Electoral turmoil in Latin America is expected during two elections later this year as voters indicate they want to replace their right-wing governments.
A survey indicates that a left-leaning Brazilian presidential candidate is expected to make gains — if not win — when voters head to the polls in October. The left also expects to win in Colombia that will choose a new leader in May.
“As this government continues to dumps Brazil into poverty and inequality, its days on power seem hopefully to be counted,” said Leonardo Coelho, a resident of Belo Horizonte, north of Rio, and prospective voter in Brazil’s presidential elections.
Despite 10 candidates on the presidential ballot, Brazilians will be focusing on two familiar faces, the bombastic President Jair Bolsonaro for the Liberal Party and Labour Party candidate and former president Lula Da Silva.
Bolsonaro finds himself second in the latest polls with 25 per cent support, following a four-year mandate marked by world-record COVID-19 case counts and a growing spread in the income gap.
“Everything points to Lula’s victory,” Coelho said. “And with his left-wing government back, we will see a big and necessary change coming for Brazil.”
The shift to left-wing governments has gained momentum in Latin America over the past four years.
Mexico elected a left-coalition president in 2018, and one year later, Argentina’s Macri’s right-wing presidency was replaced by the “Union de Todos,” a centre-left party. Nicaragua, Honduras and Bolivia re-elected left-wing governments, while Peru and Chile voted out their right-wing presidencies in 2021.
“The left is a progressive force that is eventually gaining Latin America back,” said Prof. Soledad Stoessel, Buenos Aires University’s researcher on political sociology.
Left-wing governments in Latin America are shifting the state’s role to income redistribution and social equality, while looking into including economically disfavored sectors that have historically sided, Stoessel said.
Stoessel said the “left” itself has a wide range in its political spectrum, from radical to populist and conservative, and are as varied as the countries that democratically elected them.
Yet their comeback in the legislative and executive branches of power appears to be a reaction to the behaviour and policies of the right, she said. Radicalized into neoliberal policy-making, characterized by the state’s reduced intervention, right-wing governments left “dire” socio-economic trends after their mandates, Stoessel said.
With rising unemployment, coupled with a further widening in the social gap and scarcity in funding for socially-led projects, right-wing governments’ left a legacy of inequality in the region, she said.
Studies show one in four Latin Americans into poverty by 2018, as the Economic Corporation for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) database on demographic and social indicators shows.
“Argentina came crashing down since Macri assumed power, it was a tragedy only surpassed by the country’s military coups,” said Nicolas Ventieri, an Argentinian political historian and left-wing columnist.
Mauricio Macri’s right-wing presidency in Argentina was elected in 2015, promising greater social-program funding while keeping the inflation rate to a single digit. He also promised to rid the country of corruption.
Yet, four years into Macri’s presidency, Argentina’s socio-economic situation didn’t reflect what it was once promised, Ventieri said.
Argentina’s inflation rate surpassed 50 per cent in 2019, pushing poverty levels toward decade-high levels, as the country contracted a debt of $10 million with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), higher than the state’s reserves, Ventieri said.
“We needed someone to put Argentina back on its feet, and the only alternative was voting for the opposite side,” Ventieri said. “To vote left.”
By distancing themselves enough from right-wing governments, the left began winning elections across Latin America with a promise to be an alternative to building a nation’s fabric back, Stoessel said.
“The left becomes the gateway for people to avoid the right-wing misses to get along over one term,” she said.
It’s a pattern she said will likely be repeated this year.
Erwin Gutierrez, a Colombian high school science teacher, recognizes himself as a centre voter who wants neither left- nor right-wing candidates to “soothe the murky electoral waters.”
Yet, as the day for voting approaches, he sees a victory by the left’s Gustavo Petro as almost a certainty.
“We are tired of right-wing presidencies,” he said. “One after another has done nothing more than steal from us, while Colombia continues to dump into crisis.
“We are willing to give a chance to those who haven’t been in power, so maybe someday we can see this country moving out of the mud,” Gutierrez said.
Yet right-wing parties continue to hold strong and hold unwavering support in Brazil and Colombia, hampering a straight victory from left-wing candidates in the upcoming elections for Stoessel.
“Bible, bullet and ox, that’s where the left finds its biggest obstacle to win the next elections,” Stoessel said, referring to the support given to right-wing parties by the Catholic Church, the military forces and the farming industry.
With campaigns ramping up and candidates promising “heaven and earth,” Coelho said common motivation rises among voters as the election approaches.
“We just want change, and sometimes we don’t even question the way of those changes because the current situation is suffocating,” he said.