10 Examples of Democratic Leaders

It is understood by a democratic leader those characters of prominent social and / or political participation whose rise to power was the product of free choice (formal or not) of the communities they represent, through the mechanisms of civic participation in accordance with what is understood by democracy, and whose performance a Once in charge of it, he remained within the legal, legal and moral frameworks that accompany said concept. For example: Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Lucy Parsons.

A democratic leader, to be such, submits voluntarily to the restrictions and procedures with which democracy, as a government regime, limits the exercise of the will of the powerful, through the separation of powers, compliance with the law and the public and transparent management of common goods.

Many of the great democratic leaders in history are today cult object and recognition, as an example to follow in the fight for more just, peaceful and orderly societies.

Examples of democratic leaders

1. Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). South African political leader victim of the racial policies of Apartheid that segregated black and white, in favor of the former. He became president of his country after decades in prison and during his tenure the reconciliation of highly radicalized sectors and the redemocratization of a hostile society became possible.
2. Martin Luther King (1929-1968). American pastor of the Baptist church, enormously influential in the American racial conflict. He fiercely opposed the racial laws in force in the society of his time, fought against poverty and war, and became a symbol of racial equality, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, four years before be assassinated at 39.
3. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). Spiritual leader of British colonial India and eternal symbol of peaceful resistance, he was a lawyer, thinker, politician and Hindu of vital importance in the independence of India, thanks to his preaching of non-violent protest methods, such as the hunger strike and demonstrations of civil disobedience. He was assassinated at the age of 78 by radical Hindu integrationists.
4. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963). Popularly known as JFK, he was the 35th president of the United States, the youngest in history, assassinated in office in 1963. He is considered a representative of North American democratic aspirations, since in his period the movement for Civil Rights in the United States, although the first military actions in Vietnam and the Cuban nuclear missile crisis also took place.
5. Steve Biko (1946-1977). South African anti-apartheid activist, joined the BCM movement (Black Conscience Movement), who fought hard for racial equality. He was an important local leader until the day of his police arrest in 1977 and subsequent interrogation in a well-known torture center called Police Room 619 in Port Elizabeth, from where he was practically left dead in Pretoria prison, where his death was announced.
6. Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-). Burmese politician, fighter for the democratization of her country, who despite having won the presidential elections in 2015, could not assume office because the constitution drawn up by the military elites controlling the nation for half a century prohibits the presidency of those who have children with foreign passport (and yours are partly English). In 1991 he won the Nobel Peace Prize and numerous prizes for his democratic and civil work.
7. Lucy Parsons (1853-1942). A labor leader and a North American communist anarchist, she was a distinguished social fighter for the oppressed classes and for the liberation of women, through publications, social organizing work and highly inspiring rallies, which would earn her the enmity of the police, who came to consider her “More dangerous than a thousand protesters.”
8. Barack Obama (1961-). First North American president of Afro-descendant origin, his two consecutive administrations have been both criticized and praised, given his warlike support for international interventions initiated by previous administrations but, at the same time, his arduous diplomatic work in reconciliation with nations historically violated by politics. North American foreign countries, such as Cuba, Argentina or Japan. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
9. Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007). First woman to hold the post of president in a Muslim country, twice, albeit for brief periods interrupted by allegations of corruption from the most conservative radical and religious sectors of Pakistani society. These prevented Bhutto’s center-left party from fulfilling its promises for progressive laws for women and for a more equitable society. He died in a demonstration after returning from exile in 2007, two weeks before the presidential elections in which he led the opposition candidacy.
10. Salvador Allende (1908-1973). Chilean doctor and socialist activist, elected president of his country in 1970, but deposed by the North American intervention that consolidated a coup and the beginning of the Pinochet dictatorship, one of the bloodiest on the continent. Allende committed suicide in the Palacio de La Moneda, after it was bombed by the Armed Forces, allied with the conservative sectors opposed to the social transformations initiated during his administration.