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Latin America, in convulsed mode

2021-07-26T09:36:18.105Z


This is evidenced by the economic setback and the forecasts about the time that the recovery will take.


Carlos Perez Llana

07/25/2021 10:53 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • Opinion

Updated 07/25/2021 10:53 PM

Without having concluded the pandemic, the post-Covid scenarios begin to take shape.

There is no global balance, but the partial ones are appearing and reflect the strengths and weaknesses of regions and countries.

In this provisional exercise, Latin America is among the most affected, as evidenced by the economic downturn and the forecasts about the time that the recovery will take.

In general, these investigations allude to the economy and ignore most of the political variables.

In the case of “normal” countries, the return to the world prior to the crisis can be considered a “possible future”.

But in the case of Latin America, the sum of the economic, social and political-institutional crisis constitutes a disruption that makes a linear reading impossible.

Let's look at some data.

Latin America shows the face of a convulsed reality.

In the Caribbean, the assassination in Haiti made it clear that the category of “failed states” is applicable to a vast geography that includes most of the Central American countries, where emigration is the engine of hope.

In parallel, in the Caribbean it is evident that the Cuban regime is "the past of an illusion" that shows the mutation of a revolution into a counterrevolution.

Paradoxically, what little new is the "Salvadoran model", where an eccentric and messianic president, who has just declared Bitcoin legal currency, Nayib Bukele, is propping up the foundations of a new right-wing dictatorship.

Obviously, the "failed Central American tension" is pressing on Mexico where the demographic pressure of the Isthmus is compounded by a reality that the newspaper Le Monde has just defined as "mafiocracy.

The fall of the PRI, the "most stable authoritarian system of the 20th century," allowed organized crime to achieve autonomy.

The balance of the recent elections and the impact of Covid on society allow us to synthesize the Mexican reality: before the drug cartels infiltrated, now they co-govern.

Not a minor fact: in the “Pacific corridor of narco”, the Morena party -of President López Obrador- governs in eight of the nine states.

Colombia was it?

Mexico is.

In South America, the format of the crisis is different.

There is a very busy electoral agenda, Chile, Colombia and Brazil elect president, and elections have just been held in Ecuador and Peru.

In Chile there was a "rehearsal" in the elections for candidates.

Surely a rule will be enshrined: whoever governs in crisis will lose.

Chile starts with an advantage, has an economy that works, has a state that manages and the candidates with possibilities are rational.

The extreme left and right were defeated.

On the left, social protest and repression in Cuba had a great influence, and on the right, a healthy realism displaced the fundamentalist version.

To some extent the Chilean political formula can survive.

Where the political format totally changed was in Peru.

President-elect Pedro Castillo will face problems: in Congress his weight is minimal;

he will have to “detach himself” from the “Peru Libre” Party that elevated him;

its base of socio-political support is alien to the historical center of Lima's power and the State is a fiction.

Decidedly, the political format changed, corruption killed him.

In addition, Peru is one of the countries most affected by the pandemic.

In Colombia the electoral luck is open.

The "delegative presidentialism" could not manage several crises simultaneously.

Former President Uribe not only imposed on President Duque, but also asphyxiated him in his irrational project to sabotage the peace accords signed by former President Santos.

Failure is in sight on the streets.

If the rule "in pandemic people vote for changes" were fulfilled, the historical power bloc that rotates in the space of the right would be defeated.

A reformist formula could be favored, against Gustavo Petro's left, with the totalitarian regression produced in Cuba.

In short, nothing is closed in Bogotá.

Finally, Brazil is where a large part of the geopolitical balances of the region are at stake.

There is a trap: Bolsonaro opens the doors to Lula's possibilities, but if a third force were to appear capable of displacing him, a non-populist reformist scenario would open in the second round.

In that case, the pandemic will have liberated Brazil.

The international scenario of the post-pandemic must definitely change politics because reality has changed and left Latin America on the edge of the limits of its historical viability.

The way out is far from the worn-out formula of "the great homeland."

It makes no sense to appeal to the logic of the archive, which includes the formulas and advice of the historic multilateral network of Latin America.

There is a new global agenda, fraught with challenges and with new cleavages.

The region will not be able to escape the attraction of the new formats of political, economic and technological power.

Unexpected alliances are appearing in the world that force us to find new directions.

The international order is definitely at stake because there are unprecedented changes.

Far from epic speeches, faced with this new reality, Latin America will come out of “convulsions” as our countries face a strategic adjustment in their foreign policies.

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-07-26

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