Latin America broke in 2023with the recent victory of Javier Milei in the Argentine presidential electionsthe political trend of turning to the left that had been taking place two years before in the governments of the region such as Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Honduras.
The breakup was confirmed with Ecuador and Paraguay, who remained on the right after their respective elections, an inclination from which, during this year that is ending, only Guatemala distanced itself in a controversial electoral process that the Prosecutor's Office has kept judicialized since last July, in order to reverse the results.
With the emergence of Milei, this libertarian economist kicked the Argentine political board with an incendiary “anti-corruption” and “anti-caste” speech, disruptive ways of appearing publicly and an attitude closer to that of a rockstar than that of a congressman.
In practice, its policy means moving from the protectionism of the outgoing Peronism to the most absolute liberalization of any transaction: from the swollen size of the State to its drastic reduction – including the privatization of public companies – of social plans for those most vulnerable to training to find a life.
Furthermore, the new president disassociates himself from the 2030 Agenda and is a denier of climate change and of the 30,000 disappeared from the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983) that human rights organizations point out, and of whom he only recognizes 8,751.
Given the severe socioeconomic crisis that Argentina is going through, with figures close to 150 percent year-on-year inflation, with almost half of the population below the poverty line, with a shortage of reserves and a debt close to 46,000 million dollars with the IMF, voters opted for radical change, hoping that it would result in the improvement that Milei promised.
The leftist trend that swept Latin America in 2021 and 2022 was also stopped by Ecuador and Paraguay, two countries that were already located on the right-wing spectrum and remained on the same side of the political map, although, in the Ecuadorian case, The new president, Daniel Noboa, positions himself more to the center than his predecessor, the conservative Guillermo Lasso.
Although in the electoral campaign he defined himself as center-left, the approaches of Noboa, who comes from one of the richest families in the country, are framed in the center-right, and he differs from his predecessors in his conciliatory tone to agree with Correismo and in the gender approach, with an almost equal ministerial cabinet.
Although the Ecuadorian presidential elections were not on the calendar for 2023, the country had elections after the abrupt dissolution of the National Assembly – with an opposition majority – by Lasso, as a way out of a political crisis in which the Legislature sought his dismissal. .
Paraguay also remains on the right, without major changes, with the continuity of the traditional Colorado Party, with a conservative and liberal tendency.
With the arrival to power of Santiago Peña replacing Mario Abdo Benítez, the political formation, which has governed almost uninterruptedly since 1948 – with the exception of the period 2008-2013 – is consolidated in the southern country.
In 2024, presidential elections will be held in Venezuela (second half, no date set), El Salvador (February), Panama (May), the Dominican Republic (May), Mexico (June) and Uruguay (October).
With diverse ideologies and disparate candidates, next year's electoral marathon in Latin America is expected to bring some twists, but the most striking are those of gender, especially in Mexico.
There, the victory of a woman is almost assured, with the candidacy of Claudia Sheinbaum for the ruling Morena and its allies (Labor Party and the Green Party), and Xóchitl Gálvez for the Frente Amplio (National Action Party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the Party of the Democratic Revolution).
According to the polls, half a year before the elections, Sheinbaum leads the voting intention with an advantage, followed by Gálvez at a distance, which would keep the ruling party in power and thus continue the leftist policies of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but led by a female face.
EFE
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