2023 will mark 40 years of uninterrupted democracy in Argentina

READING the article “Latin America’s democracies hold strong” (BT, Dec 28) prompted me to share with The Business Times readers the joy of the Argentine people while we reach, this coming year 2023, 40 years of uninterrupted democracy.

Dec 10, a few days ago, is a very meaningful date for Argentina and for the world: on that date, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed and, in 1983, Raúl Alfonsín took office as the first Argentine president elected after the civic-military dictatorship that unlawfully ruled my country between 1976 and 1983.

In his speech before the National Congress when initiating his presidential mandate in 1983, almost 40 years ago, President Alfonsín said: “We are going to re-establish democracy in Argentina for good, the democracy that Argentine people want, a dynamic one, full of participation and citizen mobilisation. Democracy not only brings the right to vote, but also enables the conditions to grant access to nutrition, education and health for the people.”

In 2007, the Argentine National Congress sanctioned a law that established Dec 10 as the day of “Reestablishment of Democracy” with the purpose of promoting democratic values while highlighting its historic, political and social meaning”. When taking office in December 2019 as Argentina’s current president, Alberto Fernández dug further into those words pronounced by Raúl Alfonsín back in 1983 and said: “When my mandate finishes, democracy in Argentina will have flourished for 40 uninterrupted years. My hope is that by then we will be able to see that Raúl Alfonsín was right when he said that democracy enables the conditions to grant access to nutrition, education and health for the people.”

Mauricio Nine, Ambassador of Argentina to Singapore