Earlier this year, it seemed as if the “pink tide” of leftist governments that swept across Latin America in the early 2000s had all but retreated. The wave of conservative governments that replaced them owed their rise in part to the region’s economic difficulties following the end of the commodities boom of the first decade of the 21st century. But they also took advantage of the failure by many of the leftist leaders to translate that economic boom into sustainable advances for the lower and middle classes. The election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018, after a campaign spent vilifying women as well as marginalized and indigenous communities, was a particular blow to the region’s progressives.
More recently, the South American left has shown signs of a revival. Argentina’s center-left Peronist candidate, Alberto Fernandez, ousted the market-friendly incumbent, Mauricio Macri, in that country’s presidential election in October. Macri had won office in 2015 pledging to remedy the economic missteps of his Peronist predecessor, but his austerity measures and heavy borrowing triggered an economic crisis that cost him the presidency. And massive protests in Ecuador and Chile forced the governments in those countries to backtrack on austerity measures, calling into question in the case of Chile the country’s longstanding neoliberal economic model.
Nevertheless, the fall in early November of Bolivian President Evo Morales after a disputed election left Venezuela’s regime as the last survivor of South America’s earlier leftist transformation. But the Bolivarian revolution that began under former President Hugo Chavez has transformed into an economic and humanitarian disaster under his successor, Nicolas Maduro. Maduro managed to eke out reelection in 2018 amid complaints of voting irregularities. Now much of the region, with Washington’s backing, has coalesced around an effort to push him from office by supporting what some skeptics have called an attempted coup.
Major advances in the region are also in danger. Colombia’s fragile peace process is at risk of falling apart after President Ivan Duque dragged out the establishment of a tribunal to judge and punish war crimes. Meanwhile, the illicit drug trade across the region is booming, as is organized crime, even as corruption continues to flourish.
That has not stemmed efforts by Russia and China to deepen trade ties with countries across the region, though. America, threatened by Moscow and Beijing’s newfound interest, has accused the other global powers of propping up corrupt governments and is taking steps to shore up its own partnerships in South America.
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