South America’s right is on the rise
The new right bets on attracting the young, the middle classes and those who have escaped from poverty as a result of the inclusive policies of progressive governments, but can it offer any true alternatives?
Anew wind is sweeping Latin America. Progressive governments in Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil have suffered severe blows in less than a year. The right wing is on the rise and occupies positions that just a year ago seemed impossible to reach.
In Argentina, in spite of high approval ratings for former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (above 50 per cent), the right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri won in the election on November 22.
Immediately afterwards, on December 6, the Venezuelan opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), won more than two-thirds of the seats in the legislative assembly.
And in Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff faces both a drastic fall in popularity ratings (her approval ratings are less than 10 per cent) and an attempt to oust her.
Further signs of a changing balance of power on the south American continent can be found in the protests against the Rafael Correa administration in Ecuador, driven by indigenous people and social movements.
The same can be said of the advancement of regional initiatives for economic integration under the banner of free trade, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa).
The rise of progressive governments in Latin American began in late 1998, with Hugo Chavez’s election in Venezuela. Until this year, it has gone virtually uninterrupted, apart from the coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, the impeachment of Fernando Lugo in Paraguay in 2012 and the ephemeral victory of businessman Sebastian Pinera in Chile between 2012 and 2014.
Politically diverse governments
The progressive governments that sprang up — described as the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ by the writer Tarek Ali — were in fact politically diverse, though all shared a vocation for redistributing tax income among the poorest sectors of society and were devoted to advancing new forms of regional economic integration. Some of them promoted a distinctly post-neoliberal economic strategy, sometimes with nationalistic trappings; others favoured socially liberal policies.
Many of these new movements were successful in mitigating poverty, diminishing inequality and social exclusion, acknowledging diversity, fostering a new diplomacy and restraining the influence of the United States, which still treats the region as its backyard.
They attained important victories in the fight against illiteracy, and in promoting education and building health networks.
They took advantage of the high price of crude oil and commodities to repay the social debt with the less favoured sectors of their populations. With the exceptions of Venezuela and Bolivia, they sought to help the poor without drastically affecting the interests of the rich. Virtually everywhere, some of their private investors reaped extraordinary profits.
With the worldwide fall in the price of commodities, all of the progressive governments suffered a blow. Nations such as Venezuela were victims of a kind of economic warfare that included speculative attacks on the currency and the sale of contraband goods on the black market. In this climate, a new right wing made its appearance — one that doesn’t dare to tell its name nor show its real face. This right doesn’t openly criticise the social policies of progressive governments (at most, it says it will correct their mistakes), nor does it publicly confess its readiness to make sweeping economic changes. The key themes of its campaign are the promise to fight corruption and inefficiency, and to defend human rights.
No period of sunshine
Latin America’s new right bets on attracting the young, the middle classes and those spheres of society that have escaped from poverty as a result of the inclusive policies of progressive governments.
Whether it can offer any true alternatives, something different to the Washington consensus policies that proved such a failure in Latin America, remains unclear.
The most recent examples of right-wing governments that have come to power by displacing centre-left governments in the region don’t offer much hope. Pinera’s administration in Chile was hardly a success, while Horacio Cartes’s government in Paraguay has been pitiful to this date.
There are few signs indicating that either Macri in Argentina or a legislative assembly controlled by the Venezuelan opposition will be able to turn around their country’s economic fortunes in the near future.
The changing political climate in Latin America won’t herald a period of sunshine for the right. Its victories have created alarm in social movements throughout the region.
It was those movements that changed the balance of power within their countries, allowing the rise of progressive governments. They did so by ousting illegitimate presidents and taking to the streets against neoliberal policies.
Today, they have begun to reactivate and regroup to confront the spectre of a conservative resurgence.
The changing political climate in Latin America won’t herald a period of sunshine for the right. Its victories have created alarm in social movements throughout the region. It was those movements that changed the balance of power within their countries, allowing the rise of progressive governments.
Luis Hernandez Navarro is the opinion editor of Mexico’s La Jornada.
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