Africa-Press – Cape verde. The president of the Independent and Democratic Cape Verdean Union (UCID, opposition), João Santos Luís, told Inforpress today that 33 years after the first free elections in Cape Verde, democracy should be much more advanced.According to João Luís, Cape Verde is very well rated by international partners as a country with a good democracy, with interesting peace and stability, but even with a good rating abroad, internally there is still a lot to do.
“We have to admit that our democracy could work much better. See that even today we have situations of persecution and I am amazed at the attitude and behavior of people in party organizations. Even though we are still in the ranking of imperfect democracy, we cannot have, with 33 years of democracy, people being persecuted and their political rights threatened”, he argued, adding that “despite the institutions functioning, the separation of powers legislative, judicial and executive it will be three years since a UCID deputy (Amadeu Oliveira) has been in prison for expressing his convictions”.
According to the politician, 33 years after the elections of January 13, 1991, the country has made many gains, but could have much more due to the resources that have been made available to its rulers. Therefore, he blames the behavior and attitude of certain people from the parties that govern and that have already governed the country, for Cape Verde not being at the level it should be at at this moment.
“We consider that there is a large percentage of poverty and extreme poverty. So democracy does not rhyme with poverty. It is up to governments to take advantage of the country’s potential and make the economy grow and develop so that extreme poverty and poverty are eradicated from the country”, recalled the president of the UCID, stating that “successive governments have never worked to eliminate poverty and of extreme poverty.”
For João Luís, there has been a “castration of people’s rights” in Cape Verde in all sectors, particularly in the educational system, health and other systems, which, he continued, have suffered degradation in recent times.
“An educational sector that carries out reforms and does not listen to teachers, who are the main protagonists of the reform, does not rhyme with democracy, which does not regularize the situation of teachers and the medical profession. In terms of elections we are doing well because we have not had any political force or any competing force that would have rejected the results of the elections, but we are weak in terms of citizens’ political participation and also seeing across the country’s various sectors of activity there is extreme poverty in terms of thought”, he argues.
Still according to the president of the UCID, Cape Verde should have a differently formatted parliament that would be more dialoguing and that the country should have Governments with more proactive attitudes and more interested in developing people’s capacity to guarantee a better quality of life for people.
In other words, he concluded, “democracy does not rhyme with poverty, nor with revenge in justice, nor with the degradation of the educational system”.
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