Quote by Mario Vargas Llosa: “Democracy is the least bad of all political systems yet invented by humanity.”

This is a realistic, unsentimental case for democracy. It does not claim democracy is perfect or even good — only that every other system tried so far has been worse. This kind of cautious defense is more honest and more persuasive than idealistic praise.

Vargas Llosa ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 and lost to Alberto Fujimori, who would go on to govern in an authoritarian manner. Latin America in 1990 was completing a wave of democratic transitions from military rule, yet the quality and durability of those democracies remained deeply uncertain.

Peruvian novelist and Nobel laureate in Literature, awarded in 2010, whose novels The Time of the Hero and Conversation in the Cathedral established him as one of the defining voices of the Latin American Boom. He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 and has been a controversial political commentator throughout his career.