January 12th 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti and reduced much of its capital, Port-au-Prince, to rubble. February 27th, a devastating 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile, setting off a tsunami which threatened a quarter of the globe. March 11th 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred in northern Japan and resulted in a major tsunami.

The same phenomenon but three very different post-disaster scenarios. Here is an example of why a cause-and-effect relationship is a very simplistic explanation for the events that occur in the complex world we live in. Why have Japan and Chile almost recovered while Haiti remains a no-man’s land?

In the days after a humanitarian catastrophe, we worry about the people who have lost their family and the scarcity of food, water and medical aid. Nevertheless, though this is important in the short-term, in countries with huge political instability such as Haiti, the priority in the mid-long term should in fact be to stabilize and reconstruct the political system. It is said that natural disasters do not exist, but rather poor management of natural phenomena is the true disaster.

Few days after the earthquake in Haiti, UN affirmed that is was “the worst disaster the organization has had to face in terms of logistic, due to the complete collapse of the local government and infrastructures.” Logistics, as defined by Cambridge dictionary, is “the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation” and plays a key role in the distribution of humanitarian aid.

But, as the UN pointed, infrastructures and a strong political system are needed to guarantee that help could travel safely from one point to another. And both requirements failed because infrastructures and government, already in ruins before the earthquake, both literally and symbolically collapsed after the shake.

Since Haiti’s birth in 1804, it has been up hill all the way. Despite being the world’s first black-led republic and the first independent Caribbean state, Haiti is now known for being the poorest and the most environmentally devastated country in the Western Hemisphere.

Before the earthquake, it was already one of the worst ranked countries in the Failed States Index of Foreign Policy and at the Corruption Perception Index of International Transparency. For two centuries, violence and instability have stopped the development of a country which has a long standing background of authoritarian political regimes and exploitation of blacks by whites, first, and blacks by blacks after.

Since the end of the Duvalier era in 1986, Haiti has been engaged in a lengthy and arduous political transition. Despite the 1987 Constitution’s commitment to representative and participatory democracy, political turmoil became the norm. Numerous coups, counter-coups and widespread violence during the past two decades dampened popular enthusiasm and optimism for reform. From 1991 to 2004, eight UN peacekeeping missions were deployed in Haiti.

After President Aristide’s fall in 2003, the UN established the Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH), which launched the current Security Sector Reform (SSR) programme. Three of its four main objectives were stabilizing the country, guaranteeing free elections and disarming guerrilla and delinquents groups. Despite considerable international investment in reform, Haiti’s security system remains dysfunctional in many areas and none of these goals have been achieved.

While donor aid to the justice sector has focused primarily on training, equipping and strengthening administrative structures, the judiciary suffers from deep-seated corruption and serves only a small portion of society. Lack of independence of magistracy, the absence of civil service security and the rather low salaries contributes to the development of corruption within the judicial personnel.

Prison conditions have improved, but overcrowding, poor health and sanitation conditions and extended pre-trial periods continue to plague the system. In addition, French is the language of use in official law whereas the Haitian population mostly speaks Creole. Given this background of weaknesses in the formal Haitian judicial system, an informal justice tends to take place.

Corruption and anarchy have especially endangered women and children. Prior to the earthquake, levels of violence against women were already high and 1.2 million Haitian children were extremely vulnerable, according to the UN. Because of the earthquake, many children were separated from their families and became easy targets for criminal networks engaged in human trafficking.

Many were kidnapped and brought to the neighboring country, Dominican Republic, and other countries for illegal purposes. Despite the increase of international judiciary cooperation to fight human trafficking, the border between Haiti and its neighbor is today very porous.

The fourth MINUSTAH’s objectif, the strenghtenen of the administration and the economic and fiscal system has nor been achieved. After the earthquake, many people were wounded or killed, and security institutions were unable to react out adequately. The affected population was left to seek shelter, food and protection on their own and large numbers resettled into makeshift urban camps; which posed further security challenges to newly weakened national institutions.

