How did 2022 show the importance of the political ‘center’ in American countries?

Forget for a moment the so-called polarization of recent times. This year, 2022, showed the importance of the center in politics in much of America.

The message came from the polls in countries where the political environment has been getting hotter lately. Centrist voters and politicians played a decisive role in this year’s elections in two of Latin America’s three largest democracies, Brazil and Colombia.

Left-wing candidates such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Gustavo Petro have triumphed in both countries, after calling for moderation against opponents considered to be at the far end of the political spectrum.

In Chile, a constitutional amendment that was radical in relation to the more moderate political positions predominant in the country’s electorate, according to experts’ analysis, was widely rejected.

Even in the US midterm elections in November, moderate politicians won in undecided states against controversial and extremist candidates backed by former President Donald Trump.

“There is a disillusionment with traditional politics, but at the same time people are not willing to go to extremes,” says Michael Shifter, former head of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington (USA) research center.

‘Central approval’

Studies in Latin America show that between 40% and 50% of the region’s population are closer to the center of the political spectrum, with the rest leaning left or right.

This panorama has remained unchanged in recent years, despite the collapse of centrist parties and nominations in many countries.

“The population is central, but you can’t find political parties that represent it,” says Shifter, a professor of Latin American studies at Georgetown University.

“In Brazil, Colombia and Chile, people no longer identify with traditional centre-left or centre-right parties.”

Faced with this phenomenon, Lula has bet on forming alliances beyond the Labor Party (PT), which includes electing his former centre-right rival Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) as his vice-presidential candidate.

In the second round in October, Lula had the support of Simone Tebet (MDB) and former Tucano president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), who saw President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) as a threat to democracy.

With the support of voters and politicians described as centrist, Lula defeated Bolsonaro by a small margin (50.9% versus 49.1%) and is poised to return to the presidency on January 1.

Speaking to BBC News Mundo (BBC Spanish service) the night his friend from Brazil was re-elected president, former Uruguayan President José Mujica said: “Lula has never been a radical in the full sense of the word.

In Colombia, former guerrilla fighter and economist Gustavo Petro became the country’s first left-wing president. This was his third attempt to be elected to the post, and the victory came four years after major defeats in previous elections.

Petro targeted the center for this too: he softened his speech, formed a coalition with different powers, assured that he would avoid the fate of neighboring Venezuela (he went so far as to associate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with a “politics of death”) and centrist José Antonio Ocampo. He predicted that he would nominate .

Thus, Bogotá’s former mayor managed to add 2.7 million more votes than in the first round, defeating the right-wing Rodolfo Hernández, whom many saw as unpredictable and less ready to rule.

These are similar stories that have been repeated frequently in the region since many countries rescued democracy nearly 35 years ago.

“Since the transition from authoritarian regimes to democracies, there have been just over 100 elections in Latin America. If we look at all of them, we find that in reality both the right and the left are polarized and lead. He says he heard.

“As they got less radical, they got the center’s approval.”

a variable vote

The crisis of representation in recent years has paved the way for the rise of power. foreigners – people with little or no experience in politics.

This was evident even in another election on the continent this year. Rodrigo Chaves, a little-known economist in Costa Rica, was elected president in April in an anti-government speech.establishment.

Lagos warns that the scenario in the region is ripe for the emergence of populists “disguised as centrists and moderates”, as the collapse of party systems has rendered voters more volatile and even more difficult to capture in opinion polls.

“Previously, it was possible to identify which side the center was on. Now, this is no longer because the center is looking for an ideology or a set of values, but for solutions to problems,” says the analyst.

And voters seem to have lost patience with their rulers.

In 2022, power in Latin America continued to be an alternation of power. In the last 14 free presidential elections held in the region since 2019, the votes changed the ruling parties.

For now, this has created a wave of left-leaning victories in the region, but the persistence of this trend is uncertain.

The unpredictability of the Latin American electorate was reflected in Chile in September, with 62% of voters rejecting the text of the new constitution backed by left-wing President Gabriel Boric, who took office just six months ago.

Thus, as Lagos analyzed, there were many Boric voters who opposed the proposed amendments to the Constitution, who felt they were “not for everyone and crossed the line”.

Subsequently, Boric announced a change in his government with greater involvement of the traditional centre-left.

The Chilean president has asked for another founding process to be opened in Congress, where there is already a fundamental agreement accepted by 14 parties. The aim is to hold a new referendum on constitutional amendments in November 2023.

Next year, presidential elections will be held in three countries in the region: Paraguay (April), Guatemala (June) and Argentina (October).

Questions already arise: will the victories of the left in the region be repeated here or will there be a new shift to the right? Whatever the victorious side, the “center” should be nearby as the guarantor.