Democracy in Russia

It's 4.39am and I'm somewhere in the outscurts of Moscow, in a kind of "comunist-style" sports-center, facilitating a 6-days conference for 80 young leaders from all around Russia. The organization is well-known to me, AIESEC.

The main part of the conference is dedicated to the elections of the national executive board of AIESEC in Russia, in a very competitive environment where 4 people run for President and 15 people run for the 7 Vice-President positions. Besides that, there is a "history" of local and national politics, and a Constitution (where the rules of the process are described) that is very weak, full of flaws. Also, as last components, we are in a very young democracy, Russia, and AIESEC is made of young people, average around 20 years old. It's definitely a school for all of them, to choose and to be chosen by democratic means to run an organization at local, national, and international level.

I had a similar experience one year ago, where I was facilitating the same process for AIESEC in Brazil, my home country. There we had the non-typical situation of 3 candidates running for national president (first time in the 37 years history) and NONE of them got enough votes - in front of 600 conference participants [a second round was needed a month later to finally elect the new president] It's not easy to coordinate, facilitate and maintain a healthy emotional level when it happens. I felt challenged and I survived (thanks to the support from a few special friends).

This year in Russia we had some other particularities, such as an incomplete Constitution, written in Russian, a tough competition among 4 candidates and only 7 local committees (among 15) having the rights to vote, due to their past performance. Were the remaining 8 committees lowered to a "second grade citizenship"?

Despite all, I survived once again, and AIESEC in Russia has a new president elected in a fair and trusted election. For the first time in years, it's a male, and it's from Romania. Congratulations Victor!

My conference is only half-way through, 3 long days and short nights to go, following AIESEC's principle of "working hard, partying harder!"

Dobre noche!!