Maxwell A. Cameron
Comment is free…
December 5, 2006 09:58 PM
The Latin American left must be allowed to find new solutions to the region’s political and social problems.
A pink tide continues to rise across Latin America. Two leaders friendly to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were elected in November. The victory of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, in spite of blatant meddling by the United States embassy, was followed by an upset triumph by Rafael Correa in the second round of the presidential election in Ecuador.
Now, even more dramatically, Chavez has won a landslide re-election, extending his mandate to early 2013. With 78 percent of the votes counted, he has 61 percent of the popular vote–the highest of any presidential candidate in the last 50 years, and even higher than his support in the 2004 presidential recall referendum. The rate of abstention was the lowest of all the elections in which Chavez has run since 1998.
Chavez appears to have won throughout Venezuela, including opposition leader Manuel Rosales’ home state of Zulia. The media reported a high number of null votes in areas hostile to Chavez, but the wide margin of victory makes such irregularities unlikely to occasion destabilizing post-electoral conflict. “The process unfolded in a satisfactory manner,” said Rosales’ advisor Teodoro Petkoff, in spite of “a few incidents around the country.” OAS observers noted that the voting process was peaceful and without incident.
Although the shift to the left shows no sign of fizzling, it has been met with a mixture of caution and denial in some quarters. Moises Naim, in Foreign Policy, speaks of the “left turn that wasn’t.” Many of the left-wing presidents in the region have not delivered “on their more extreme campaign promises” claims Naim. In a revealing turn of phrase, he says “Latin America can’t compete on the world stage in any way, even as a threat.” The region can’t complete, presumably, for the attention of United States policy makers.
Conservative pundits are not about to jump to the conclusion that neoliberal policies espoused by Washington for the past two decades have contributed to the polarization that, in some cases, has resulted in electoral victories for the left. Carlos Moreno Brid and Igor Paunovic suggest , however, that a “key root behind the region’s shift to the left is the disappointing result of the economic reforms – inspired by the Washington Consensus – implemented by previous governments.” Claudio Lomnitz echos this, saying: “The neo-liberal era produced a deep fracture in every Latin American country between the segments of the population that thrived under free trade and the shrinking state, and those that were put at risk.” This rift divided many–but not all–countries into tiers: “the ‘deep nation’ versus the ‘fictional nation’; the oligarchy versus the pueblo.”
Naim also assumes that the left is inherently a threat to US interests. If not a threat, how could a government be left-wing? Yet some of the elected socialist leaders that were overthrown by the US in the past–Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, deposed by a CIA funded and organized expedition in 1954, and Salvador Allende in Chile, forced out of power in a CIA-backed coup in 1973–were scarcely more radical than Chavez or current Bolivian President Evo Morales. Their constitutional and democratic credentials were as impeccable as Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Brazil’s Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva. But of course the context was different.
In light of the Chavez victory, one can only hope that Thomas Shannon, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, is sincere when he says that “regime change” is not part of his vocabulary. The US reaction to the victory of Chavez will be a test of whether the US can live peaceably and cooperatively with a region, long seen as its backyard, that has moved sharply out of its orb of influence. In awe at their own military might, a segment of the United States foreign policy establishment–and not just the neoconservatives–often succumbs to the belief that the US has a power that no nation or empire has ever had, or ever will have: the power to solve the problem of political order for others.
It is the problem of political order that the Latin American left must face squarely. It cannot hope to address poverty, inequality, economic underperformance, or social exclusion without reforming the state. The Latin American state is, with rare exceptions, both cruel and inefficient: cruel both in its capacity for violence and its indifference to suffering and human need; inefficient both in its inability to provide public goods or enforce the rule of law, and in its incapacity to translate public preferences into collectively desired outcomes.
Latin America’s most successful democracies–Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile–have all have made sustained investments in human development; they have created efficient public sector institutions based on the rule of law and the separation of powers; and they have sustained enduring political party and civil society organizations. These are orderly societies with functioning states, and they, more than the United States or Venezuela, represent the most reliable path to success.
