Just over a decade ago, Latin America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist, technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American free trade agreement, was ready for his handpicked successor to win the next presidential election. In Brazil, former finance minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso was about to beat the radical labour leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the presidency. Argentine president Carlos Menem had pegged the peso to the dollar and put his populist Peronist legacy behind him. And at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, Latin American leaders were preparing to gather in Miami for the summit of the Americas, signalling an unprecedented convergence between the southern and northern halves of the western hemisphere.

What a difference ten years makes. Although the region has just enjoyed its best two years of economic growth in a long time and threats to democratic rule are rare, the picture today is transformed. Latin America has swerved left, and backlashes are under way against the dominant trends of free-market reform, agreement with the US on many issues and consolidation of representative democracy.

Starting with Hugo Chávez’s victory in Venezuela eight years ago, a wave of leaders, parties and movements generically labelled “leftist” have swept into power in one Latin American country after another. After Chávez, it was Lula and the Workers’ party in Brazil, then Néstor Kirchner in Argentina and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, and then, earlier this year, Evo Morales in Bolivia. In Peru, Ollanta Humala lost the presidential run-off to Alan García in June by a small margin. More importantly, García, despite everything he has learned over the past 20 years since he was first president, only fails to qualify for the leftist label now because he had someone more extreme to his left. And while Andrés Manuel López Obrador ultimately lost the recent Mexican election, he obtained the highest score ever for a left-wing candidate and his party achieved its greatest ever representation in congress. Given the distinct possibility that Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas will return to power in Nicaragua in November, it seems that a real left-wing earthquake has shaken the region.

• Share
•  Subscribe to post comments