Annan Sees Democracy Failing

The spread of democracy through Latin America has failed to significantly help reduce poverty in the region, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday.

"Democracy has still not efficiently responded to the aspirations of the region's poor," Annan noted as he inaugurated an international seminar on strengthening Latin American democracy.

There have been some advances — an infant mortality rate that is nearly half what it was 25 years ago as well as increasing education levels and greater equality for women, he said. "But why the mood of self-doubt?"

That doubt stems in part from the growing pains that accompany democracy, he said.

"Today in some quarters (democracy) is even challenged for being part of the problem," Annan remarked, referring to recent conflicts in Venezuela — where opponents of President Hugo Chavez accused him of widespread fraud after he survived a referendum calling for his ouster — and in Bolivia, where mass protests against piping gas through Chile led to the ouster of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in July.

Annan was to hold several meetings with government officials later Wednesday, including Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has been an avid advocate of resolving all international conflicts through a strengthened United Nations.

The seminar, which will analyze a U.N. report on democracy issued in April, "offers us the possibility of defining new directions to achieve the democracies we want," Fox told participants.

The U.N. report stresses the need to "understand democracy as a form of human development in which there are greater options for people who want to improve their quality of life," he said.

According to the 2004 U.N. Human Development Report, several Latin American countries still deal with deep poverty. Fifteen percent of Venezuelans live on less than $1 a day, as do 9.9 percent of Mexicans and 8.2 percent of people in Brazil and Colombia.

In overall rankings, the regions countries lag the world leaders. Argentina is ranked highest, at 34. Cuba, a socialist country, ranks 52nd — ahead of Mexico at 53.