The Recipe

Translation of La Receta by MOISES NAIM of Spain’s El País. This was just too good to leave only for Spanish Speakers.

The idea of this recipe is to offer the ingredients and the preparation necessary for coups which (at leaset initially) don’t depend on the military. As it is known the world isn’t all that keen on military coups now a days. This intolerance has created a new fashionable way of cooking up the taking of power. The new recipe uses a base more of lawyers than colonels and as it’s fundamental ingredients constitutional reforms and referendums instead of tanks and armed attacks on the presidential palace.

The recipe is different, but the results the same: An Autocratic leader who under the appearance of democracy retains the power for unlimited time and does what he wants. It is important to realize that, similarly with other recipes being spread internationally this also needs changes for each country.

For example the Zimbabwean elections that have kept Robert Mugabe in power for 29 years were cooked in a different way than the electoral gastronomy of Russia. There the recipe guaranteed that no matter what the elections said, Vladimir Putin is still in command even though he is not president. Iran has it’s own way where they like to eat politics with a dressing of religion. The supreme chief Ali Jamanei explained that the overwhelming and suspicious electoral victory of Mahmud Ahmadineyad was a “divine signal”. Those who took to the streets of Teheran to protest, convinced that the vote was stolen, where beaten by the regimes civil militias. These militias are an indispensable ingredients of the recipe. In the Latin American version the recipe depends more on constitutional manipulation than all the other ingredients.

To continue I offer you the ingredients with Latin flavor and their preparation.

Ingredients

1. Millions of poor. An overwhelming majority of the population that have always been promised a lot yet little given.

2. A large dosis of inequality. Unimaginable poverty coexisting with incalculable fortunes.

3. Injustice, social exclusion and racial discrimination

4. Corruption at abundant levels

5. Political and Economic Elites complacent and secure that “nothing is going to happen here”.

6. Very discredited political parties

7 An apathetic middle class disillusioned with democracy, politics and the politicians.

8. Parliament, judiciary and armed forces so slow that their spine has “softened”e. It is important to ensure that these institutions are masters of inefficiency, laziness and corruption. It should be easy to buy a judge, a senator or a general.

9. A news media used mainly by its owners to promote their own commercial interests or election.

10. A foreign superpower neutralized or distracted by other priorities and congested by emergency.

11. General world apathy and public opinion with attention deficit disorder.

12. An external enemy which is easy to denounce as a threat to the nation or as the cause of any major problem. The CIA is always ideal. A neighboring country will do or immigrants of a different skin color. If not there are always the Jews and Mossad.

13. “Peoples” shock brigades well armed and trained to break the heads (and more) of the members of civil society who dare to react against the “Peoples revolution”. It’s not important that there are many of these brigades, but their members must be violent and willing to do anything “in the name of the revolution”. Their connection with the state should always remain hidden. Prisons are great centers of recruitment for these “Peoples Brigades”.

Preparation

1. Shake the most poor part of the population well with as aggressive and intense campaign of polarization and social conflict as possible. Social harmony is an obstacle and should be eliminate, while the hate between social groups should be maximized. This is easy enough to do with the ingredients above.

2. Reach power through a democratic election. This is easy enough to do if the traditional parties are disgraced or the opponent is a novice entrepreneur or a member of the political classes that have always dominated power.

3. Win all new elections. Any way you can. Never leave office. Elections aren’t for this.

4. Change the senior officers in the military to promote loyalty to the president and his “project”. Reward loyal officers with promotions and material benefits. Punish those less enthusiastic. Spy on all of them all the time.

5. Do the same with the judges and magistrates

6. Once the previous step is completed propose constitutional changes via a national referendum. Provoke the opposition to abstain.

7. The new constitution should guarantee all kinds of rights of the citizens (in particular the poor) while limiting their own duties and obligations. Promise that the new constitution will alleviate poverty and reduce inequality. You should include hard to understand amendments to concentrate the power in the presidency and permit his indefinite reelection.

8. Discredit, minimize and repress the political opposition.

9. Control the news media. Tolerate a few outlets with a small reader or viewer base critical of the government as an example that you respect freedom of expression.

10. Repeat step 3 indefinitely.

¡Buen provecho!

mnaim@elpais.es