Political crises are rocking several nations of the Americas. From El Salvador and Venezuela to Bolivia, Argentina and the United States, political crises are posing serious challenges to democratic institutions.
In some ways, democracy is simple. There are elections, and there are winners and losers. Winners get to govern for a period of time, and the losers have to accept their loss and prepare to fight again another day. The voters see that, for better or worse, a government has been elected by a majority and it has the legitimacy to carry out its program.
These days elections are not so simple. Sometimes governments try to control election authorities. Often losers simply don’t accept the outcome. Such electoral denialism is increasingly common, and this erodes the trust of the public. What many voters do know is that governments are either not listening to their problems, or are helpless to solve them.
