NEWS CENTER – Latin America had a wave of so-called socialist governments in the 2000s, which elected members of socialist and communist parties around the continent and created some proximity between these governments. These governments tried to develop economic projects that served the international market, without necessarily bowing to the imperialist interests of the hegemonic powers of capital, especially the USA.
Rise of the left: 1990s – 2000s
Following the third wave of democratization in the 1980s (that was the ending of the military juntas in the continent), the institutionalization of electoral competition in Latin America opened up the possibility for the left to ascend to power. For much of the region’s history, formal electoral contestation excluded leftist movements, first through limited suffrage and later through military intervention and repression during the second half of the 20th century. The collapse of the Soviet Union changed the geopolitical environment as many revolutionary movements vanished and the left embraced the core tenets of capitalism. As a result, the United States no longer perceived leftist governments as a security threat as it did before, creating a political opening for the left.
In the 1990s, the left exploited this opportunity to solidify their base, run for local offices and gain experience governing on the local level. At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, the region’s initial unsuccessful attempts with the neoliberal policies of privatization, cuts in social spending and foreign investment left countries with high levels of unemployment, inflation and rising inequality. This period saw increasing numbers of people working in the informal economy and suffering material insecurity, and ties between the working classes and the traditional political parties weakening, resulting in a growth of mass protest against the negative social effects of these policies, such as the piqueteros in Argentina, and in Bolivia indigenous and peasant movements rooted among small coca farmers, or cocaleros, whose activism culminated in the Bolivian gas conflict of the early-to-mid 2000s.
The so called pink tide was led by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who was elected into the presidency in 1998. According to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a pink tide president herself, Chávez of Venezuela (inaugurated 1999), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil (inaugurated 2003) and Evo Morales of Bolivia – first indigenous elected president in the country (inaugurated 2006) got known as “the three musketeers” of the left in South America. The popularity of such leftist governments relied upon by their ability to use the 2000s commodities boom to initiate populist policies, such as those used by the Bolivarian government in Venezuela. These governments had a critical and high level of support among the working class and consequently, the majority of the population. National policies among the left in Latin America are divided between the styles of Chávez and Lula as the latter not only focused on those affected by inequality, but also catered to private enterprises and global capital.
The conciliation policies and the fail of the left
As the prices of commodities lowered into the 2010s, coupled with overspending with little savings by pink tide governments, policies became unsustainable and supporters became disenchanted, eventually leading to the rejection of socialist policies within this governments. Analysts state that such unsustainable policies were more apparent in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, who received Chinese funds without any oversight. As a result, some scholars have stated that the pink tide’s rise and fall was “a byproduct of the commodity cycle’s acceleration and decadence”.
Some pink tide governments, such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, allegedly ignored international sanctions against Iran, allowing the Iranian government access to funds bypassing sanctions as well as resources such as uranium for the Iranian nuclear program as they were being target by the IMF and the interests of the global capital. During this period of 2000s to 2010s many international companies and private companies exploited the region, especially for the natural resources, and by the end of the decade with the influence of the 2008 crisis and the american policy to make the oil more expensive, this countries suffered economically. Latin America was named as the region in the world with the highest income inequality in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2019 Human Development Report, released in December.
The richest 10% in Latin America concentrate a larger share of income than any other region (37%), the report said. And vice versa: the poorest 40% receive the smallest share (13%). Despite economic and social advances in the first years of this century, Latin America is still “the most unequal region on the planet“, warned the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on several occasions.
The people of Latin America, historically oppressed and living under difficult conditions placed a lot of hope into the left parties and their representatives to be the radical change they needed. To at least give them some decent living conditions by changing the ruling system and how it operates, to be more equal. Policy-wise, Pink Tide governments are characterised by sharp increases in public spending, foremost in social security and welfare programs such as conditional cash transfers. In 1990–91, social spending represented 45% of all public expenditures of governments in the region. In 2008–09, this share shot up to 63%. However, due to the failure of the left-wing governments to really fulfil their promises and impose radical changes within the society of the continent during the 10 years they mostly lasted, like the policies of the educational system, the elitist justice system, the conditions of inequality, the absurd problem of violence against women and minorities and much more. Only reparation programs were develop, and they did had a positive impact, but as the time went on and with the change of circumstances around the world these policy became clear to be insufficient. In order to maintain themselves in the power, they tended to the right spectrum of the political compass and implemented policies that are close to the acts of the ones they called “enemies”.
This moment gave the material conditions, allied by the use of crescent internet and media satellites to change the view of the society towards a more conservative tie. This as known as the “blue tide” as a direct counter proposal of the “pink tide”.
The Blue Tide and the rise of reactionary governments
After a decade of left-wing governments, their influence has declined. In Argentina, Mauricio Macri (liberal-conservative) succeeded Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Peronist) in 2015. In Brazil, there was the media-pairlamentary coup d’etat of Dilma Rousseff, a socialist, that resulted in her departure and the rise of Vice President Michel Temer to power in 2016, and later in 2018 to that of far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro. In Peru, the conservative economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski succeeded Ollanta Humala, a socialist and left-wing nationalist who is considered to have shifted towards neoliberal policies and the political centre during his presidency. In Chile, the conservative Sebastián Piñera succeeded Michelle Bachelet (social democrat) in 2018 just as it was in 2010. In Bolivia, the conservative Jeanine Áñez succeed Evo Morales amid the 2019 Bolivian political crisis and a fascist coup in the end of the year. In Ecuador, the centre-right conservative banker Guillermo Lasso succeed the deeply unpopular Lenín Moreno, a former leftist who shifted rightward and distanced himself from his predecessor, Rafael Correa; in doing so, Lasso became the first right-wing President of Ecuador in 14 years.
