Pendulum swings away from the left

One by one, the leftist populists who swept to power in Latin America in the 2000s are being shown the door. Cancer did for Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, elections for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, impeachment for Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. In the case of Rafael Correa, leader of Ecuador’s “citizens’ revolution”, it was a law preventing him from serving a fourth consecutive term.

It is tempting to see an end to a cycle in Latin American history in the flagging political fortunes of these leftist leaders — the more so as their torchbearer in Cuba, Fidel Castro, has gone now, too. Daniel Ortega, a former leader of the Sandinista guerrillas, is still firmly in charge of Nicaragua. But of the remaining members of the club, Evo Morales in Bolivia is fighting an uphill battle against retirement after losing a referendum that would have allowed him to stand again. Nicolás Maduro relies on repression to maintain his tenuous hold over a collapsed Venezuela.

Ecuador’s elections mark another test of the continent’s changing political environment. The inconclusive first-round results — Correa’s favoured successor, Lenín Boltaire Moreno, will face a run-off against former banker Guillermo Lasso on April 2 — should serve as a cautionary tale for both sides of the ideological spectrum. In most states (except Venezuela), democratic institutions are sufficiently robust to check the hand of authoritarian populists hoping to co-opt all the powers of the state. Certainly, Correa remains popular. But if his star, and that of his movement, has faded it is in part because of a bullying style.

Another populist wave, right or left, is never far away. Ecuador’s elections may show that while the continent’s romance with the left is waning, it is not yet dead. London, February 24.