The new democracy spreading throughout Latin America is not democracy at all, according to Professor Atilla Andrade Jr. Andrade spoke Tuesday about the political climate in Latin America in an event sponsored by the International Law Society.

Andrade addressed the situation in Honduras in which former president Manuel Zelaya attempted to change the Honduran Constitution to let him stay in office longer. Earlier this year Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez got rid of term limits completely.

“I think democracy must rely necessarily on a system whereby you have a shift of power,” Andrade said. “If you carried this Chavez doctrine of new democracy, then we are at a loss because then you won’t have any power shift whatsoever. You’ll have people governing countries forever and ever, like emperors. I don’t know what kind of democracy this is.”

Andrade (LLM Yale 72, JSD Yale 77) is senior partner at the law firm of Advocacia Attila De Souza Leao Andrade Jr. in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is at UF Law this semester as a visiting professor as part of UF’s Foreign Enrichment Program.

Andrade said the Honduran Constitution denies Zelaya the right to seek another term and provides that the president cannot change the document.

“It also indicates that whoever attempts to change the constitution shall be immediately ousted,” Andrade said. “Unfortunately, this hasn’t been publicized much by the media in Latin America because it doesn’t suit the media.”

Andrade pointed out that their Constitution gives the power to their Supreme Court to remove the president from power, which is what happened. He said the coverage of the ousting has been poor and was surprised to see other countries backing Zelaya.

“However, the media, and unfortunately, all the other countries in the continent, which is amazing to me, back Zelaya up in suggesting that he there was a coup d'etat, that he was ousted by the military, and that he must return home in a glorious return to power,” Andrade said. “I don’t see it that way. It was a constitutional matter, the laws in place were complied with, and the man was perfectly ousted because he was too greedy to the point of trying to violate his own Constitution.”

After that, Andrade expressed concern about the arms race that is taking place in Latin America. Venezuela purchased weaponry from Russia and Brazil just purchased fighter jets from France. Andrade criticized the United States government for focusing too much of its foreign policy on the Middle East and not enough on Latin America.

Andrade also touched on the broad range of jobs in the international law field. He mentioned jobs with the United Nations, international arbitration and mediation and being an international lawyer.

“Today, I would say that it’s the area in which you have more opportunities than in any other areas of the law.”