The electoral pendulum in Latin America – Prensa Libre

It was a year of electoral adrenaline in Latin America. On balance, the populist left, the axis of the Sao Paulo Forum, the ghost of Hugo Chávez and the ideological patronage of Cuba, poor but emeritus, was strengthened. The tension of the left-right pendulum was perceived at the VI Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), held in September 2021 in Mexico, where 17 presidents of the region met. The deference of the Mexican president López Obrador towards Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela and Miguel Díaz-Canel, president of Cuba, was notorious, as was the tense criticism of them and Nicaragua by the leaders of Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador, for the absence of democratic processes and human rights. López Obrador’s manifest agenda was to overcome the union of the Latin American countries over their ideological differences; did not succeed.

Some of the strongest electoral movements of the year in Latin America occurred in Peru and Chile. The first round of presidential elections in Peru took place in April, with 18 candidates on the ballot; Pedro Castillo obtained the first place with 18.9% of the valid votes and Keiko Fujimori second with 13.4%. In the second round, Pedro Castillo won with 50.1% of the votes, against Keiko Fujimori with 49.8%, a difference of half of 1%, giving Peru a marked left turn. A candidate who obtained less than 20% of the voting preference in the first round and won in the second, by a hair, triumphed. Pedro Castillo has an immoderate left-wing populist trajectory and speech, he is an admirer of Castro and Maduro, but socially conservative, opposed to abortion and gender ideology.

The prelude to the elections in Chile were the demonstrations and violent disturbances in 2019 and the plebiscite in October 2020 in which 78.3% voted in favor of drafting a new constitution. The first round of presidential elections in Chile was held on November 21 with seven candidates; José Antonio Kast, conservative, obtained the first place with 27.9%, followed by Gabriel Boric, socialist, with 25.8%. In the second round, on December 19, Boric moderated his tone and managed to agglutinate 55.9% of the vote, while Kast, branded as the extreme right, got 44.1%. The Chilean electorate opted for an even more radical left than that of former President Michelle Bachelet, who during eight years in power failed to dismantle Chile’s liberal economy, which for several decades made it the most prosperous country in Latin America.

Chile and Uruguay have the lowest levels of poverty and the highest standard of living, measured by per capita income, in Latin America. While Chile turned to the left, in Uruguay Luis Lacalle Pou, right, elected in 2019, holds the presidency and in February 2021 Ecuadorians elected Guillermo Lasso, right. In November 2021, Xiomara Castro, left, won the presidential election in Honduras in a clear rejection of continuity. Great electoral battles are coming in 2022; Colombia and Brazil.

The next presidential elections in Guatemala are likely to be led by three women; Zury Ríos, Sandra Torres and Thelma Cabrera, right, center left and left, respectively. Zury and Sandra will have to overcome strong legal obstacles to participate, they represent continuity and have ceilings of sympathy that does not exceed the vote of rejection; they are ineligible. If Thelma Cabrera manages to sneak into the second round, she could swing the pendulum to the left.

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