The Latin Americanist: 2005-11-06

Sweeping changes in store for the region
-Taylor Kirk

Latin America is poised to undergo major changes in the next year, with no fewer than 10 elections set to take place in the next 15 months. Some regimes will fall, others will be reinforced, and the only certainty is that the region will experience several ‘firsts’ that will take it in an unknown direction. Much ado of a ‘pink revolution’ has been made in the U.S. press, though the political processes happening all over Latin America are far too divergent to constitute any general trend or revolution, let alone a much-feared ‘pink’ one. Democracy is likely to be further consolidated in nations like Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Costa Rica, while power contests in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Peru will test the foundations on which their political systems rest.

*Bolivians will go to the polls December 18, a date set amid controversy over the redistricting of several important Congressional seats. Incumbent President Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze has been the "caretaker" since Carlos Mesa's resignation June 9th, and will not run in December. Much to the consternation of the US, recent polls show coca farmer Evo Morales as the front runner, though with only 34% of the likely vote. The mere thought that a Socialist narcotics producer could become President of the potentially profit-bearing country puts fear in the heart of foreign investors and US officials alike. In a recent visit to Spain Morales himself remarked that his election would be a "triumph for the Bolivian people and a nightmare for the United States". His optimism may come too early, as former President Jorge Quiroga is less than 6 percentage points behind him. Quiroga named Maria Rene Duchen his running mate October 22nd, who would become the nation's first female Vice-president should Quiroga make a last-minute comeback. The Organization of American States has offered to monitor the elections.

*Nicaraguans will vote at an undetermined date next year, in an election also watched closely by American officials. Current President Enrique Bolaños is up for re-election, but a strange pairing of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and former President Arnoldo Alemán has come together to defeat him, or perhaps even boot him from office before the election. The trouble began just after Bolaños, Alemán’s former Vice-president, won the 2001 presidential elections on an anti-corruption platform. Bolaños then shocked insiders by doing exactly as he had promised on the campaign trail: he began proceedings against his former boss, Alemán, for corruption and embezzlement. Alemán was handed a 20-year sentence in 2002, after US officials seized $5 million worth of his illicit assets held in Florida.

Alemán then appealed to his one-time political foe Ortega, who through the Sandinista legacy holds effective control of Nicaragua’s court system. In return for Alemán’s support through his Constitutionalist Liberal Party, which controls the legislature, Ortega secured Alemán’s release from house arrest, and he is allowed to roam Managua as a free man. The two have since done everything within their power to make trouble for Bolaños, from trying to prosecute him for allegedly spurious campaign finance law abuses to attempting to impeach him. An effort to strip Bolanos of his immunity from prosecution was struck down by Congress October 27th.

Much ado has been made in the international press about the possible return of Ortega to the leadership of the Central American nation, though polls in August suggested that the Sandinista leader is unlikely to garner more than 12% of the vote. Instead, his former party-mate Herty Lewites leads the pack at 25%. Nicaraguans are not impressed with the Oertega/Alemán pact, and some polls indicate that up to 80% of the population opposes them. If Enrique Bolaños manages to stay in power until elections are called next year, the people will make their preference known.

*Farther south, Chileans are expected to elect their first-ever female President this December, making Michelle Bachelet of the Socialist Party also the first Chilean President to govern under the new Constitution signed in September. Current President Ricardo Lagos cannot run again, though Bachelet is of his party and is expected to carry on the center left reforms he began. As the former Minister of Defense, she holds 41% of the probable vote, making it likely that she will be in a runoff election in January. Her most formidable competition comes from billionaire Sebastián Piñera, who has split the right between himself and former Pinochet administration member Joaquín Lavin. If triumphant this December, Bachelet will be handed a booming economy, new bilateral trade deals, and increased prospects for Chilean leadership in a recently more cohesive region.

*In tiny Costa Rica former President and Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias Sánchez of the PLN (National Liberation Party) is looking to make a comeback in elections in February next year, after Congress passed a law in 2003 to allow presidential re-election. He is still quite popular, almost 30 points ahead of his nearest competitor, Ottón Solis of the Citizen’s Action Party. Sánchez is a strong supporter of CAFTA, in a country where 47% of voters view the free trade agreement as a positive move for their country, versus 25% who do not favor the agreement. Solis has come out against it, calling CAFTA a “menace” to the country. Current President Abel Pacheco has postponed ratification of the agreement, pending fiscal reforms that must first pass Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly.

*April 2006 will see the election of a new Peruvian president, though the full slate of candidates is uncertain. Current President Alejandro Toledo is barred by the one-term limit from running for an immediate second term, and in any case his current 12% approval rating does not bode well for his chances of re-election. Several of his ministers have indicated that they will resign before October 7th in order to run, as is required 6 months before the elections by Peruvian law. Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has indicated that he will not run, prompting a sigh of relief from those who attribute Peru’s longest unbroken stretch of economic growth to him, and prefer that he stay put.

International attention to Peru’s presidential contest has focused primarily on former President Alberto Fujimori, who was running an almost farcical campaign from exile in Tokyo until he made a surprise visit to Chile where he was promptly arrested. Peruvian officials are scrambling to extradite him back to the country to face charges of corruption and human rights abuse. Congress long ago adopted a resolution banning him from public office until 2010, though Fujimori has steadily ignored the prohibition. Unfortunately for the would-be comeback kid, polls suggest that he would be unlikely to garner much support, and Popular Christian Party member Lourdes Flores remains the front-runner.

*Mexicans will elect a replacement for President Vicente Fox in July next year, the first election in which Mexican expatriates will also be allowed to vote. Though 4 million eligible voters live in the United States, candidates are prohibited by Mexican law from campaigning there. The current favorite is former Mexico City mayor and PRD (Democratic Revolution Party) member Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was the target of an investigation instigated by Fox on flimsy charges that he constructed a hospital on private lands after ignoring a court order not to do so. Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party will go up against Felipe Calderon of Fox’s National Action Party and Roberto Madrazo of PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Mexico's government recently paid off $1.4 billion in foreign debt in an attempt to ensure financial stability during the elections.

*Colombia’s Constitutional Court is set to rule soon on whether popular President Alvaro Uribe should be allowed to run for re-election, and if allowed, he is sure to win. The Court is widely expected to return a positive verdict for Uribe, as he has already cleared the hurdle of changing the constitution to allow re-election of the president. The Court's decision will refer to whether the constitutional change will apply to the current president. Given the absence of a prominent opposition candidate, an unlikely prohibition of his re-election would likely only prompt him to anoint a successor as soon as possible to carry on his agenda for the country.

*In neighboring Venezuela elections are also tenatively scheduled for next year, though Latin Americanists debate whether former coup-plotter-turned-democratically-elected-President Hugo Chavez will attempt to hang on to power by undemocratic means. His approval ratings dipped slightly below the critical 50% level for the first time recently, though as in Colombia’s case, the opposition is fractured and without a leader. His Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) party holds a lead in upcoming legislative elections.

*Despite alarmist cries from the right in the United States of a “pink revolution” sweeping the region, there is no such thing. Though Latin American voters may have decided to reject a whole-hearted embrace of the neo-liberal economic reforms promoted by the Washington Consensus, they are by no means veering far to the left. Wall Street’s virtual heart attack when Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected turned out to be unnecessary trepidation, as Lula implemented fiscal reforms that have kept the country stable and able to pay its debts. Similarly, the citation of Evo Morales’ rise in Bolivian politics as a return to Communism in South America is overblown. His rise in politics reflects a preference in Bolivia for increasing protectionism, though this is understandable in light of how poorly privatization has been carried out in the country. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet is a member of the Socialist Party, but the reforms implemented by party-mate Ricardo Lagos have given the country the strongest growth in the region. The U.S. right can always turn to its Colombian friend Alvaro Uribe as an example of a success from the right, as he has been able to achieve significant breakthroughs in his country’s cycle of violence and coherent economic policy while retaining popularity.

*It is possible that Hugo Chavez’ prominence in the U.S. media has given many the impression that Latin America is once again becoming a problematic neighbor of the U.S. Chavez has adopted a belligerent attitude towards U.S. policy and is very publicly rallying Latin American countries to wean themselves from dependency on their northern neighbor. The impression of Chavez applied to the rest of Latin America is flawed, however, and is due more than anything to Chavez’s flamboyant personality, his love of publicity, and the discomfort in the relationship between him and U.S. President George W. Bush. His antics should not blind Latin America-watchers to the fact that much of the region is consolidating democratic political institutions and growing economically, albeit slower than desired. Elections throughout Latin America will demonstrate how each nation is approaching these processes in individual ways that don’t constitute a feared ‘pink-revolution’ that will cause the region to regress.

***Many thanks to Canadian consulting firm Angus Reid for polling data.