This led to a new era of implementation of the neo-liberal policies that even deepened the economic conditions of the continent. Privatizations, the sale of natural resources to multinational companies, the increase of state violence against the working class and the minorities, the targeting of those groups and political adversaries, the new plans to ensure that the interests of the capital are protected within the continent. Within this scope, the rigth-wing governments sized the opportunity to undo most of what was little achieved by the pink tide, such as educational programs, public health programs, historical and economic compensation policies, etc. Under this line, a new regional bloc was created: the Forum for the Progress of South America, also known as Prosur. The group might not exist, however, were it not for the disintegration of another body, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). And though Prosur’s stated goal is for economic and social cooperation and not political, one issue more than all others has prompted its creation.
“It is very important that [UNASUR], which has been a supporter of the dictatorship of Venezuela, be shut down,” Colombian President Iván Duque said in January. Two months later, Prosur was born.
On March 22, 2019, the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, and Peru signed the Santiago Declaration to become the original members of Prosur. Their purpose? Fostering regional cooperation and ‘development’ in South America.
Duque and Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera led negotiations and came up with the proposal, inviting every country in South America except Venezuela to join the group. While the first item in the declaration says the group will be a space “without exclusions,” the fifth item lists the “full exercise of democracy” as a requisite, as well as respect for constitutional order and for the separation of branches of power. A month before the signing, Piñera confirmed that Venezuela would not be invited to join for not meeting those requirements. UNASUR was created by the late presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Néstor Kirchner of Argentina during Latin America’s “Pink Tide” era of leftist leaders. But as the crisis in Venezuela escalated, the bloc was unable to implement concrete actions to address the situation, most notably heading up failed negotiations between the government and opposition leaders in the spring of 2014 after deadly protests led to the detention of opposition leader Leopoldo López.
Besides that, there is the well known OAS – Organization of the American States. The OAS is an international organization that was founded on 30 April 1948 for the purposes of solidarity and co-operation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in the US capital, Washington, D.C., the OAS has 34 members, which are independent states in the Americas. Since the 1990s, the organization has focused on election monitoring – which in crude words are election manipulation. The organization was created under the context of the Cold War by the United States and had as a goal to stop any left socialist-communist party to coming to power in the region, since it is a strategic location close to US and rich in resources. These are just mere examples of how the international capital operates in the region.
A new Pink tide?
Although the conservative wave weakened the pink tide and restored right-wing governments across Latin America throughout the 2010s, some countries have pushed back against the trend in recent years and elected more left-leaning leaders, such as Mexico with the electoral victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the 2018 Mexican general election and Argentina where the incumbent right-wing president Mauricio Macri lost against center-left challenger Alberto Fernández (Peronist) in the 2019 Argentine general election. This development has been strengthened by the landslide victory of left-wing Movement for Socialism and its presidential candidate Luis Arce in Bolivia in the 2020 Bolivian general election. The righ-wing policies had a tremendous negative impact on the life of the people, specially since the worsening economic conditions created by the corona crisis.
This trend continued throughout 2021, when multiple left wing leaders won elections in Latin America. In the 2021 Peruvian general election, Peru elected the indigenous, socialist union leader Pedro Castillo in contrast to the previous leaders who embraced neoliberal populism. In November 2021, Honduras elected leftist president Xiomara Castro, and just weeks later, left-winger Gabriel Boric won the 2021 Chilean election. A series of violent protests against austerity measures and income inequality scattered throughout Latin America have also recently occurred including the 2019–20 Chilean protests, 2019–2020 Colombian protests, 2018–19 Haitian protests, 2019 Ecuadorian protests, and the 2021 Colombian protests.
Yesterday night, the ex-guerrilla member and leftist candidate Gustavo Petro was elected president in Colombia, the first time that a left candidate is elected to such position in the history of Colombia. In Brazil, the election will be in October and the researches on the poll results shows that the former ‘left’ president Luis Inacio Lula are leading the intentions as the election closes nearby. Recently also, the most-ever young president was elected in Chile, Gabriel Boric (36) coming himself from the students movements of 2011 that have clear and based policies against neo-liberalism. However, most of those recently elected ‘left’ governments already showed to the world and that they are willing to cooperate with the interests of the elites as they fear to lose stability and their governance. A important factor to be pointed is that most of these recent elections were won by a difference 1% to 3% in the results, much different from when they were elected in the 2000s when they have much more then the simple majority.
The question that remains is, it will those governments adopt real socialist policies that intend to socially change the conditions of the reality in the continent and be a answer to the people’s hope of a more equal and fair life, or they will once again fail into the neo-liberal reforms and politics in order to maintain their governments throughout their mandate once again? At this point, Latin America’s return to the left seems inevitable. Failing neoliberal governments, poverty and inequality worsened by a crisis, and a commodity boom brewed a perfect storm to raise the Pink Tide. In Europe and North America, inequality and crisis have led to greater support for populist right-wing governments. Conversely, this has led to the rise of populist left-wing governments in Latin America. This is namely because the Latin American left appeals to those most affected by inequality and crises — the poor. If these governments can learn from past mistakes and invest in a sustainable future, then there might be reasons to hope for lasting improvements in the region. However, as things stand, the new Pink Tide feels more like repetition than redemption thus continuing the cycle of left-ring government changes that do little to the people, but a lot to the capitalist modernity.
