Who make up the new wave of the left in Latin America?
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(CNN Spanish) --
When Hugo Chávez ruled in Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led Brazil, and Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández in Argentina consolidated their popularity, Colombia continued to travel a path in parallel to the wave of leftist governments that dominated the preferences of Latin American voters at the beginning of the 21st century.
But now, Colombia has taken a turn.
After several years of right-wing or center-right governments in the figures of Álvaro Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos and more recently Iván Duque, now the candidate of the Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro, has just won the elections with a progressive program.
The new left in Latin America: how are the recently elected progressive presidents alike (and different)?
Colombia is not alone.
In Chile, Gabriel Boric became president in 2021, the same year as Xiomara Castro in Honduras and Pedro Castillo in Peru.
Before them, Alberto Fernández in Argentina (2019) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico (2018) already ruled.
As at the beginning of the 21st century, the progressive candidates have won the last presidential elections, and in 2022 the transcendental elections in Brazil still lie ahead, where Jair Bolsonaro, one of the last presidents and right-wing referents on the continent, will try to be re-elected competing with none other than Lula, a symbol of the left trying to return to power and leading in the polls.
Will the left in Colombia follow in the footsteps of Venezuela?
1:41
What differences could this new wave of progressive governments have with the previous one?
Experts and analysts consulted by CNN offer this roadmap.
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Similarities and differences in contexts
Almost 20 years have passed since Chavez, who died in 2013, promoted the ideas of a "21st century socialism" during the World Social Forum in Caracas in 2005, and the contexts have changed.
It was a different Latin America, which was trying to adjust to the great changes in the United States after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and its relative absence in the region, with countries that were going through or coming out of major economic crises —such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. —and that it was beginning to benefit from the high prices of raw materials.
The current world, on the other hand, is just coming out of the covid-19 pandemic and its effects on health and the economy, and Latin America has not yet recovered from the economic collapse caused by confinement, while some countries, such as Argentina and especially the Venezuela of Chávez - today governed by Nicolás Maduro -, were already in crisis before the pandemic.
Has Latin America turned to the left?
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Meanwhile the war in Ukraine has further strained supply chains, especially from the oil boom, and pushes commodity prices up again, this time accompanied by high inflation almost everywhere in the world.
Towards a new progressivism?
"More than a new left, there is a new progressivism, which differs from the first cycle we had in the 2000s with Chávez, with Morales, with Correa," said Mauricio Jaramillo, a professor at the Faculty of International, Political and Urban Studies at the Universidad del Rosario, in Colombia, to CNN.
"They were more personalistic progressives, they wanted to make refoundations, new constitutions, new legal frameworks, as happened effectively in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, now we have a more moderate and multi-sector progressive, it is no longer the figure of a one person, It is no longer Boric, it is not Petro, it is not Fernández, today we are talking about a much more moderate and focused progressivism, more center-left than left, more responsible towards the market, more moderate towards the relationship with the United States," he added. .
For Jaramillo, there is also a common denominator in the energy transition —part of the Petro platform— and an agenda linked to caring for the environment, considering that in the past Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela focused on an extractivist model.
Meet Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first leftist president 3:41
Thus, he sees a more limited margin of action for this new left, which in no case has absolute power or large majorities in congress, and which will have to make concessions.
"In the case of Argentina we saw it because of the agreement with the IMF, in the case of Chile because of the open market model that has to be maintained, and in Colombia there are macro and country risk indicators that must be maintained. Therefore there will be deep but gradual and very gradual reforms, without abrupt and radical changes, even more so in a context of war in Ukraine that has an impact on inflation, supplies and international trade," he said.
The consequences of the pandemic
Sandra Borda, international political analyst and former candidate for senator for the New Liberalism in Colombia, believes that the regional trend responds in part to the covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020.
"Due to the dynamics of the pandemic and confinement, in all parts of the world there are transition processes towards governments of different tendencies," he told Juan Pablo Varsky, from CNN en Español.
"Simply because people are collecting the result of management in health and economic matters."
"In the case of Latin America, there is a movement to the left but it is not the same left as a decade ago, it is not again the pink wave of the times of Chávez, Lula, Unasur and CELAC. I believe that this movement it is from a very different left, a little more modern and with the intention of acting collectively but under different premises," he said.
Gabriel Boric, the new face of the left in Latin America 3:16
"There is a tendency, the governments that are more inclined to the right have fared worse than those governments that today are leaning to the left," Eduardo Gamarra, a professor at Florida International University, told CNN en Español's Rafael Romo. .
Gamarra said, however, that "it is important not to put the entire Latin American left in the same bag. The Chilean left has a quite different trajectory, it has been a government. The communist party (of Chile) is a different party from the communist parties region of".
"The real test that this government will have to pass will be its position on human rights violations in those leftist governments that still claim to be democracies."
"More brakes than accelerators"
Andrés Oppenheimer, from CNN, referred to a new "pink tide", but also considered that it will have "more brakes than accelerators", and that in the case of Argentina and Mexico elections are approaching that could lead to a change of government .
What course will politics take in Latin America in 2022?
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"Unlike what happened between 2005 and 2015, when Hugo Chavez traveled around Latin America promising loans in the midst of a bonanza in commodity prices, today the situation is very different: Venezuela is bankrupt, and Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia itself are also going through a bad economic time after a devastating pandemic."
According to data from the World Bank, in 2020 the main regional economies had huge falls: 11.1% in Peru, 9.9% Argentina, 8.3% Mexico, 6.8% Colombia, 5.8% Chile and 4.1 % Brazil.
"Even if the prices of raw materials rise somewhat, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the countries of the region will not have the funds for extremist adventures, and they will have to seek investment like few times before," he said.
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