Daniel Marquez Soares
What most attracts the attention of Guillermo Lasso and his brief Government is how easily power was taken away. One would have thought that after spending so much time, money, prestige and attention to reach that position —and seeing himself at the helm of the State at a moment of enormous importance for the future of his compatriots — the President I would fight some more.
He did not proceed with force in those things where he was right, nor with bold verve in those where perhaps he was wrong. Rumors, disloyalties and slander were enough —of those that no ordinary citizen would tolerate without kicking—, and daring coming from institutions that no one would have defended if the president had dragged them into the chaos of frank clash. When the time for definitions came, the President preferred moral superiority instead of real victory. Those who live in the ideal world believe that this is how martyrs arise; but in the real world this was how slaves were born: when a man accepted defeat and chose to surrender to an enemy who loathed him to the last molecule, he accepted the perpetual yoke for himself and all those who would come after.
In today’s world, oligarchs can afford the luxury of moral stature. Now, its wealth—zeroes and ones stored in unreachable places—grows on its own, thanks to the docility of its civilized fellow citizens; They no longer have to wrest it from the earth, or get dirty in the industry, or defend it by force from those who want to take it from them.. The problem is that they end up believing that the world of power is the same and forget that unscrupulous predators do still exist there.
To govern requires the will to command and the conviction of deserving it. No one knows where that impetus comes from—whether it is inherited, learned, or arises randomly. However, we all recognize, in a split second, those who, like President Lasso and all that class he represents, no longer have it.
