16/08/2022 13:47 A new group of left-wing presidents takes over in Latin America | The Economist

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The Americas | Many shades of pink

A new group of left-wing presidents takes

over in Latin America
They have more differences than similarities

Mar 12th 2022 | LIMA, MEXICO CITY, SANTIAGO AND SÃO PAULO Save Share Give

W hen gabriel boric, who is 36 and calls himself a “libertarian socialist”, is sworn
in as Chile’s president on March 11th it will mark the most radical reshaping of
his country’s politics in more than 30 years. His election in December is also widely
seen as part of a new “pink tide” of left-wing governments in Latin America. It followed
the victory of left-of-centre presidential candidates in Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia
between 2018 and 2020 and in Peru and Honduras last year. Two left-wingers, Gustavo
Petro in Colombia and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, the region’s most populous
country, lead in opinion polls ahead of presidential elections in May and October
respectively. Latin America, it seems, is poised to swing decisively to the left (see map).

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The picture is more complicated than it looks. The dominant trend for several years has
been anti-incumbency, at least where elections are fair. The left has done well mainly
because voters rejected right-leaning governments, which have had to deal with
economic stagnation and then the pandemic. Region-wide surveys show that voters
cluster in the centre. But they want better public services and think that their countries
are governed for the benefit of a privileged few, which can help the left.

Mr Boric’s victory, and that of Pedro Castillo, a

rural schoolteacher with no formal political
experience, in Peru last June brought
comparisons with an earlier pink tide. That
began with the election of Hugo Chávez in
Venezuela in 1998. It included the likes of Lula
in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Néstor
Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner in Argentina and Rafael Correa in
Ecuador. In an article in 2006 in Foreign
Affairs, a journal, Jorge Castañeda, a former
Mexican foreign minister, argued that there
were “two lefts” in the region. One,
represented by Lula and the Workers’ Party in
Brazil, the Broad Front in Uruguay and the
centre-left Concertación coalition in Chile,
was “modern, open-minded, reformist, and
internationalist”. The other was “nationalist,
strident and closed-minded” and came from
Latin America’s tradition of populism. This
left included Chávez, Mr Morales, the
Kirchners and later Mr Correa in Ecuador, all of whom nationalised businesses and
railed against American imperialism.

In some respects that distinction still holds today. “I don’t see a homogenous
progressive axis from Mexico City to Santiago,” says Mr Castañeda. If anything, there are
even more variations than in the past.

In part, that is because of what is about to happen in Santiago. Mr Boric represents

something new. Although he, like all leftists, worries about economic inequality and
looks to the state to reduce it, he will bring to Chile’s presidency the concerns of his
generation. For Mr Boric, the “existential issues” are “climate change, gender inequality
and the recognition of indigenous communities”, says Robert Funk, a political scientist.
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Argentina’s Peronist president, Alberto Fernández, shares Mr Boric’s social liberalism

and Mr Petro in Colombia his greenery. The Chilean combines those 21st-century

priorities. Mr Boric’s electoral programme mentioned gender 94 times and economic

growth just nine times.

Unlike Chávez and Ms Fernández de Kirchner, now Argentina’s vice-president, he is a

consensus-builder, not a flame-thrower. Mr Boric uses social media to establish rapport
with his supporters rather than to rile them up. He posts poetry, is frank about his
obsessive-compulsive disorder and gushes about his caramel-coloured rescue dog,
He is distinctive
Brownie, in other
which has ways.
389,000 Whereas
followers onold-fashioned
Instagram. leftists defend dictators who
claim to oppose American imperialism, Chile’s president-elect is a full-throated fan of
democracy. He condemned the invasion of Ukraine and criticises human-rights abuses
by Latin America’s three leftist dictatorships: Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. He has
invited to his inauguration writers forced into exile by Nicaragua’s despot, Daniel
Ortega.

Mr Petro may join Mr Boric as a rare critic of such strongmen. Until recently a fan of
Chávez, he now scolds his successor, Nicolás Maduro, especially for his dependence on
fossil fuels, and accuses Mr Ortega of turning “a dream of liberation into a banana
dictatorship”.

But several elected leftists defend autocrats as long as they are anti-American. The
governments of Argentina and Peru were among the 94 that sponsored a resolution at
the un General Assembly condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Mr
Fernández, Argentina’s president, visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month offering
to be “the entry point” for Russia in Latin America.

Mexico’s government has tried to have its tortilla and eat it: Marcelo Ebrard, the foreign
minister, condemned the invasion. But Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the populist
president, who is often known as amlo, said blandly that he wanted to keep good
relations with all countries and criticised the “censorship” of Russian state media by
social networks in the West. He praises Cuba as “an example of resistance” but has
criticised repression in Nicaragua. Lula refuses to denounce the tyrants.