Currently, over 70% of the population lives below the poverty line, the informal economy represents a significant percentage of GDP and foreign aid almost accounts for half of the national budget.

The chaotic scenario described above and the failure of international financial institutions facilitated the establishment of many NGOs in the country after the earthquake. Since 2010, Haiti has increased its dependance on external aid and the large and disorganized presence of NGOs has contributed to maintain corruption instead of fighting it. NGOs constitute a kind of parallel state, more powerful than Haitian government and aid groups, which provide 80% of social services.

It creates an environment in which Haiti never develops and remains dependent on others. The wide presence of NGOs has “infantilized” Haiti, creating a vicious circle: the government lacks the money and has been historically unable to provide social services; so NGOs provide these services and desincentivate the government to improve.

The international community’s approach towards Haiti might be wrong. MINUSTAH have launched a Security Sector Reform programme, but to have a reform you must have a base, something you can build on. Since its foundation, Haiti’s judicial system, which was imported from France, needs to be rethought; we should talk about constructing a Haitian justice system before talking about a reform. The state security apparatus is as much a source of the problem as a solution.

The Haitian National Police (HNP), thin, poorly equipped, minimally trained and unable to confront any regional smuggling threats, is in dire need of reform. In addition, the fact that the reform agenda is imposed from outside limits local ownership of the process.

Nevertheless, the problem it’s not only economical or political; but also cultural. In Haiti, the resteavek (to stay with, in Creole) practice is very common and accepted; a modern form of slavery where children are forced to serve the families they’ve been sent to by doing domestic work.

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Since the beginning of the year, most of the Islamic world has been in uproar over the demand for recognition of people’s rights and an end to the autocratic regimes set up in the vast majority of these countries. While some revolutions have been successful — for instance, the example of Egypt and most recently the fall of Libya’s Gadaffi — others have not been able to enjoy the liberties brought by the Arab Spring revolutions.

Bahrain has often been regarded as a modern and reasonable country, even though recent reports claim riot police targeted Shiite Muslim protesters and caused the death of a 14-year-old boy.

The demands of the Bahrainis for a more democratic and equalitarian state were never met and protesters were soon detained. Shiites account for more than 70% of the population but are ruled by a Sunni minority, being treated as second-class citizens and often ostracized. Most of the activists in this battle have turned to social media websites to fight for their freedom.

Youtube and other video-sharing websites are also being used as a means to raise awareness concerning the anti-government movement and their human rights rallies. Facebook has proved to be one of the strongest weapons against the establishment. It is being used by protesters as an information outlet to the rest of the world, as well as a means to gather activists.

The page TrueRoyalDemocracy devotes itself to help organize pro-democracy demonstrations and expose police brutality. However, police and government officials have also resorted to social media in order to track down and identify protesters, having arrested and tortured them in the past.

According to Nancy Messieh, Middle East editor at The Next Web, demonstrators are aware of the danger and risks of posting anti-government messages online, but continue to do so in the hopes of eventually reaching their goal: “Even if you look at the extent that people will go to, away from social media, like what we are seeing in Syria at the moment, they know the consequences, they know what they’re getting themselves into and they’re still willing to do it, and I think even with social media it is exactly the same thing.

If this is a tool that they can use, they’re going to use it, despite the risks.” Social media platforms were a monumental tool for the change in Egypt, and the same could happen in Bahrain. In light of recent events, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has vowed to investigate recent killings in Bahrain and develop reform, in an attempt to meet the demands Bahrainis have called for.

Could this be a sign of change to come or is it merely a tactic to silence the ever-growing voice of the opposition? We might know soon enough.

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Despite being only 7 kilometers apart, citizens of Villarejo, Segovia have three times less the voice in the Spanish general election than their neighbors in Somosierra, Madrid. Interestingly enough, a vote in Villarejo is equivalent to 3 votes in Somosierra.

