The Advantages of a Multi-Party System

Janis Hernandez

HAVANA TIMES — Even the dialectics developed by Marx and Engels invoked the unity and struggle of opposites as the first, basic pre-condition for all social development.

These past days, when the mayoral elections in different regions of Ecuador were taking place and different political parties competed to secure these positions, I again came to the conclusion that only a multi-party system can guarantee the existence of democracy.

The co-existence of different political parties bound to express the people’s will through constitutional means is the most effective way towards progress in any nation – a practice which is entirely foreign to us Cubans.

During a public address, President Rafael Correa, speaking on behalf of his party Alianza Pais, asked himself why they had lost these elections in cities as crucial as Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca.

He more or less suggested that they had to look into where they had gone wrong in those localities, or what mistakes were made during his party’s campaign in the said jurisdictions. What did they do wrong?, asked the president.

The president of Ecuador knows that deficiencies and shortcomings can only be overcome by first becoming aware of them.

On Sunday, Ecuador’s opposition won the elections for mayors in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca. Whether this will spell benefits for the populations there, I don’t know. That’s something for Ecuadorians to find out.

What I do know is that Marx and Engels contradicted themselves. They proposed a dictatorship of the proletariat, but their dialectical worldview told us that changes are only brought about by contradictory forces.

I believe this is the reason our country hasn’t changed in so many years – here, the advantages of a multi-party system are flatly denied and rejected.