Latin America is in a ‘democratic depression,’ the worst in nearly half a century

Political scientists have been saying for at least a decade that the world is in a “democratic recession,” because growing numbers of countries are becoming autocracies. But in Latin America, it’s getting even worse — we may already be in a “democratic depression.”

I have never seen as many Latin American countries descending to autocratic rule since the military dictatorships of the 1970s. In recent months, even the leaders of Brazil and Mexico, Latin America’s biggest democracies, have been seeking to grab unconstitutional powers.

In Brazil, far-right populist leader Jair Bolsonaro, known by many as the “Trump of the tropics,” publicly suggested on Sept. 7 that he would not accept a defeat in the October 2022 elections.

Bolsonaro, who is falling in the polls, told a crowd of more than 100,000 supporters that there can be only three outcomes in next year’s elections: “my arrest, my death or my victory.” And he added, “I will never be arrested.” A day later, Bolsonaro said he had spoken in the heat of the moment, but he has been making similar statements for months now.

In Mexico, nationalist-leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has recently escalated his rhetoric against the National Elections Institute (INE), the widely respected independent agency that monitors Mexico’s elections. Critics fear that he wants to destroy the INE, or restrict its powers, to be able to manipulate the 2024 elections.

In addition, Lopez Obrador lashes out almost daily against journalists and judges, and has used his congressional majority to approve an unconstitutional extension of the Supreme Court chief’s four-year mandate. Amid a national uproar, the chief justice announced that he will not stay in his job beyond his term.

In El Salvador, increasingly authoritarian President Nayib Bukele’s rubber-stamp justice system on Sept. 3 tossed aside a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential elections, which will allow Bukele to seek a second term in 2024. Earlier this year, Bukele’s congressional majority had fired five Supreme Court justices in another move that legal experts say violated the Constitution. The judges were immediately replaced with Bukele loyalists.

In Peru, newly elected farleft leader Pedro Castillo is seeking to convene a constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution. That’s exactly what Venezuela’s late authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez did after taking office in 1999 to seek absolute powers and indefinite re-elections.

In Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez’s left-ofcenter government is seeking to reform the justice system in what critics say is an open effort to fire prosecutors who are pressing massive corruption charges against vice-president and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

In Nicaragua, leftist dictator Daniel Ortega has in recent weeks imprisoned all seven leading opposition presidential hopefuls for the Nov. 7 elections. And last week, Ortega’s prosecutors ordered the arrest of prominent writer Sergio Ramirez, 79, who was Ortega’s longtime vice president during the 1980’s Sandinista Revolution.

In Venezuela, fraudulentlyelected ruler Nicolas Maduro is consolidating his country’s twodecade old dictatorship.

Maduro, who seeks to unblock international funds, is negotiating a deal with the opposition in hopes of encouraging it to participate in tightly controlled

Nov. 21 regional elections. But few opposition leaders expect him to allow a free election or to abide by whatever he signs. Cuba’s six-decade-old dictatorship, meantime, continues to ban opposition parties and independent media, and is stepping up its repression of critics. At least 500 people have been arrested and many remain in jail following huge July 11 anti-government protests.

Support for democracy in Latin Americans has been diminishing over the past decade, alongside the economic slowdown that followed the 2000s commodity boom. But now, there is a new phenomenon: A new crop of democraticallyelected wannabe-autocrats are taking advantage of the growing disaffection with democracy.

“This is a new element,” Sergio Fausto, a Brazilian political scientist who heads the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation, told me last week. “In addition to the disaffection with democracy, we now have political leaders from the left and from the right who are successfully mobilizing the people against democratic institutions.”

That’s a bad omen, among other reasons because when autocrats attack democratic institutions such as the justice system, legal protections disappear, and investors flee their countries. And when that happens, democratic depressions very often result in economic depressions.

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