The Liberal Network for Latin America has completed the consultation process to draft its Declaration for Political Action, a narrative tool that will accompany the Andorra Manifesto (2017) and the Liberal Charter of Human Rights issued by RELIAL (2014).
The first few months of 2023 were marked by intense discussion, dialogue, and consensus among RELIAL’s full members. Aiming to produce a document setting out the Latin American liberal stances on issues concerning the political problems of the region, we finally drafted the final document entitled Declaration for Political Action to be approved at the RELIAL Assembly on Saturday, October 28, in Guatemala City.
The process began in Santiago de Chile as part of the 2022 Congress and Assembly. A first Committee was formed with representatives of the Liberal International (Kitty Monterrey, Juli Minoves and Karl Heinz Paqué) and RELIAL (Marielos Alfaro, Ricardo López Murphy and Luz Poblete) to lay the groundwork for the Declariation, which was later submitted for consideration to the Board of Directors. Headed by Marielos Alfaro, Vice President of RELIAL, the Board took on the responsibility of leading the discussion among full members to ensure that it was the representatives of those organizations who would discuss, outline and approve the items until the final document was produced. To that end, a program was developed to be implemented during the first half of 2023, conducting subregional consultations with all the full members. The first consultation was held on March 4 in San José, Costa Rica, the second on April 15 in Lima, Peru, and the third on Monday, June 4 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Each meeting led to significant progress from one version of the document to the next, and input from all members was discussed and integrated in a participatory and democratic manner.
The Declaration includes a preamble that presents a general diagnosis of the various challenges facing the region: Accordingly, the document was structured into three thematic areas: political, economic, and social. Each of them presents the approaches upheld by RELIAL according to the liberal principles and values that bring us together to form a community that, at its core, promotes freedom, the rule of law, human rights, the market economy, and participatory democracy.
Once approved, the Declaration will be widely disseminated in member countries as a permanent statement that will serve as a roadmap and a common voice to address the particular and regional challenges facing our organizations.
Not only does the declaration represent a firm statement, but it also recognizes the particular problems we face as a region and the importance of understanding the new challenges arising in recent years to adapt to them under a modern approach, without ever losing sight of the importance of defending freedom at all costs.
