It may not be a return of the “Pink Tide” of leftist governments that swept into power across South America in the early 2000s—and were largely swept out again amid a conservative backlash in the mid-2010s. But the region’s left has been showing signs of revival.
In Argentina’s October 2019 presidential election, the moderate-left Peronist candidate, Alberto Fernandez, ousted the market-friendly incumbent, Mauricio Macri, whose austerity measures and heavy borrowing triggered an economic crisis that cost him the presidency. In October 2020, Bolivia returned the Movement Toward Socialism to power in the first presidential election since Evo Morales was ousted, and last year Pedro Castillo, a far-left teacher with no previous experience as an elected official, won Peru’s presidential election. And most recently, Gabriel Boric, a former student protest leader and leftist legislator, became the youngest president in Chile’s history after taking office in March.
The conservative wave that followed the Pink Tide is far from ebbing, though. The 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil was a particular blow to the region’s progressives, and he has justified their fears. His administration has curbed the fight against corruption and downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, even as he has continued to denigrate the country’s Indigenous communities and undermined the country’s democratic norms. In Uruguay, conservatives took control of the government in 2019 from the leftist Broad Front coalition that had been in power for a decade and a half. More recently, conservative Guillermo Lasso won Ecuador’s presidential election in May 2021, and Argentina’s ruling Peronist government suffered a major setback in midterm elections in November of the same year.
Venezuela’s regime remains as the last holdout of South America’s Pink Tide. But the Bolivarian revolution that began under former President Hugo Chavez has transformed into an economic and humanitarian disaster under his successor, Nicolas Maduro. The attempt to dislodge Maduro and replace him with Juan Guaido in 2018 gained the support of the U.S. as well as governments across the region and the world. But that effort flagged, and Guaido is now struggling to keep his movement from fading into irrelevance.
Major advances in the region are also in danger. Colombia’s fragile peace process faltered after President Ivan Duque’s hostility to the deal resulted in half-hearted implementation of its measures. Meanwhile, the illicit drug trade is booming, as is organized crime, even as corruption continues to flourish. The coronavirus pandemic added another immense challenge to South America’s public health systems and economies, with implications for leaders who failed to take the threat seriously. And now the spike in food and energy prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is poised to introduce further economic upheaval, with potential political consequences.
Prior to the pandemic, Russia and China sought to deepen trade ties with countries across the region. America, threatened by Moscow and Beijing’s newfound interest, has accused them of propping up corrupt governments and is taking steps to shore up its own partnerships in South America. But if the recent Summit of the Americas, which ended up being a diplomatic fiasco, is any indication, President Joe Biden will struggle to advance U.S. interests in a region that quite simply no longer depends on Washington any longer.
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