The international community must back away from the imposition of rigid policy recipes and give the region latitude to experiment. When countries compete, they learn from each other. President Alan García has that Peru must treat Chile as a model to emulate and exceed, not an enemy to fight and defeat.
When countries quarrel, they conjure up a dismal Hobbesian world of repetitive conflict. The polarization in some of the recent elections in Latin America has been exacerbated by the dispute between the United States and Venezuela. The sovereign act of voting–in Nicaragua, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and elsewhere–has been interpreted as if elections were barometers of support for Chávez or Bush.
It was Latin America’s misfortune in the 20th century to be caught in a pendulum-like oscillation between democracy and authoritarian rule. As Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet enter their twilight, it is worth reflecting on how the region can avoid a return to the stark and sterile confrontations of the last century.
This is an abbreviated version of a talk prepared for a conference on “Assessing Latin America’s ‘Left Turn’: Political Diversity and the Search for Development Alternatives,” December 1 and 2, 2006, Cornell University.
One reply on “Pink tide rising”
First of all I think it is great to listen that finally the problems in Latin America are taken more seriously and with bigger concern abroad.
I am living since almost eleven years in Peru and want to speak a little bit about how things are here.
During my time here Peru was shaken from heavily political scandals and corruption in all fields.
Peruvians in generally gave up on their politicians and don’t believe in their promises- First they saw their former President Mister Fujimorie running away in consequence of an bravery scandal which marked the end of his dictatorship.
Fujimorie once started well in the early 90th by fighting inland terrorism and attracting foreign investment- but is very much comparable with a doctor who once cured cancer from a patient and than after many years amputating the arms and the legs from the same person without reason. The end of his regime was marked with political persecution, with government steeling and institutional corruption and with oppression of democratic rights in many fields.
Than Mister Toledo took office- many people voted for him because he made himself strong for democracy under the Fujimorie regime and seemed to be someone who can fight bag corruption without fake compromises. But after dictatorship the worst thing what can happen to a country is a weak president.
Toledo handed over his mandate more than half year ago and the country is politically as much economically deeply divided. He managed the country economically thanks to smart technical assessment not bad but wrong social political approach like unreasonable spending of government money and new corruption under his mandate made it very difficult that many abridge Peruvians could trust again in their politicians. Toledo clearly had good intensions to pull true the vision of democracy and in generally showed more respect for human rights and freedom of expression than other governments before him .
History surely will judge him mild- but there stays a very bad taste in the mouth.
His incapacity of straightening Peruvian institutions up to institutions who work according to international standards of an developed democracy, his unable ness to traduce his economical success in something tangible for the 50 Percent of Peruvians which are according to international analysts living in extremely poorness, his incapacity of fighting bag the enemies of democracy- all this open the door again to former President Mister Garcia – the former Peruvian president whose mandate was described by many Peruvians as an disaster.
Mister Garcia is remembered by many Peruvians as the President who left the country in economical and political chaos in the late eighties. He fleet the country and lived many years in France in richness-representing an lifestyle very much opposed to common Peruvian reality.
According to some and analysts mister Garcia had and maintains strong ties with the Fujimorie sympatisants who might have helped him
To win the election half year ago.
Some of the Fujimoristas still until now have strong influence and in politics and economy and Fujimorie is very much popular among those
Who made fast money under his government and don’t care about the political and economical prize the country later on had to pay.
Some common people on the street start to see Fujimorie now almost as an saint-and good acts under his term like the battle against terrorism
Got idealized and big parts of the Press and TV which often only can go on with company paid commercials try to make some of the
the bad acts and crimes under the Fujimori-regime forgotten.
All this comes as an consequence of an weak approach of the Toledo government In the case of democracy.
Mister Garcia could win the last elections not because many Peruvians were so much in love with him- more he won because many
Peruvians didn’t won’t to see Chavez fan Humala in charge- and the afraid ness among the Peruvian population was ideological used very much from the power elite who according to international analysts has great influence in press and controls part of it.
Mister Garcia promised during his campaign that he has changed , that he is less populist and will bring democratic institutions forward.
