BBC News Brasil Differences between the advance of the left in Latin America and the ‘pink wave’ of two decades 04/07/2022 07:59

One after another, different Latin American countries are electing left-wing governments, and a new political wave seems to be taking place in the region.

Since 2018, leaders on the left of the political spectrum have reached the presidency of Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Chile and Colombia.

This phenomenon could be rounded off in the October elections in Brazil, where former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) had a broad advantage in voting intent polls.

Although other countries in the region had elected governments from different political currents in recent years, Lula’s victory would put Latin America’s seven most populous countries and six largest economies in the hands of the left.

For some, this all echoes what happened in the first decade of this century on the subcontinent, when three in four South Americans were ruled by left-wing presidents.

But there are big differences between this “pink wave” that swept across Latin America and the current progressive wave, which, according to experts, risks being more limited.

In the early 2000s, the term “pink tide” or “pink tide” was used to describe the left turn in the region by Larry Rohter, then correspondent of the American newspaper The New York Times, during the election of Tabaré Vásquez in Uruguay.

According to Rohter, the rise to power of the socialist was part of “a rose, not a scarlet wave,” referring to the substitution of a soft shade of “pink” for red, a color associated with communism. It shows the rise of social democratic ideals.

Previously, the term referred to a stage in national politics in the mid-1990s when elections were won by such names as French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (from the Socialist Party) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (from the Socialist Party). Labor party).

a “gradient”

In the context of anger by politicians, inequality and economic recession, the votes of Latin Americans have been swinging lately: left to right and now left again.

The rule in democratic elections in the region is the victory of the opposition.

“The important thing is to switch sides to see if things get better, because discontent in Latin America has never been greater,” Marta Lagos, director of regional opinion poll Latinobarómetro, told BBC News Mundo. BBC Spanish news service.

“Every day ideology becomes less relevant to elections,” he adds. “People gather in the center of politics, on the side where the voters in the center approach. They give the victory to those who govern.”

Do the left-wing candidates in the region have anything in common? and that seems to help them attract the critical centrist votes? It places more emphasis on state action to reduce economic inequality.

Previously, left-wing presidents were distinguished by being more radical like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or moderate like Lula or Chile’s Michelle Bachelet.

The rulers of the new wave are much more heterogeneous.

Lagos divides them into four different types of left: new (where he installed elected presidents in Chile and Colombia), populist (Mexico), traditional (Argentina, Bolivia and Honduras) or dictatorial (in his view, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. have been in power for years. ).

And some left leaders today seem more willing than in the past to distance themselves from others in the region.

Before being elected president of Chile, Gabriel Boric criticized the crackdown on dissidents in Cuba and Nicaragua, telling BBC News Mundo in January after his election victory that “Venezuela is a failed experiment”.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro spoke of a “cowardly left” in February, something many interpreted as a reaction to Boric.

Meanwhile, Colombian president-elect Gustavo Petro has described Maduro as a “dictator” as he prepares to re-establish relations with his government.

German sociologist Heinz Dieterich, who coined the concept of “21st century socialism”, which Chávez later referred to in 2005, argues that this expression is used today in Chile, Argentina or Bolivia.

“None of these governments want 20th century socialism, Cuba’s socialism,” Dieterich told BBC News Mundo. “But they also don’t want 21st century socialism because that means overcoming a market economy and having a strong state that can control companies.”

“Life is so different”

Perhaps the biggest difference between the left wave of the past and the current wave in Latin America is the scenario in which they emerged.

Between 2000 and 2014, the international boom in commodities (raw materials from the primary sector and traded on exchanges) gave regional heads a huge check to invest in all kinds of social programs and government projects.

This, in turn, consolidated broad political-electoral support with legislative majorities for governments carrying out reforms and re-elections everywhere.

Former presidents such as Ecuadorian Rafael Correa, Bolivian Evo Morales, and Chavez came to change their countries’ constitutions and implemented different consecutive terms.

Now, with a war in Europe, rising inflation and rising prices of both credit and inputs, the economies of the region are struggling to take advantage of rising commodity prices.

And governments may spend far less than their citizens would like during the Covid-19 pandemic and social instability.

This contradicts the agenda of the former leaders of the “pink tide”, who prioritized oil exploration from Chavez to Lula.

Indeed, the differences remain: Lula recently said that the Colombian Petro’s idea of ​​forming an anti-oil bloc with progressive regional leaders is “not real” in this world.

Other left-wing presidents, such as Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Bolivia’s Luis Arce, are also betting on the extraction industries.

However, Lagos says the new policy Boric and Petro propose today is perhaps more in line with society than the old policy.

“There is an environmental awareness in Latin America,” says the director of Latinobarómetro. “So any environmentally correct policy will have massive support from the population.”

– This text was originally published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-61989885.

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