This is possible owing the particular electoral system that Spain adopted into its constitution in 1978. Despite the bicameral system, the legislative power is nowadays mainly held by the Congress with 350 deputies selected during general elections.

For this purpose, the country is divided into 50 provinces each one granted with minimum two deputies just for the matter of being a province and two autonomous cities, both in Morocco coastline, with one deputy. So from 350 total deputies, 102 are fixed among provinces and 248 are divided equally between all the provinces by their number of registered voters.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Madrid is granted two deputies per province plus 33 deputies for its 4.5 million registered voters while Segovia has two deputies plus one for its 124,000 electors. A deputy must obtain over 128,000 votes to be elected in Madrid — far more than the whole total amount of registered voters in Segovia, where only around 40,000 votes can decide a deputy. Sometimes it gets worse — like between Barcelona and Teruel were differences are even bigger.

This makes the voting system bipolar; on one side, regional parties always campaign for their own province’s welfare, obviating the needs of other parts of the country and targeting only potential voters living within the same region. They therefore reach a very limited number of deputies.

On the other hand, the main nationwide political parties, Partido Popular (PP) and Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), target citizens throughout the country and have obtained the bulk of deputies so far. In Spain since 1982 there have been eight general elections where both PP and PSOE together obtained between 80 and 92 percent of the 350 deputies while remaining in positions covered by minority regional parties and other minority nationwide parties.

This system made a lot of sense when it was approved back in December 1978, only three years after the death of dictator Francisco Franco. By that time, the dictatorship had centralized all power and control in Madrid to make it easier to oversee what was going on and rule the entire nation.

But when the democratic process began, many regions started to claim autonomy. The dictatorship had severely repressed the desire of autonomy in regions like Catalonia and Basque Country, abolishing antique fiscal privileges and suppressing the recognition of Basque and Catalan as official languages.

Regions have been struggling for more independence after Franco´s death and while dismantling the old regime structure and creating a democratic one, the makers of the constitution feared a national partition into several independent countries — or a new civil war. In order to avoid this, they developed a voting system to support more power in regional minorities.

Nowadays, all Spanish regions have obtained more authority on such matters as education, health, transportation, economy, public security and so forth, transferred by the central government over three decades. They have gained an autonomous status with their own regional elections and parliament.

Moreover, the central government has given many other authorities to Brussels after the admission to the European Union. So what is the point of maintaining the system unchanged if regional minorities today have gained most of their demands? For instance, Izquierda Unida (IU), a political party whose ideals rest between communism and socialism obtained at the last general elections almost a million votes — but only obtained two deputies.

Meanwhile, Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), a seeker for independence of Basque Country, received merely 300.000 votes but gained six deputies. Obviously, the vote to deputy ratio does not hold. Imagine that someone decides to create a new party supporting gay and lesbian rights and gains support in the community.

Unfortunately, the gay community is considered a national minority; in aggregated numbers there are several hundred thousands but divided by provinces, their numbers are limited, as low as 3 percent, and not enough to obtain a deputy to represent them. Project this to other national minorities like environmental activists, communists, immigrants with the right to vote, pacifist and so on. Under this system they will never be able to obtain a chair in the Chamber of Deputies.

In 2008, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, there were 98 different political parties. Nevertheless, two parties obtained more than 90 percent of deputies, effectively holding the legislative right og Spain without effectively representing the diversity of the nation.

The last opinion poll dated September 2011, just two months before the polling day, shows the same scenario for next general elections. A scenario where the PP and PSOE will obtain over 75 percent of the total votes. Either the Spanish citizens are quite homogeneous or there is a fake democracy in place where plurality has no effect.

Democracy is not only the right to vote once every four years, nor the right to do it freely and secretly. Democracy must encourage dialogue, space for confrontation between ideas and ideals, space to be heard and a space to defend your rights.
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