Triumph of the “Latino” left: the recipes of the socialist tidal wave

Even before his enthronement on August 8 at the presidential palace in Bogota (altitude: 2640 meters), Gustavo Petro, 62, made history. Elected on Sunday June 19, this graduate of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium is not only Colombia’s first left-wing president, but also the only one to have joined a guerrilla movement at the age of 17. Made up of students, activists and artists, the M-19 aimed to seize power through violence, including by organizing hostage-takings at the Supreme Court and at the Embassy of the Dominican Republic.

Arrested in 1985, imprisoned for eighteen months and tortured, Petro finally took part in the demobilization of this movement in 1990, a quarter of a century before the Farc guerrillas in turn laid down their arms in 2016. Here he is leader of State, flanked – another novelty – by a black vice-president (10% of Colombians are Afro-descendants). From a rural background, Francia Marquez, 40, is an environmental activist who has worked in the mines and as a domestic.

The election of this unprecedented “ticket” marks a new stage in the series of successes of the Latin left, after those of the Mexican Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018), the Argentinian Alberto Fernandez (2019), the Bolivian Luis Arce ( 2020), the Peruvian Pedro Castillo (2021) and Gabriel Boric, the youngest president in the history of Chile, in office since March. If 76-year-old Brazilian Lula wins against Bolsonaro next October, the region’s top seven economies will be led by the left, with Brazil and Mexico alone accounting for more than half GDP and population of the subcontinent.

In Catholic land, the left flourishes like nowhere else

“The left-wing discourse naturally resonates with the population, because the latter is deeply imbued with the Catholic mentality, notes, in Lima, the liberal writer Juan Claudio Lechin, who is also the son of the famous Bolivian trade unionist Juan Lechin ( However, as the Church has always done, for whom liberalism represents absolute evil, the Latin left always addresses the poor by rehashing the ideas of hope, faith, redemption and egalitarianism without having, moreover, ever really reduced inequalities.

Lechin, author of Las máscaras del fascismo (“The Masks of Fascism”, untranslated), where he lists the similarities between the European dictators Franco, Hitler and Mussolini and the Latin American caudillos, adds: “Because it is steeped in religion, the electorate on the left is receptive to the messianic populism embodied by Peron, Castro and Chavez.” As for the right, it is another problem: its social conscience and its will to modify the established order, that is to say injustice, have never really jumped to the eye.

The pink “new wave” is in any case reminiscent of that of the beginning of the century, marked by the advent of Hugo Chavez (Venezuela, 1999), Ricardo Lagos (Chile, 2000), Lula (Brazil, 2002) or even Néstor Kirchner ( Argentina, 2003). But there is a difference. At the time, the boom in raw materials, oil and soy in the lead, had ensured the prosperity of Venezuela and Brazil, provoking a certain euphoria in passing. Banking on this miracle, the governments of these countries had not undertaken structural reforms. Venezuela and Brazil then sank into serious socio-political crises.

In addition, the global economic crisis and that of the Covid have been there. “The situation in the region is delicate: the World Bank forecasts 2.2% growth in 2023, observes the Franco-Mexican political scientist Gaspard Estrada. But there is a positive point: certain debates are finally emerging, such as that on taxation, notoriously lower in Latin America than in OECD countries.Another topical issue: the relocation of certain industries that left China, which could return to the continent, for example in Central America, in order to recreate value chains on the spot.”

But for the leaders, the room for maneuver is narrow. “Many elected presidents, such as Petro in Colombia or Castillo in Peru, do not have a majority in parliament, which, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing if we consider that some of them are talking about nationalizations, points out Geneviève des Rivières, former ambassador of Canada in these two countries, as well as in Bolivia. Yet nothing frightens investors more than “nationalizations”, synonymous for them with legal insecurity. Everyone has seen what the interventionism has produced in Venezuela – a catastrophe – and no one will bet a peso on countries that evoke it. If Peru, Colombia or Chile choose this path, it will be a catastrophe, because these countries, all in debt, need to attract capital, not scare it away.”

A bit pessimistic, the ex-diplomat who today chairs the France-Amérique foundation in Paris, adds: “Brought to power by desperate voters, the new leaders may have the best intentions in the world, but they don’t do not have the means, as they promised, to increase public spending to invest in health, education, infrastructure, employment. She concludes: “Nothing suggests that these governments will reduce social inequalities and generate growth.”

The return of the left does not mean either the sacred union around the same ideas. Each president defends different values. Former teacher and strike leader, Peruvian Pedro Castillo, ultra-Catholic, openly rejects abortion and homosexuality, for example, while Chilean Gabriel Boric and Argentinian Alberto Fernandez are in favor of abortion and sexual freedom. .

Finally, from a geopolitical point of view, the 2020s are not like the 2000s. At the time, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro wielded considerable influence; one thanks to oil revenues which enabled him to “water” friendly governments, the other thanks to his personality. But today, at least 6 million Venezuelans have fled their crumbling country (in Colombia alone, 2 million migrants have arrived from the neighboring dictatorship) and Cuba’s revolutionary star has faded, even as its network of influence and intelligence around the world remains impressive.

However, in the meantime, Moscow and Beijing have advanced their pawns. As in the good old days of the Cold War, Vladimir Putin has relaunched military cooperation with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In the midst of the war in Ukraine, the Nicaraguan parliament approved the entry into its territory of Russian military equipment. According to Decree 10-2022, Russian troops will be able to participate from July 1 in “training and exchange exercises within the framework of humanitarian aid operations, search, rescue and relief missions in emergencies or natural disasters, with the land, air and naval forces of the Nicaraguan army”.

In what was “the backyard of the Americans”, this recent announcement looks like one of those provocations of which Moscow has the secret without necessarily having the means to materialize it since its military effort is entirely concentrated on the east of the Ukraine. “It is above all a matter of rhetoric, but rhetoric counts! continues political scientist Gaspard Estrada, of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean. The fact is that in terms of propaganda, thanks to the influence RT channel and social media, Moscow has scored in Latin America over the past decade.”

And, as the United States has turned away from the region, China has taken control of Latin America, as L’Express explained last December.

Reactivate the BRICS? “If he becomes president again, Lula, the former “champion” of South-South diplomacy, will no doubt want to renew his ties with China, Russia, India and South Africa, predicts Margaret Meyers, of the think tank Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. But neither China nor Russia looks like it did fifteen years ago.”

In this upset landscape, one constant remains: anti-Americanism – which is also anti-liberalism. An example ? The boycott, in early June, by Mexico and other countries, of the Summit of the Americas organized by Joe Biden. Petro’s election in Colombia reinforces this trend and Washington may have just lost its best ally in Bogota. Traditionally more to the right than the other states in the region, Colombia has long been a privileged partner. The Andean country has received $13 thousand in aid since the 1990s to fight drugs and guerrilla warfare. Without too much success, by the way: in the Andes, cocaine production reached a historically high level in 2021. And the irony of history is that a former guerrilla fighter came to power. Barely elected, Gustavo Petro indicated that he wanted to renew the dialogue with Nicolás Maduro, his Venezuelan counterpart and neighbor. “It is to be expected, suggests Margaret Meyers, that the Bogota-Washington relationship will loosen up a bit.”