In the early years of the 21st century, the re-election of incumbent presidents in Latin America was a commonplace, among both left and right leaders.
But the boom in raw materials (the main items exported by the continent) soon ended, deep economic problems arose, corruption scandals surfaced and social unrest grew (manifested in different waves of protests), all of which was deepened by the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19.
Then, the Latin American electoral trend changed: it became to vote against the establishment and give space to the opposition.
In 11 of the 12 presidential elections held in Latin America since 2019, the majority vote was to change the party in power.
The exception was Nicaragua, but its elections, held in November, were contested and considered illegitimate by some countries: President Daniel Ortega was re-elected for the fourth time in a row, and all other candidates were in prison.
“There is general dissatisfaction with the political class and the party in power ends up paying the bill,” says Paulo Velasco, professor of International Politics at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj).
This picture of discontent could be completed in 2022, with three elections planned in the region, two of them in the most populous countries in South America: Brazil and Colombia.
Schedule and scenarios
The first of the elections is scheduled for February 6 in Costa Rica, with a possible second round on April 3 between the two candidates with the most votes.
Among the more than 20 registered candidates, there are well-known names around there, such as former centrist president José María Figueres, conservative former vice president Lineth Saborío and Fabricio Alvarado, a right-wing evangelical leader who in 2018 lost to the current president. , Carlos Alvarado.
In another sign of popular discontent with the shift governments, Welmer Ramos, the candidate for the ruling Citizen Action Party, has an intention to vote below the margin of error in some opinion polls.
But the two elections that will focus attention in the region this year are, in chronological order, those of Colombia and Brazil.
The first round of the Colombian election is scheduled for May 29 (more than two months after the legislative elections, in March) and the possible second round will be on June 19.
Against the backdrop of the massive street protests of 2021 and various economic challenges, most opinion polls in Colombia point to the lead of leftist Gustavo Petro, an economist, former guerrilla and former mayor of Bogotá who in 2018 lost his job. second round for the current president, Iván Duque.
An eventual triumph by Petro would mark something unprecedented: the first time that a left-wing candidate would be elected president of Colombia.
But there may be a different scenario from the left-right polarization of the recent Latin American elections.
The Colombian right, led by former President Álvaro Uribe, is frayed after the Duque government, and Petro may have to compete with a centrist candidate, such as former Medellin mayor Sergio Fajardo, economist Alejandro Gaviria and former president Senator Carlos Fernando Galán.
“This is a strong possibility: today we do not have this polarization between a left-wing and a right-wing candidate assured,” says Patricia Muñoz, a professor of political science at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.
On the other hand, everything indicates that Brazil will have, in the October elections, a confrontation between the current president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and the ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), for the time being leader in the polls of voting intentions for the October 2 election (with a possible second round on October 30).
So far, polls do not indicate great intentions to vote for so-called “third way” candidates, such as former judge and former minister Sergio Moro (Podemos) and former governor Ciro Gomes (PDT).
‘Wave’ from the left?
Eventual victories by Lula and Petro would give a new impetus to the left in Latin America, not only because of the relative weight of Brazil and Colombia in the continent.
Between 2020 and 2021, left-wing candidates won in most elections held in the region: Luis Arce in Bolivia, Pedro Castillo in Peru, Xiomara Castro in Honduras and Gabriel Boric in Chile, in addition to the particular case of Nicaragua.
However, some analysts rule out that it is now possible to predict a new regional trend like the one that took place in the first decade of the century, when several leftist governments were consolidated and re-elected.
“A picture is beginning to be drawn in which left-wing governments are the majority, but they do not follow the same trend and I don’t see a wave like in the 2000s”, says Velasco.
In his view, it is normal that in several countries voters migrate to the left after the disappointment shown with right-wing presidents elected to replace those of the opposite pole.
“If there were more leftist governments at the moment, the tendency would be for the right or the center-right to win”, he says.
The great challenge for Latin American governments continues to be meeting the demand for better public services and social security, as well as for less inequality, perhaps issues with which the left is more in tune.
Carrying out the task, however, will be difficult in a Latin America with moderate growth (the regional average is around 3% in 2022, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean – ECLAC), inflationary pressure, higher public debt and uncertainty brought now by the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Some experts also warn that social unrest could reappear, with popular protests in the region.
“The poor or scarce response of several governments in Latin America and the Caribbean (…) to the current multiple crises could generate a new wave of massive and violent social protests”, indicated the intergovernmental institute Idea, based in Sweden, in its report on the state of democracy in the region, published in November.
Although the report highlights that democracy has shown signs of resilience during the pandemic, it adds that “attacks on electoral bodies have become more frequent” in Latin America, both by governments and the opposition in countries such as Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico and Peru.
In this context, eyes will also be on the Brazilian election after Bolsonaro’s attacks on the electoral system (in November, he backed off and said he “has come to believe in electronic voting”) and the Brazilian president supported Donald Trump’s claim, without evidence that there was fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.
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