Since half year he is in charge and from my foreign point of few (very much experienced in case of democracy- former East German refugee) he is more Populist than ever.
No day passes by Peruvians listen new announcements from his mouth, seeing his image and birds flying from his shoulders and have again to listen the daily news about possible corruption acts under his government.
More than 50 percent of Peruvians have to live with less than 2 dollars a day and have because of bad nutrition in some areas not even the strength to shake their heads about the latest scandal – besides- in many areas news don’t even reach the people because there is no electricity or no money for an TV.
But I want to get a little bit more specific:
Press and TV channels- freedom of expression:
Many Peruvian news give a smoove version about the situation- and many young people they don’t even trust in some of their news and want just go out from the country. According to poll companies (some of them with straight links to the Fujimorie regime and some corrupted people) give mister Garcia among the population a high approval rate. The crazy thing is that most of the Peruvians have just enough from corruption and express in some opinion polls in an high percentage against corruption what makes this some of this opinion polls less trustworsy
In generally Peruvians have freedom of expression something what mister Toledo in general terms gave bag to Peru. Yet there are cases of persecution when hot topics like corruption in some institutions are touched from some journalists.
Or private persons- and they run in danger in same cases to be victim Of rediculisation or get victims of threads.
From my point of few Peruvians don’t get enough access to international information in television and they are excluded from the possibility to understand our world in the whole context. Yet much more in evening news seems to be important to speak about daily accidents suicides (the number of suicides raised up drastically and does not mach to the press spread optimism about the situation in the country) or a lucky resolved arm transplant which later on had to be removed again.
Education:
In short words- M ore than half of Peruvians are excluded to education according international standards and I have the impression that it is not in the interest of the countries leading elite to educate the masses because sharp thinking brains are analyzing better and are more difficult to manage and manipulate.
Good Education is in general a privilege which only is possible to access with certain economical level and income.
Health:
You can imagine how is our health system if Peruvian news speak aboard Lung transplants as something special- an operation who is part from standard routine transplant in the developed world. The health care in general is poor and insufficient and who is poor and very sick dies much sooner than someone who can afford the few private hospitals.
Economy:
No doubt about it- the Peruvian economy is running better thanks to some smart technical assessment and after all Mister Toledo – an former economist. But our economy is not as fare as good as newspapers want to make common people believe. Really investment doesn’t come to Peru because of the missing security in the Justice system which protects the money.
In numbers the economy got better because of the raising up of the prize from precious metals and the growing export in agriculture and other goods.
Economically mainly traduces his function or dysfunction in the wealthy ness of the people- what brings me to the conclusions that with such an high unemployment and
Extreme poorness and underdeveloped infrastructure (our Pan-American Highway until now has only two lines and full traffic between cities shoes also if the economy is working well or not ) the things are not so good like always the people in charge want to make Peruvians believe.
Justice.
What brings me to the most painful point and end.
Mostly Peruvians qualified their Justice institutions as corrupt. Simple trials in many cases can only be won in interchange of bravery or favors. Videos ov Judges who receive bravery money are shown on Tv as much as articles of Judges who release Drug Dealers.
Some areas are completely dominated by the whole pocket of corruption- were part of the Justice system works together with some corrupted polices and parts of other institutions to protect common or organized crime.
Until Peru does not get a radical Justice reform- may be as much international fiscalzed like possible government spending (Mister Garcia proposed something alike yesterday on TV ) Peru will not go in direction of progress, development and most of all true democracy.
After all I stay optimist and hope very much that Peru in the future attracts foreigners to live her among the Peruvians and be part of active democratic development as part of an healthy globalization were environment shouldn’t not be harmed as much as the culture of Peru.
After all I would describe Peruvians in general as warm Latin’s with a great spirit of curiousness and ability to invent and create- and I think they deserve a better destiny as running away to achieve the benefits from a better managed capitalism in the Advanced world or being victims of crime in their country.
Besises we should not forget- the great peruvian eviermental recourses are great hope for our earth.