Leftist candidates may win in Brazil, Colombia, but don’t expect more radical populism

Leftist candidates are comfortably leading in the polls for this year’s elections in Brazil and Colombia, two of Latin America’s biggest countries, fueling speculation that the region will shift further to the left. But, even if that happens, we are unlikely to see a return to the radical populism of the early 2000s.

More than an ideological shift, what’s happening in the region is a steep rise of anti-incumbent sentiment. Perhaps because of the pandemictriggered crisis, opposition candidates are winning elections almost everywhere, regardless of their political colors.

Anti-government candidates won 12 of the last 13 Latin American presidential elections since 2019, according to a recent count by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, IDEA, a non-government think tank. The only exception was Nicaragua, whose dictator held a rigged election to stay in power.

If the recent anti-incumbent trend continues, the right-of-center governments in Brazil and Colombia are likely to be next in line for an electoral defeat.

There could still be surprises, though.

In Colombia, former M-19 leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who served as mayor of Bogota, is leading in most polls with 35% of the vote. That’s 11 points ahead of his nearest rival, center-right candidate Fico Gutiérrez.

But Petro is having trouble winning over moderate voters. If he doesn’t win in the first round election, to be held May 29, he may defeated in the runoff vote in June. His right-of-center opponents would team up against him, casting him as a radical leftist, and could win.

“Fico Gutiérrez is casting himself as leader of a more moderate right,” says Daniel Zovatto, IDEA’s regional director for Latin America. “In a second-round vote, we could see a repeat of Colombia’s last elections, in which Petro reached the second round and then lost.”

In Brazil, former president President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who ruled between 2003 and 2010 and later served 580 days in jail in connection with a bribery scandal, is drawing 40% of voter support for the October elections, according to a new PoderData poll. Incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro trails with 35%, the poll shows.

Still, there is a small but real possibility that a centrist candidate may emerge before the elections. Bolsonaro’s Trumplike arrogance and failure to implement key reforms have alienated many of his conservative former supporters, who may support another candidate.

But even if Petro and Lula were to win, they would be unlikely to adopt an extreme left agenda of nationalizations or to close independent media, as Venezuela did.

In Brazil, Lula has chosen pro-business former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin as his running mate, which is widely seen as a sign that the former president does not want to antagonize the business community. Brazil’s currency, the real, has not been weakened by capital flight in recent months, despite Lula’s rise in the polls.

“If Lula wins, I don’t think he would govern with the radical left,” former Brazilian ambassador to the United States Rubens Barbosa told me. “Alckmin would be an influential figure within his administration, and serve as a link to the business community.”

Unlike what happened in Latin America in the early 2000s, when Chavez and other radical leftist leaders rose to power and benefited from record world prices for oil and other commodities, newly elected presidents will find their government coffers almost empty. And it’s hard to be a populist when you don’t have money to give away.

In addition, even if they won, Petro and Lula would face strong opposition in their respective congresses, independent justice systems and a vigilant press, which would make it difficult for them to embark on radical experiments.

We’ve just seen that happen in Peru, where far-left President Pedro Castillo has been forced to fire several of his most radical ministers and shelve his most extreme campaign promises. Castillo is fighting to avoid a congressional censure vote that would force him to resign.

In a nutshell, a new Lula presidency in Brazil seems somewhat more plausible than a Petro government in Colombia. But even if both were elected, there would be no economic conditions to embark on crazy radical populist adventures like several countries did two decades ago.

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