More than fueling unfruitful debates about whether there are waves of left or right sweeping Latin America _generalizing media resource that ignores the nuances and particularities of each case_, one thing has become clear in much of the region in 2021. The population asked for changes to its governments on the way their countries work, generally in terms of jobs, access to good health care, education and pensions.
Some of these processes took place through protests and social frictions, others through elections. The fact is that a new relationship between society and power has been a common demand in the region, as well as the urgent need for a critique of the system of democratic representation as we knew it until then. The coronavirus pandemic accentuated this. And the result was a series of changes in course in several countries.
One of the first to express this was Ecuador, in elections that took place between February and April. After a troubled period of economic deterioration, indigenous protests and poor management of the start of the pandemic, which made Guayaquil one of the most tragic symbols of the arrival of the coronavirus in the region, Ecuadorians decided to change the course of the country.
They stopped supporting the 21st century socialism implemented by Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and later dismantled by his successor and former godfather, LenÃn Moreno, to bet directly on a conservative option in customs and a liberal option in the economy, businessman Guillermo Lasso. At first, things went well, with the country soon positioning itself among those who had most vaccinated its population in the region. Soon, however, a crisis of governability and prison riots threw Lasso against the ropes. And, at the moment, its management negotiates and struggles to survive politically. Moods have changed again and may take to the streets in 2022.
In Peru, a widespread dissatisfaction with corruption, which led to several former presidents being arrested or prosecuted, combined with the dismantling of parties promoted by the Fujimorist period, in addition to the lack of redistribution of benefits brought by the increase in GDP during the “boom das commodities” led Peruvians to become deeply skeptical of the political class. In the presidential election of April and June 2021, a large number did not want to vote, and those who did gave the advantage, by a minimal amount of votes, to an “outsider” of traditional politics.
Representative of an archaic rural left, with links to the internal war that made Peru bleed in the 1970s, Pedro Castillo came to power supported by a weak, radical party that did not take long to split.
Its campaign banners, which include projects necessary for the country’s humble population, such as agrarian reform, raising taxes for the richest to benefit the poorest and the extension of educational programs, today have great difficulty in being approved by a Congress. at war against the president. Since July, when he came to power, until today, Castillo has barely managed to form a ministry and his maintenance in power is hanging by a thread.
The opposition is determined to prepare the bed for the president’s removal even before he completes a year in office. He has already got rid of a vacancy motion, but other accusations are being prepared so that he will soon have to face, again, another exhausting and perhaps decisive, removal session.
In 2021, Argentina experienced the split of the government alliance, the Frente de Todos, now divided between the “Albertists”, the few supporters of Alberto Fernández at the top of the government, and the “Christianists”, the many of Cristina Kirchner. Now, as always in recent Argentine history, the great enemy of Peronism is Peronism itself. Fernández managed to disappoint even in the role of puppet that was granted to him by Cristina Kirchner, his deputy and almighty godmother.
After an encouraging start, with a good initiative to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund the huge debt that Argentina has (US$ 44 billion) and to manage well the initial restrictions of the pandemic, Fernández got his feet in his hands by betting almost every vaccination sheets in a single immunizer, the Russian Sputnik vaccine, which had failures and delays in delivery. Then, by allowing the friends of power to jump the queue and by allowing his partner to hold a party, photographed and filmed in the middle of a strict quarantine.
The above vexations associated with inflation of more than 50% a year, an abysmal devaluation of the peso, rising tariffs for basic services and the country’s isolation from foreign investors complete the package of dissatisfaction between Argentines and the government. And the answer came in the November legislative election. In the vote, an equally mediocre opposition emerged victorious, with the right to make room for a still tiny ultra-right project, the so-called libertarians, led by the braggart economist Javier Milei, now with a seat in Congress, from where he can start shouting the insults that once occupied prime time on TV.
In Honduras, the victory of the leftist Xiomara Castro was so decisive that there was no room for a new fraud by the national party, which will by no means mean that she will have no difficulties in confronting the clientelist and corrupt machine set up by Juan Orlando Hernández , even if he doesn’t have to make concessions to the same “establishment” that, in 2009, carried out a coup to depose her husband, Manuel Zelaya.
In the most significant election of the year, Chile ended a way of doing politics that had been dominant since the country’s redemocratization. A model that had ensured sustained GDP growth, but which had solemnly ignored the well-being of its citizens, precisely in the areas of education, health and pensions. Students left public universities indebted for decades, seniors had no money to buy their drugs with the private pension system. Not even water was free in Chile for the “model” so praised around the world.
For those who always thought that the country was a kind of Latin American Switzerland, the movements of 2019 and the election of Gabriel Boric showed that the false image had been bought without question by much of the international public opinion. Things were not going well in Chile for a long time. Whether they can improve now, we don’t know, but the secular problems are at least exposed and being debated.
It is worth remembering that Cuba has also asked for and continues to ask for changes, but that its cry has been muffled by a cruel repression. Nicaragua is even more muzzled. Its last cry was heard in 2018 and was harshly repressed. Meanwhile, Venezuela continues to demand change, but is frustrated with its opposition leaders and now needs to rethink its strategies to fight the dictatorship.
Colombia has also explicitly demonstrated the contradictions of its society and its weariness with the false promises of rightist Iván Duque’s project. In the country, the protests lasted for months and cost dozens of lives. Now, in 2022, it will be time to decide at the ballot boxes where to forward the demands.
In 2022, Brazil will also opt for a change or the continuation of its difficult situation.
If the year 2021 was the year in which Latin America asked for changes. The one in 2022 will be to face the consequences of those that have been achieved and to continue fighting for those that are still missing. The scenario for all will be difficult, one of a difficult economic situation after the impact of the pandemic and one of its own continuity with its new variants and more health and social uncertainties.
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