THE POLITICAL OPPOSITION

THE POLITICAL OPPOSITION

Name in this way, in public life, the action and effect of opposing a government, that is, to impugn their conduct for reasons of convenience, opportunity, honesty or legality and call opposition forces, or simply the opposition, to the who assume this attitude.

The opposition function, which is a true function in the democratic state, is principal but not solely entrusted to political parties, which are par excellence the instruments of popular participation in the tasks of state life.

When they are out of power, the parties are entrusted with one of the most important functions that exist in the modern state: that of exercising opposition.

The opposition arises from the old governor-governed dynamics, the contrast of ideas and interests between those who hold power and those who were subject to their obedience. During a long period of Antioch Athens the right to disagree with official truths was recognized and tolerated, it was in England that the opposition assumed its modern meaning and content in the eighteenth century by the opposition between the Whig and the Tories (replaced more late by conservatives and liberals).

The English Parliament was the scene of debates between the government and the opposition H. MacKenzie, in his History of the Proceedings of the Parliament of 1784 wrote: "The opposition in Britain is a kind of public corporation (Public Body) that is fully admitted and established in our government. "

In the times of Benjamin Disraelí (1804-1881) and William E. Gladstone (1809 - 1898), the principle of the party Goverment was put into action, by virtue of which the two parties alternated in power and in parliamentary opposition; the one in the opposition formed a shadow cabinet to monitor the behavior of the cabinet in office. From England the custom spread to other countries.

In the United States of America the practical application of the theory of division of powers enshrined in the Constitution of 1787, by fragmenting public authority on three Tuesdays, Legislative Power, Executive Power and Judicial Power, created the possibility that the federal Congress would operate as a factor of control and control of the president and established the system that the American constitutionalists called Cheks and Balances.

Although the opposition activity has not been created by law, it has received its recognition and treatment as a true constitutional function. The purpose of the opposition party is not to overthrow the one in power, nor to supplant it outside the law, but to criticize the inefficiency, abuse or dishonesty of its actions with a view to achieving the necessary rectifications.

In multi-party systems this symmetric polarity of views does not occur, there is a wide range of parties and possibilities. The function of the parties does not appear as clearly defined as in the bipartisan system since the very limits between the government and opposition lose clarity due to the mobility reached by the parties that operate out of power, these can occupy a series of positions ranging from the frontal opposition to the government until the mere independence of it, does not arise in consequence, the total confrontation of two great solutions between those that can opt the public opinion and the electorate, but a juxtaposition of several solutions projected from different angles each one can represent a partial opposition to the government.

The tolerated opposition is one of the basic characteristics of the democratic regime, which is a form of political organization that is essentially pluralistic and polyarchical. Within it the exercise of the opposition is a political right of minorities that are outside the government, which offers the possibility of deploying all their actions inside and outside parliament.

The respected opposition, then, is an element of democratic regimes, in which it is considered that the discrepancy is a factor of success and fecundation of government tasks. Opposition is not subversion or armed resistance, is debate of ideas, and conquest of popular opinion, must go to the persuasion of the people and seek the necessary support to conquer power.

Both in the presidential regimes, in which the president is the head of state and the government, and in the parliamentarians in which the leader of the majorities is at the same time the head of government, the parliament is the main but not the only scenario of the actions of the opponents and the real protagonists are the political parties. There the main battles between the government and the opposition are fought. The Political Trial called "Impeachment" the interpellation, the investigative commissions, the motions of censorship, the requests for information, the parliamentary obstruction, are methods at the service of the parliamentary opposition to make effective the accountability - Accountability- of the rulers, this without ignoring the extraparliamentary action mobilizations in the streets, media.

In order to guarantee the exercise of the political rights of the opposition and, at the same time, to safeguard peace and maintain a suitable level of social cohesion amidst the dynamics of the parties, statutes of the opposition that contemplate rights and rights have been enacted in some places. duties of the opponents and the rules of action as Colombia recently did at the mercy of the peace accords with the FARC.

As we can see, Great Britain gives us great lessons in the exercise of the opposition, especially in our Latin American countries that are still in the way of building a true democracy, we need to work more for the construction of a political culture founded mainly in respect for dissension and criticism, respect for the political right of the opposition.

written by:

Omar Colmenares Trujillo.