Latin America: Why are voters turning to the right?
Far-right populists seem to be on the rise in Latin America after defeating leftist candidates in a number of recent presidential elections. Why are they
Far-right populists seem to be on the rise in Latin America after defeating leftist candidates in a number of recent presidential elections. Why are they so popular? And are they here to stay? Last weekend, rightwing-extremist candidate Abelardo de la Espriella edged out left-wing opponent Ivan Cepeda to win Colombia's presidential election in a campaign in which the former focused heavily on the nation's security crisis. In Chile, another extreme-right candidate, Jose Antonio Kast, took the reins from a leftist government in March elections. Kast, who is pursuing cuts to education and welfare while handing out tax cuts to businesses, openly talks about Chile's military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) as something positive. And right-wing populist Javier Milei, a great admirer of US President Donald Trump, has run Argentina since 2023. He, too, says he is betting on austerity to save his financially destitute nation. Paramilitary past hangs over Colombia's runoff election To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Latin America's biggest country will go to the polls this fall Right-wing, conservative or economic liberalist forces now govern Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru as well. Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Venezuela, on the other hand, are run by leftist-liberal or far-left governments. Brazil, the largest and most populous country in Latin America, will head to the polls this fall in a race that pits incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the country's leftist Workers' Party (PT) against Flavio Bolsonaro, the far-right son of the country's jailed former president, Jair Bolsonaro. The trend is obvious but what's driving it? Political control has reversed in eight Latin American countries since 2023 — left to right in six cases, right to left in the other two. But what's behind the shift? Sabine Kurtenbach, head of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, Germany, says recent right-wing victories can be boiled down to three closely related issues: Extreme social inequality, high crime rates and a lack of rule of law — and the fact that incumbents have consistently failed to get these under control.
In Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella promised voters he would take on armed guerrillas and drug cartels. Kurtenbach calls this "punitive populism," or the "Bukele model" — after El Salvador's controversial President Nayib Bukele, who declared a state of emergency in the country three years ago. Since then, more than 75,000 Salvadorans have been jailed, many without trial. US, Venezuela swap prisoners from CECOT and Caracas To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Reaction to the 'pink tide' of the early 2000s Jonas Wolff, a professor of political science specialized on Latin America at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, points to security concerns and general voter dissatisfaction as reasons for the continent's current lunge to the right. That, he says, is a reversal of a decades-long trend. Many countries in the region suffered massive repression under right-wing military dictatorships between the 1960s and 1980s he says. This phase was followed by democratization and peace agreements, which in turn led to left-wing parties being allowed to stand for election. "The early 2000s were marked by economic growth. In many countries, the so-called 'pink tide' brought left-wing governments to power," Wolff told DW. "But that phase ended with the coronavirus pandemic at the latest." Kurtenbach also sees the current shift toward conservatism and even right-wing authoritarianism as a form of backlash against what voters view as left-wing governments' inability to get economic stagnation, soaring crime rates and corruption under control. 'The degree to which fundamental human rights are being called into question is new' Political scientist Thomas Kestler from the University of Würzburg in Germany uses the analogy of a pendulum that has now swung to the right. Noting that he doesn't really see a true right-wing ideological shift in Latin America, Kestler says recent razor-thin election majorities are more a reflection of deep political polarization in the region.
The BriefWire