A SEEMINGLY NEVERENDING DEBATE : SHOULD THE WSF BECOME A POLITICAL MOVEMENT? Carolina Gerendas Key elements of politics, including representation, are in crisis; governments need to open themselves up to popular participation; purely representative democracy is part of neoliberalism. Or is it? The debate became galvanised during the 6th WSF.

Let's take the bulls by the horn: What relationship should the WSF have with public life and politics? Parties and governments? With a steady pulse and clear words, the issues were debated by the panel "Crisis of Politics: The Relationship Between Political Parties and Social Movements."

Participating in the discussion were Lilian Celiberti, of Articulación Femenina Marco-Sur (Uruguay); Alain Lipietz, Euro-deputy for the Green Party; Juan C. Monedero, of Spain's Complutense Institute of International Studies; Pedro Santana of Colombia's Vía Ciudadana; and Joseph Bagalló, councilman on Barcelona's Generalitat.

Politics is in crisis "and it has to do with the lack of representation of the people by the designated persons," and elected candidates tend more to represent themselves than the interests of society, said Santana.

In his opinion, this lack of representation is behind the emergence of movements like feminism, environmentalism, ethnic movements, groups that fight against discrimination, who "demand solutions and vindication directly to the state, because the political class ignores them."

Santana believes the Forum's autonomy should be reaffirmed, but without denying its critical dialogue with political society, "which is necessary for implementing the transformations and the changes that are discussed in this arena." There are those who believe the WSF should stay "uncontaminated", because they see a relationship with politics as "sinful" and social movements as the historic agent destined to impose change, according to Santana.

At a middle point are those who believe that from Forum's autonomy a clear, public line can be developed for the relationship of the WSF and social movements with political society and governments. There are also segments who support the Forum expressing itself as a party or political movement.

Celiberti said she believes the WSF still has a debt when it comes to developing new policies, because in-depth discussions are still pending. "It is the responsibility of the political parties to incorporate the demands of the social movements, but she said beyond that "it is important for governments to create mechanisms for participation that are able to transform their demands through public policies."

Necessary Evil, Contingent Good

The divorce between political parties and social movements "is similar to the divorce between reform and revolution that bogged down transformational thought throughout the 20th century," said Monedero, who advocates cooperation, because "the parties are a necessary evil, and social movements a contingent and corruptible good.

Today, political parties "behave as a cartel, even though the name sounds ugly," because there are rules to the game, and that means those who don't follow them are left out.

Amidst these rules, says Monedero, is the loss of the parties' traditional function, because they "don't socialise or inform the citizenry," but instead use the media as an element of articulation of the cartel. There is also the problem of activist-functionaries, with a decline in activism and an increase in party employees.

He agrees that there is a crisis of representativity in politics, because "direct democracy goes against representative democracy and political liberalism that is enmeshed with economic liberalism."

As an example of just how complex democracy is, he mentioned the Venezuelan parliamentary elections last December, noting that although around 75 percent of voters abstained, the polling firm Latinobarómetro found that Venezuela is the Latin American country with greatest confidence in the democratic system - with 70%. According to Monedero, this could mean that "people are finding democracy someplace besides Parliament."