517 Esther del Campo García The armed forces and public opinion in latin america Nicaragua once again expresses the most positive opinions as regards the armed forces respecting human rights. Honduras has the lowest value. Since 2009, this country has suffered a wave of crime and violence, also including a series of assassinations of political and human rights activists, journalists and trade unionists that have exposed a gravely difficult situation for the rule of law and democratic governance. Although there is no proof that the armed forces in Honduras were directly involved with these murders, the high levels of violence call into question the duty of the armed forces to establish the public safety needed to safeguard public order and the lives of fellow citizens. 8. PARLIAMENTARY ELITES AND THE ARMED FORCES If we instead transfer our attention from public opinion polls to surveys of the political elite (in this case members of parliament), the Parliamentary Elite in Latin America Project (PELA)46 provides us with more information in order to round off our overall view of the role of the armed forces in democratic transition and consolidation processes. In general, Latin American members of parliament do not consider control of the armed forces to be the aspect most relevant to democratic consolidation. Furthermore, 65% believe that relations between the armed forces and the government are not threatening, whereby a lower level of fear stands out in Andean countries (33%) versus the view that this represents a slight or no threat in Chile and Uruguay. As regards the confidence that members of parliament have in their armed forces, we see a fall in confidence as we move geographically from the north to the south. This ranges from a high level of confidence (highest at 75% in Mexico) to 50% in Chile and Uruguay due to their recent past. On that account, if we consider the way in which political leaders perceive the institution that is the military, the data establish that the risk of military insubordination has all but disappeared.47 When evaluating the level of threat posed by current relations between the armed forces and the government to the democracy of each country, practically all of the Latin American MPs surveyed, irrespective of their ideological position, consider 46 PELA (2005), Proyecto Elites Parlamentarias Parliamentary Elite Project. Dir. Manuel Alcántara. University of Salamanca. 47 M. Alcántara (2005), “Diputados y militares. Una visión desde el Parlamento de las Fuerzas Armadas” Members of Parliament and the Military. The Armed Forces Viewed from Parliament, in José Antonio Olmeda (comp.), Democracias frágiles, las relaciones civiles-militares en el mundo iberoamericano. Fragile Democracies, Civilian-Military Relations in the Ibero-American World. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch-Instituto General Gutiérrez Mellado, pp. 229-250.
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