518 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 4 / 2014 them to pose little or no threat (80.2%). Nonetheless, the opinions vary significantly depending on the country of the member of parliament questioned. As a result, whilst more than half of Bolivian congressmen (51.3%) and 45.1% of Peruvian MPs consider the relationship between the armed forces and the government in their country to represent a serious threat, for more than 90% of those in Paraguay, Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador and Colombia, this aspect did not present a risk to democracy in their countries (PELA, 2005). TABLE 11 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARMED FORCES AND GOVERNMENT AS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY (%) Fuente: Author’s own based on PELA data, (2005). The trust placed by Latin American members of parliament in the armed forces is not particularly high. Only 50% of those surveyed stated that they were very or quite confident about the role that they play in the public life of their country. Nevertheless, there are significant variations across the countries. Thus, while MPs in Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic place most trust in the institution (here the proportion expressing a lot and quite a lot of trust in the activities of the armed force exceeds 70%), on the contrary we that see elected representatives in Guatemala, Paraguay and Ecuador have much lower levels (only between 18 and 29% of these state that they have a lot or quite a lot of trust in the army in their country).
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