The president of the United States, Joe Biden, warned this Thursday about the “alarming challenges” facing democracy in the world and called for “action” to defend it by inaugurating the Summit of Democracy from the White House, an event virtual that brings together more than a hundred countries, including Argentina.
“In light of the alarming and sustained challenges facing democracy and universal Human Rights, democracy needs champions”said the president when opening the meeting organized by his country that generated controversy by not inviting China and Russia, or eight Latin American countries.
Biden, who took office in January amid America’s biggest political crisis in decades, said that the trends “are largely pointing in the wrong direction.”
“Democracy does not happen by accident. We have to renew it every generation.”, he asserted, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“American democracy is an ongoing struggle to live up to our highest ideals and heal our divisions.”, added and remarked that today’s global challenges “are more complex than ever.”
Among these challenges, he listed citizen dissatisfaction with the democratic regimes that “do not meet” their needs, but he insisted that despite this it is the better system to guarantee “human dignity” and “solve problems”.
Biden called to “act” in the face of the “alarming challenges” facing democracy in the world
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Given this, he asked the leaders participating in the summit to “support the values” that unite them such as freedom of expression, the press, religion or the rule of law, in addition to demanding “protection” for the Human Rights of all people.
“The United States will lead by example,” said Biden, who assured that his Administration “will invest” in American democracy, according to the speech quoted by the Europa Press news agency.
In this context, during his speech Biden announced the so-called Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, a “historic” set of political initiatives by the US Government to “strengthen democracy and defend Human Rights worldwide.”
Endowed with 424.4 million dollars, focuses on five pillars: support for free and independent media, the fight against corruption, support for sectors that can reform democracy, the development of technologies that favor democracy, and the defense of political processes and fair and free elections.
Biden is hosting the summit amid deep divergences on America’s domestic political front, with his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, still hell-bent on denying defeat in the 2020 election.
The two-day meeting, in which representatives of about 100 governments participate, as well as NGOs, companies and philanthropic organizations, also comes after tensions arisen over the guest list.
China and Russia, considered autocracies by Biden, were deliberately left out, which these countries say fuels an “ideological gap.”
“No country has the right to judge the vast and varied political landscape of the world with a single criterion”wrote the ambassadors in Washington of Russia, Anatoly Antonov, and of China, Qin Gang.
What ended up exasperating the Asian giant was the invitation to Taiwan, an island with a government close to the West, which the communist mainland China considers part of its territory.
It was not the only controversy that generated the list of guests and excluded from the summit held by the White House.
Today, I’m hosting the first Summit for Democracy. We’re bringing together leaders from over 100 governments, alongside activists, trade unionists, experts, and other members of civil society to lock arms and reaffirm our shared commitment to make our democracies better. pic.twitter.com/bQ2jyaHmmM
– President Biden (@POTUS) December 9, 2021
For example, Pakistan and the Philippines were included, but the nationalist government of Hungary, a member of the European Union, was left out. The far-right president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was invited, while that of Turkey, a member of NATO, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was rejected.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the governments of eight countries were not summoned: Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
But Juan Guaidó, Venezuelan opposition leader, was invited whom the United States and fifty countries consider interim president of the country to the detriment of President Nicolás Maduro.
“In my country, democracy was violated, “said Guaidó in his speech this Thursday, in which he proposed “to build a unified front, with a multilateral approach, that holds authoritarians responsible for the crimes committed,” according to what the AFP news agency reported.
Another Biden ally who participated in the summit was the British Prime Minister, Boris johnson, who made a historical review of the birth of democracy and its principles.
“We believe that our peoples have the right to elect and remove their governments through the ballot box, supervised by independent courts and free media,” emphasized.
Along the same lines, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, opted for “transparency and accountability” to face the “growing disaffection” that citizens have been showing in recent years towards democracy, a political system that made it clear that it is the result of a “historical conquest.”
On this first day of the summit, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, among other leaders, also participated.
The meeting ends this Friday with a presentation by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres and Argentine President Alberto Fernández, among other leaders who will speak at the summit that will also be closed by Biden.
