By David Roberts

Can an authoritarian, centrally planned regime be ousted and replaced by a democratic one, with a free market but regulated economy?

Yes, obviously. There are degrees to everything, but it takes sensible, even courageous leadership, among other things. And above all, it takes the willingness to compromise. Mikhail Gorbachev provided that leadership in the old USSR over 20 years ago, and many others (but certainly not all, Romania's Ceausescu being the obvious exception) were willing to compromise, the result being the largely peaceful demise of the Soviet empire.

In Latin America, while obviously not having centrally planned economies, military dictatorships gave way to democratic forms of governments in several countries in the 1980s as people yearned for their rights to be respected, but also those in government realized their continuation was no longer tenable. The "democracy" that emerged was not always ideal. Take Chile for example, where a "protected" democracy replaced the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. It took years to gradually reform the system and for the constitution to become respectable, and for the perpetrators of human rights atrocities to be brought to justice (and they haven't all been, by any means). But the transition was remarkably successful, combined with the economic achievements that many say were sown by Pinochet but certainly did not bear full fruit until after he left office.

Not everyone got what they wanted, of course, but forward-looking politicians realized that the transition Pinochet was offering was a lot better than nothing, and it could be improved upon later, while he at least had the sense to accept the outcome of the 1988 referendum, leading to the move to democracy.

So, can something similar happen in Cuba, the "black sheep" of the region in the sense that it is the only country in Latin America that has not gone down the democratic road? Judging by the recent Communist Party congress, the first in 14 years, the answer looks increasingly like a resounding no. The old guard, even without Fidel Castro at the helm of the party, appears to be stubbornly refusing to give way to younger, more enlightened leadership (Raúl Castro's suggestion that he quit his post in 10 more years when he'll be 89 was seen by many as a radical step). And few seem to be willing to make serious compromises, barring some economic reforms, most of which are largely cosmetic.

Looking from the outside in, it's tempting to think that regimes such as the Castros', or Pinochet's, or for that matter Colonel Gaddafi's or the one Saddam Hussein once had, are all evil and the opposition is all virtuous. Of course, when one gets to understand the situation, the picture is not so clear. Some things are bad, sometimes very bad, but some things are not. Take education and health in Cuba, or some of the economic reforms during the military regime in Chile, for example. And even dictatorships, as Pinochet's clearly did, often have significant, if not majority support.

That in itself is good reason to seek, wherever possible, peaceful, political solutions, rather than military, repressive or violent ones - which more often than not lead to something worse than what was there in the first place. For a peaceful transition to happen, the relevant players need to know how to compromise. And all parties - in Cuba, Libya and elsewhere - need to realize that the outcome will not be ideal, and it may take years until a satisfactory, albeit never perfect, democracy is in place.

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Caribbean Blog International