I was born in Paraguay on October 1st, 1986.

25 years ago, when I was only 2 years old, on February 3rd, 1989, a civil- military revolution gave birth to democracy in my country after a 35-year dictatorship (the longest in South America). The dictatorship in Paraguay was not an isolated incident. Operation Condor was placed in action, an international underground organization coordinated by the leaderships of the dictatorial regimes in South America and the CIA carried out in the 70s and 80s, where torture, murder and disappearance of people opposed to the government ideology took place. In 1989, with the fall of the regime in Paraguay, the road to freedom was paved, political parties were again recognized and freedom of expression and other fundamental rights were proclaimed.

Also, 25 years ago, on March 12th, 1989, the researcher Tim Berners Lee proposed “a universal linked information system”. Do you know what his boss wrote on his report? “Vague, but exciting”. Anyway, he gave his support and the project started. The World Wide Web was created. That was a giant step for the most recent revolution in history: the Internet. A revolution that has reached to connect freely the whole planet and it has transformed society in very short period of time.

These two events, 25 years ago, marked a milestone for freedom of expression and participation. For my country, this milestone was the restoration of democracy. For the world, it was the emergence of the World Wide Web.

For 25 years, Paraguay has lived in an imperfect representative and participatory democracy. The effects of the past are still remaining. I am 27 years old now. My generation has not personally experienced those times, but it was raised and educated by a generation that chose, out of fear, to maintain the status quo, thus transferring to us the culture of “don’t get involved”.

However, decades later, Internet and democracy are changing the political dynamics in Paraguay. Today, thousands of young people are beginning to express their dissent, using the Internet as a main tool. Slowly emerging is a youth that does not want their leaders to make decisions without their active participation. The protests are growing and the new generation is building a society where organized citizens set the agenda and produce historical change.

I remember being quite skeptical about how our population — commonly known as apathetic — would react to calls using events on Facebook or hashtags on Twitter. Surprisingly, we were protagonists of a series of protests with unexpected results: We stopped the budget extension of certain corrupt government offices. We freed public information that was deemed confidential. And, we stopped price increases of transportation fares. Even, in one occasion, we changed half of the Senators votes in less than a week. Something is not working correctly with our representative and participatory democracy. Yes, we participate by voting every 5 years. Then afterwards, those we chose turn their backs on us.

Protest organized with the help of the Internet is a phenomenon that takes place in Paraguay. It’s phenomenon that takes place all around the world. It is a phenomenon that makes all kind of governments feel uncomfortable: democratic and non-democratic: and all kind of politicians: left and right wing. Protests ended with regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. In Spain, young people camping on squares showed their frustration with unemployment. In the US, people tired of the behavior of huge financial corporations manifested themselves right in front of Wall Street. In Chile and Brazil, students got out to the streets to protest, asking for accessible and qualified education and health. In Venezuela and Argentina, people went to the streets asking for security and inflation control.

Protests are a great way for the citizenship to get involved. However, they are temporal and they often do not offer concrete solutions. Besides, people cannot be on the streets all day to be heard by their rulers.

So last year, with many of the young people who participated in these protest in Paraguay, we decided to form a new movement that could offer modern solutions that connect the politicians with their citizens and especially young people. With Despertar Ciudadano, the name of our movement, we present a list of candidates for Congress with a proposal to connect the lawmakers’ votes with the votes of the people through a web platform called yovoto.com.py.

The proposal may seem far-fetched but it is simple. 3 steps. First, inform citizens in plain language about their various bills. Second, allow them to discuss and vote for or against them. Third, have our movement congress members always vote based on citizen decision reflected in the web platform.

When we began this project, many told us something similar to what it was told to Tim Berners Lee, 25 years ago: “Vague, but exciting”. The elections were little less than a year ago. Although we made a very good run — we were listed 7th among 21 — we could not get a place in Congress to implement our proposal.

We keep on insisting. Society, education, commerce, entertainment, information and other several areas were completely transformed by the Internet and new technologies. We strongly believe that now it is the time for our political system. Citizens are demanding more participation and transparency.

Our current participatory and representative democratic system was designed at a time when citizens could not participate in decisions due to physical distance and lack of access to necessary information. With the Internet, the physical distances have been reduced and access to information is instantaneous.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web and the democracy in Paraguay. With the help of the citizens, in short time, we will begin to experience new possibilities of representation and decision. An updated democracy adapted to the Internet era, in Paraguay and the world.