltar de un 3% a un 12% de los votos, sino también cae un grupo político entero.

Sinceramente, me alegra ser testigo es dicho hecho. Bossi con sus discursos bastante absurdos y sin ninguna coherencia con un mundo globalizado como hay actualmente, me hacía marear ante la televisión. Además, este pensamiento xenófobo solo ha hecho que los italianos tengan un sentimiento de rechazo tanto del sur con el norte, como al revés. ¿Quién gana? Absolutamente nadie.

Bossi, vai via, perche qua non c'è posto per te...

Noticias sobre Bossi:

En español: Aqui

En italiano: Aqui con mayores detalles aún más interesantes incluso de compra de diplomas de licenciaturas.

En inglés: Aqui

International IDEA - new data about money in politics


Because of my thesis, I couldn't prepare one post about US Elections, mainly US Primaries. But I will, and it will be as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, International IDEA  made an annoucement today of its new global database on money in Politics. It's exactly the object of my thesis, and it's a rich specialised work. Again it's highly recommended, and more interesting is to check out the data about US elections, when will be spent more than 6 million dollars. Where? Well, it will be in marketing basically.

There are versions in English and Spanish. For more informations, click here.

Gender Equality.... more important than ever...


For those who are interested about gender equality, I highly recommend this new publication of International IDEA, with updated informations.

New Publication International IDEA

You can make full download free of charge, in PDF format. The database is Latin America, and sadly we can see how far we are from reaching gender equality in this region, in despite of the election of women for Presidents.

But... we can't give up...

... and what about the women?

Today is the famous international women's day. It's celebrated every year with strong demonstrations of female proud worldwide. It’s totally fair, considering that women's world nowadays is not like before, maybe 50, 100 years ago.

It's really common debating some data about women's condition in 8th March. In my opinion, although it's important to share positions about violence, equal labour opportunities and women's leadership, maybe I prefer showing here in the blog how's their participation in politics like. 

Everyone thinks that the right to vote is the way to give voice to social demands, to choose who we would like to decide important things and who we would like to represent us. Obviously the universal suffrage is really important and represents a great conquest in 20th century. However, the right to vote is not enough. 

Although national frameworks for gender equality might exist, political parties have not incorporated these into their intra-party processes and systems. It's rare not to find laws which bring it into countries' legislations. Political parties are very good at making statements about gender equality – but they are sadly lacking in the identification, selection and nomination of female candidates for leadership positions. All internal party cultures too often reflect unwritten rules on male privilege and the use of power as a tool for domination by one gender.

In essence, political parties are failing the electorates of their countries.

In Latin America, since some years ago we can see changes in the political leadership. Women are reaching high political positions, such as president, prime minister, important public offices in general. On the other hand, in other continents this is not so common as it should be, like Europe. There's a really interesting article about this here (version in spanish), and another here (version in french, although it's about the presidential propositions in France).

In countries like Arabic ones the challenge is bigger than in other sides of the world. Women have suffered disproportionately from an autocratic culture at all levels of society. At the same time, the region has several bright spots in terms of women’s participation: in Libya the newly adopted electoral law guarantees women at least 40 out of 200 seats in the constituent assembly that will draft the new constitution for the country. And in Tunisia, women won 27% of seats in the 2011 elections as a result of party quotas – although far from perfect, this was far above the regional average. We could celebrate these numbers regarding new democracies with problematic democratic transitions.

Anyway. in my opinion, there's no machism in having a day dedicated for women. We still have many challenges and a long way to ride... mainly in politics.