Right-wing parties make inroads in some LatAm nations, but left remains strong

Colombia’s presidential runoff election ended on Sunday and Ivan Duque of the Democratic Center party was elected as the president, which continued the country’s tradition of being ruled by a right-wing political party.

In this election year, results of five countries were finalized in Latin America and the Caribbean region so far.

The current situation in Latin America suggests that social foundations are stable in left-wing countries, while nations ruled by right-wingers often face sensitive social problems.

In fact, even in countries that have gone from being governed by left-wing parties to right-wing ones, the left-wing parties still enjoy wide public support and play an indispensable role to advance socio-economic reforms.

In Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel was elected president of the council of state and the council of minister in April, working along with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Raul Castro to lead Cuban economic reforms.

In Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela was re-elected for a second six-year term in presidential elections in May.

Venezuelan right-wing opposition had been in control of the Congress since 2016. However, the left-wing succeeded in splitting the opposition as well as strengthening themselves through a series of measures.

Colombian voters are focusing more on economic development rather than security. Thus, Duque who stressed that he would continue strengthening social programs and boosting production to overcome the economic crisis won the election.

In the Republic of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado Quesada from the center-left Citizen Action Party won the second round of the presidential election on April 1. As he was sworn in, Quesada said he will focus on fighting tax evasion and smuggling, while improving tax collection and making public expenditure more efficient.

Mario Abdo Benitez of the ruling Colorado Party in Paraguay also won the presidential election in April for his proposal of fighting corruption and improving the economy.

Since early this century, a wave of leftwing governance has swept Latin America and left-wing parties came to power in a few countries in the region.

However, left-wing parties in countries such as Brazil and Argentina have suffered losses in elections in recent years, partially caused by the global financial storm and their countries’ own problems of economic structure.

Cuba and Venezuela still enjoy strong left-wing leadership. Venezuela’s President Maduro gave priority to stabilizing the domestic political situation and developing the economy. The Cuban leadership has been making great efforts to improve people’s livelihood.

The two countries still face challenges in economy and diplomacy.

In Colombia, even though right-wing Duque was elected as the new president, his left-wing rival, Gustavo Petro of the Humane Colombia movement, won 41.8 percent of the vote.

In countries where political power drifted to the right, left parties are still active and have the possibility to come back. Since Brazil and Argentina were troubled by high inflation and financial deficits, ruling right-wing parties implemented financial austerity, which affected people’s life and turned more people to the right-wing bastion.

Developing the economy and improving people’s livelihood are always the common focuses of all political parties. Issues such as corruption and rising political groups have caught more attention in elections.

Voters were angry at political corruption scandals, so more and more parties began to hold the anti-corruption banner during their campaigns.

Wang Peng, a researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said uprooting corruption has become a prominent topic in elections in the Latin American region and voters expect that new political groups could carry out reforms to bring change.

New electoral rules, such as allowing independent candidates not affiliated with parties to run for public office, will certainly deal a heavy blow to traditional parties and add uncertainty to the presidential election, he noted.