3 12. The right to participate in Government, as all juridical categories, has evolved and has been reformulated with historical and social progress. Indeed, its conceptualization has been enhanced over the period that has elapsed since the adoption of the Convention almost 40 years ago. Although, in the initial instruments of the OAS, the reference to representative democracy and political rights was almost exhausted in the right to vote and be elected, the text of the Convention was already an important step in the evolutive meaning of political rights including other important components such as the nature of elections (“…genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voter...” Art. 23(1)(b)). 13. In recent years, this evolution has developed substantially the concept of the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, which, nowadays, is a reference point that includes a very wide variety of components that can range from the right to support the removal of elected authorities, to supervise public administration, to have access to public information, to propose initiatives, to express opinions, etc. Indeed, the broad and general concept of the right “to take part in the conduct of public affairs,” as it appears in the Convention, has been refined and expanded. 14. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the member countries of the Inter-American system share an important characteristic that was almost exceptional when the American Convention on Human Rights was adopted in 1969: all the Governments have been democratically elected. The actual context, resulting from complex political and social processes, has given place to new problems and challenges as regards the participation of the citizen in the conduct of public affairs. This has had an impact on the provisions of the fundamental juridical instruments of the inter-American system. 15. It was in this context that the Inter-American Democratic Charter emerged, adopted by consensus by all the countries of the system in 2001, following a broad consultation process of civil society throughout the continent. In this and other aspects, the Charter embodied conceptual developments which, at that time, were derived from this new situation, giving a new formal dimension to a series of juridical categories, and constituting a transcendental landmark in the interAmerican system as regards the evolutive content of political rights. Among other aspects, the Democratic Charter develops the concept of the said right to take part in the conduct of public affairs and, as a counterpart, the State’s obligations in this regard. 16. The Inter-American Democratic Charter emphasizes the importance of the citizen’s participation as a permanent process that strengthens democracy. Thus, the Charter declares that “Representative democracy is strengthened and deepened by permanent, ethical, and responsible participation of the citizenry within a legal framework conforming to the respective constitutional order” (Article 2). This general declaration acquires a fundamental teleological meaning for the conceptual development of political rights that the Charter itself establishes in its Article 4. The foregoing constitutes an approach based on consensual expression, which is directly related to the interpretation and application of a broad provision such as the one contained in Article 23 of the American Convention. 17. Indeed, Article 4 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter enumerates a series of “essential components” of the exercise of democracy that express the conceptual development of the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, and that are condensed in this inter-American instrument. It underscores a series of State obligations which are merely the counterpart of the rights of citizens: