Gabriel Boric became president of Chile on March 11. Gustavo Petro assumes the presidency in Colombia today. And if Jair Bolsonaro does not prevent it by undemocratic methods, Luis Ignacio da Silva, Lula, has all the numbers to return to the presidency of Brazil. Never has the opportunity been so great for the democratic left in the south of the American continent. He only has one problem: he arrives in a devilish economic context.
To this year's harvest we must add the names of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico (2018), Alberto Fernández in Argentina (2019), Luis Arce in Bolivia (2020) and Pedro Castillo in Peru (2021). The four represent different profiles. López Obrador acts very conditioned by the great neighbor to the north and has practiced austerity policies; Fernández navigates between the waters of Kirchnerism and social discontent; Arce tries to govern the stability of a country that was on the brink of ethnic conflict and Pedro Castillo has yet to show that he is capable of forming a stable government.
None of them overshadow the importance of this year's relays. With Boric, the Chilean left runs a country exhausted by neoliberal management and faces the difficult challenge of approving a constitution in September that recognizes indigenous plurinationality. Petro embodies the first opportunity for the left to lead a country in which it has always been away from management due to the influence of drug trafficking, violence and the leading role of the guerrillas. For Lula, the victory would have an aftertaste of revenge after having been removed from power as a result of a judicial set-up.
All of them must govern after years of inequalities, increased by the pandemic. But the policy that has most characterized that left, the increase in social spending, is going to be difficult in the current context. Petro assumes a government that leaves a huge debt. Bolsonaro has resurrected the pandemic aid policy and the inheritance that the next government will receive will be a large fiscal deficit. Boric has already had to reconsider some policies due to high inflation.
The last time the left came to power in South America was in the early 2000s. It did so after a decade marked by privatization and deregulation that ended in a period of financial instability. The left then benefited from the "boom" of raw materials, which allowed it to finance extensive social programs.
This time there is nothing quite like it. A recent report by ECLAC (Repercussions in Latin America and the Caribbean of the war in Ukraine), this UN body warns of the arrival of a period of slowdown and almost stagnation. This 2021 the economy grew by 6.3%. In 2022 it is expected to do so by 1.8%.
The cause is inflation, which in some countries can reach double digits. And the origin, the prices of food and energy. The war in the Ukraine will only complicate matters. The countries of the area have not taken a firm position in the conflict between the United States and Europe and Russia. They have preferred to remain in a non-aligned zone, both for cultural reasons - distancing from the United States - and because of the importance of their economic relations with China and, in some cases, with Russia.
The main fear of the South American foreign ministries is that the conflict in Ukraine will lead the world to a second Cold War between the West on the one hand and China and Russia on the other, in which trade relations are conditioned by belonging to one of the two blocs. . South American societies have a bad memory of the effects left by the first Cold War.