Some leaders of the last pink tide were themselves aspiring dictators. Mr Morales in
Bolivia and Mr Correa in Ecuador followed Chávez’s example in using new constitutions
to take over the judiciary and other independent institutions. The newer presidents
tend to chip away at, rather than sweep away, the separation of powers. amlo has given
more duties to the army, which he controls. He has placed cronies in regulatory bodies
and slashed the budget of the independent electoral authority. But he remains
constrained by Mexico’s judiciary and his parliamentary majority was reduced in a mid-
term election last year.
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Peru’s Mr Castillo, who stood on a hard-left platform, stirred fears that he is plotting a
Chávez-like power grab by calling for a constituent assembly to rewrite the
constitution. But he is too weak to succeed. His supporters, faction-ridden themselves,

have only 44 of the 130 seats in Congress, which repeatedly threatens to impeach him.
Mr Petro has dropped his call for a constituent assembly but would seek decree powers
to deal with Colombia’s economy. The risks of such overreach seem smaller with Lula.
As Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010 he was generally respectful of independent
institutions.
In Chile the main worry is that a constitutional convention elected in May 2021, in
which the far-left has a large presence, may not be as liberal as the incoming president.
Among its early proposals are the abolition of the Senate, which is split equally between
allies of the new government and the opposition, and curbs on free speech.

Today’s left-wing governments face tougher economic times than did their
predecessors, which were helped by a commodity boom. Although commodity prices
have risen, especially in recent days, the bonanza may be smaller. The pandemic has
increased demands for social spending and, with interest rates rising, public debt will
be more expensive to service.

This means there is likely to be less statism and more pragmatism than in the previous
pink tide. Most leftist leaders are in favour of fiscal responsibility and independent
central banks. Lula, who was economically prudent during his presidency, appears
poised to pick as his running mate Geraldo Alckmin, a former governor of São Paulo
who is close to the private sector.

But pragmatism is not universal. Mr Castillo, who remains an enigma after seven
months in office, announced the “nationalisation” of a gas field. But that proposal was
stillborn partly because of opposition within his government. Debt-ridden Argentina
remains defiantly unorthodox: it has increased untargeted energy and transport
subsidies. amlo’s government spent less than almost every other in the region as a
share of gdp to fight the effects of the pandemic. But it has poured money into Pemex,
the state-owned oil firm, and is trying to change the constitution to penalise private
investors in energy.

Thirty-two years younger than amlo, Mr Boric has more fashionable views on
everything from the economy to social issues, though he retains something of the old
left’s scepticism of the private sector. He wants to make Chile more social democratic,
with universal free health care and bigger public pensions, and plans to forgive student
debt. He champions a “green transition”, which would phase out coal, and plans to set
up a state firm to mine lithium, used in electric-car batteries. He backs feminism,
abortion and gay rights. The only other leader who comes close to his social liberalism
is Argentina’s President Fernández, who secured a law to allow abortion in 2020.
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Other leftists are more conservative on social issues and, in most cases, more retrograde
on environmental ones. Mr Petro has been guarded in his reaction to a decision by
Colombia’s constitutional court last month to allow abortion on demand in the first 24
weeks of pregnancy. Lula is cautious about abortion, too, since he fears losing the votes
of evangelical Protestants, who make up almost a third of Brazil’s electorate. The
Peruvian and Mexican leaders have both angered feminists. Mr Castillo appointed to his
cabinet men accused of beating women (though he sacked them after a public outcry).
amlo has claimed that protests against femicides were staged by his opponents.

Luis Arce, Mr Morales’s successor in Bolivia, shares amlo’s enthusiasm for fossil fuels,
and so probably would Lula, though he would endeavour to slow the despoliation of the
Amazon rainforest that has taken place under Brazil’s rightist president, Jair Bolsonaro.
At the other extreme is Mr Petro, who wants Colombia to cease to invest in its oil and
coal industries, which between them provide half of its exports. He has suggested that
coffee and tourism could replace them, but that seems unlikely for a long time.

Despite their differences, there is a lot of fellow-feeling among the new leftists. amlo
talks of a Mexico City-Buenos Aires axis. Mr Boric has said he hopes to work closely
with Mr Arce, Lula and Mr Petro. The most significant of them could be Lula, if he wins,
because of his experience and the weight of Brazil. While each left-led country has its
own ways, “I think Lula will be some sort of equilibrium” among them, says Celso
Amorim, his former foreign minister. But for now, all eyes will be on the boyish Mr
Boric. 7

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Many shades of pink"

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