The triumph of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, a traditionally conservative country, comes with a possible new wave of left-leaning governments in the region. Although the last Latin American elections have shown the success of progressive candidates, the rulers, united under a generous definition of the left, present differences in their models and face very different realities, which reduce their margins of manoeuvre.
The arrival of Gustavo Petro to the Presidency of Colombia once again put the magnifying glass on a recent phenomenon in Latin America: a new turn of the voters towards governments with a tendency to the left.
This new wave began with the triumph of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, in 2018. And behind him were Alberto Fernández (2019) in Argentina, Luis Abinader (2020) in the Dominican Republic, Luis Arce (2020) in Bolivia, Pedro Castillo (2021) in Peru, Xiomara Castro (2021) in Honduras and Gabriel Boric (2021) in Chile. The panorama could be expanded at the end of 2022 if Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva prevails in the Brazilian presidential elections.
Now, the leftist ideological umbrella that brings together these leaders is very broad and heterogeneous, and the generous label runs the risk of ignoring the different realities of each country.
If during the 2000s, the wave of leftist Latin American governments with exponents such as Hugo Chávez, Néstor Kirchner, Evo Morales or Lula da Silva himself marked a paradigm shift and installed the idea of a possible regional cooperation under the concept of the ‘Homeland Grande’, this new rise of the left seems to appear less as a transversal axis and more as specific responses of societies to the traditional political elite and the lack of solutions to structural problems such as corruption, poverty and inequality. All this aggravated by a pandemic that took Latin America to the levels of the last century.
Petro and Boric, two leaders who made their way with the social protest
In an article published in March by the site Latin America 21, Diego Raus, an Argentine political analyst, wondered which left is gaining ground in Latin America. On this he highlighted “the evident heterogeneity of its nature and its programmatic objectives.”
In this differentiation, several analysts agree in grouping Petro and Boric as referents of a left with social democratic overtones, which does not champion anti-capitalist discourses and, above all, emerge as leaders in response to the social demands left by the waves of protests in Chile. and Colombia between 2019 and 2020.
In a dialogue with France 24, Patricio Zamorano, director of the Council for Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, DC, stressed that these two countries “are very similar, with quite significant levels of chronic inequality and poverty.”
“(Petro’s victory) says a lot about the failure of the capitalist and purely neoliberal model,” he stressed, adding that “it is a vote of no confidence against the most conservative policies of recent decades.”
For Chilean journalist Paola Martínez Infante, “social movements are a common denominator” when outlining a profile of the new Latin American left, but she clarified that “later, each government must adapt these general demands for social justice.”
“They are universal rights, to education, to health, to a dignified life. They are universal things and each country and each policy adapts according to their social realities,” he explained on the France 24 and RFI program ‘En Primera Plana’.
In that same broadcast, Lissell Quiroz, historian and professor of Latin American studies at the University of Cergy, stated that “one cannot speak of a Latin American left” because “social groups have different political agendas.”
However, for this Peruvian analyst, the rise of the left goes hand in hand with the rise of minorities and social movements, led by women, indigenous people and Afro-Latinos. “Minority groups, which in the history of Latin America were not so present, now raise their voices and come out to make their demands publicly and within this political system,” she stressed.
Another component that, according to Quiroz, sustains the turn to the left is that “the traditional parties no longer have a great reception in the Latin American populations.”
“There is a very important criticism of these parties as part of the corrupt political system and that they have been totally deficient in recent times. Social movements are much more innovative, much more flexible, much more dynamic and that is weighing on the recomposition of the Latin American political scene,” he said.
Once again, Chile and Colombia are presented as main examples of this idea, given that the historical formations did not even reach the second electoral round.
The ‘pink wave’ and the concept of the pendulum, two theories that are being renewed in Latin America
The idea of ’pink wave’ (or pink tide, in Spanish) was used by political analysts to mark the trend towards the left that emerged in Latin America at the beginning of the 21st century. In this case, pink was used to differentiate red from the movements more aligned with communism and the extreme left that made inroads in the second half of the 20th century and that, in most cases, were suffocated by military coups sponsored by the United States. Joined. Cuba was the exception, with the establishment of Fidel Castro’s model, which continues to this day.
In his opinion column published by the Canadian newspaper ‘The Hamilton Spectator‘ On June 17, the British journalist and writer Gwynne Dyer revived the term ‘pink tide’ to encompass these new “non-violent social democratic leaders, competing in democratic elections with conservative parties that defend the interests of the local ‘establishments’ “.
But if there is this new ‘pink tide’ that emerged from 2018-2019, several of its main referents -Boric, Castillo and Petro, mainly- seek to distance themselves from its predecessor, whose exponents persist in Nicaragua and Venezuela, under the authoritarian governments of Daniel Ortega and Nicolás Maduro, respectively.
And when it comes to explaining this resurgence of the left in Latin America, several analysts return to the idea of the pendulum, coined by the sociologist Manuel Mora y Araujo to stage the elections between the right and the left in the region.
Under this concept, this new leftist wave would be one more swing of the pendulum after the failure of the right-wing governments that emerged after the fall of the “Bolivarian” left (which, in turn, was born as a response to the neoliberal right-wing policies of the 90s).
Economic crisis, political division and demanding citizenship, challenges of the new leftist leaders
If it is a matter of differentiating concepts and realities, it is also worth noting the various moments that these new leftist leaders are going through.
López Obrador and Abinader spend half of their terms with a positive assessment, according to various surveys, as does Luis Arce, whom some surveys place as a potential candidate for re-election in 2024.
Different is the case of Alberto Fernández in Argentina, who faces criticism both from the opposition (from left to right) and from his own government coalition. The Kirchnerist wing, led by his vice president Cristina Fernández, has turned against him and the prospects of a new political turn in the 2023 elections are increasingly high.
Nor have the beginnings of the new rulers been easy. Pedro Castillo, in Peru, is being investigated for possible corruption and, even without serving a year in office, has changed his government four times and has faced opposition protests and motions for impeachment in Congress.
For her part, Xiomara Castro, in Honduras, reached her first 100 days with several pending promises; while Boric, in Chile, also reached his centenary of days in power with a deteriorated image, due to the security crisis due to the conflict with the Mapuche -which led him to contradict one of his campaign promises and decree a state of emergency in La Araucanía- and high inflation.
These scenarios show that, beyond the political shift, Latin American governments face a strongly weakened economic situation after the pandemic, parliamentary opposition with enough power to curb their agendas, and citizens who demand answers and do not hesitate to electorally punish non-compliance. .
A cocktail that, added to the structural problems of poverty, inequality and shortages in key sectors such as education and health, reduce the room for maneuver of the rulers. A panorama that can serve as a warning for Gustavo Petro in Colombia, the last to join the new leftist wave in Latin America.
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