Our current Constitution, voted in a referendum by the people who had the right to vote in December , enshrines in its sixth article the so-called “State of parties”. Literally, the aforementioned precept of the Magna Carta proclaims that “political parties express political pluralism, contribute to the formation and manifestation of the popular will and are a fundamental instrument for political participation. Its creation and the exercise of its activity are free while respecting the Constitution and the law. Its internal structure and operation must be democratic.” In contemporary constitutionalism, the “State of parties” is considered to be the form adopted by current constitutional States, committed to the democratic principle, guaranteeing political participation, in which political parties carry out practically all political activity. , with the aim of overcoming previous constitutional periods in which political parties did not act with electoral and parliamentary relevance.
Regarding participation in political life, and the tension between citizens/political parties, the Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen (-) elaborated the philosophical foundation of the “State of parties” with this reflection: “it is clear that the isolated indi Latvia WhatsApp Number List vidual completely lacks of positive political existence by not being able to exert any effective influence on the formation of the will of the State and that, consequently, democracy is only possible when individuals, in order to achieve an action on the collective will, come together in organizations defined by various political purposes; in such a way that those collectivities that group, in the form of political parties, the coincident wills of individuals, intervene between the individual and the State. Only through obfuscation or fraud can the possibility of democracy without political parties be sustained. Democracy, necessarily and inevitably, requires a state of parties.
Several decades later, with the experience of observing the activity of political parties, and their supposed (and required by the current Constitution) democratic functioning and internal structure, I believe that we are facing a crisis of the doctrinally elaborated and constitutionally consecrated “State of political parties). I believe that this thesis of Hans Kelsen, and of the contemporary constitutionalism of the last century, is outdated and undemocratic. Repeated sociological studies point to these political entities and their leaders as problems for citizens, when they should be considered part of the solution to the problems we suffer. The recent study by the Center for Sociological Research last June has once again highlighted this. Furthermore, electoral abstention rates are another element that leads us to question the effectiveness of this almost exclusivity, monopoly, in political representation by political parties.