Can a New Generation of 'Pink Tide’ Leaders Avoid the Sins of the Past in Latin America?

 

by Owen McGovern

History was made last week with the election of Gustavo Petro as President of Colombia in their 2022 election, with him being the first left-wing president since Colombia’s independence in 1810. Colombia has long had strong opposition to left-wing ideology, in part due its historical alignment with the US and its anti-communist stance, as well as due to the operation of left-wing guerilla groups creating a lot of mistrust towards leftist parties. However, with nearly 50% of Colombians in some form of poverty, support has been building for Petro’s policies, which include land reform and free higher education. Furthermore, on his campaign trail, Petro was able to attract more moderate voters by distancing himself from Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian socialist regime in neighbouring Venezuela. This culminated in Petro defeating his opponent Rodolfo Hernandez, a conservative real estate magnate, with 50.47% of the vote, in a win which was called “a kind of earthquake”. This “earthquake” has been preceded by the shifting of the plates that make up the Latin American political landscape, and broader movements stretching back decades to the Cold War. 

During the Cold War, it was a common practice of the United States to stage coups against left-wing governments in Latin America over fears they may ally with the Soviet Union, with them being replaced by anti-communist leaders who suppressed leftist political parties and movements. However, after the democratization of Latin America in the 1980s and the fall of these dictatorships, the Latin American left was given a way back into government through elections. With a backdrop of high inflation and unemployment, many voters became dissatisfied with neoliberal policies, leading to a surge in popularity for left-wing and socialist leaders in the region in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This was known as the ‘pink tide’, due to pink being a milder version of red, reflecting how most of these new leaders were more moderate than the communist revolutionaries of the past. These new left-wing governments were well placed to exploit the commodities boom in the year 2000, which saw rapid rises in the demand for physical goods, mainly due to the ever increasing demand for raw materials from Chinese manufacturers, many of which Latin American countries exported. For example, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez was able to forge important links with China through its oil trade with the Asian nation and underwent a period of high economic growth. However, this newfound prosperity in Latin America would not last long. 

In the 2010s China’s economy went into a slowdown, meaning that for Latin America there was much lower demand for their exports from China. Many countries in the region were hugely reliant on their exporting industries due to the failure of the ‘pink tide leaders to diversify their economies enough. Faced with high unemployment which meant government tax revenue was lower, spending on many of the social programs that these ‘pink tide leaders had championed became unsustainable. Coupled with growing anti-Chinese sentiment due to the perceived amount of influence China was gaining over the region, voters instead began to turn to more conservative candidates in a shift known as the ‘blue tide’. This ‘blue tide’ coincided with a spike in popularity of the Christian conservative positions which these ‘blue tide’ leaders held. For example, Jair Bolsonaro, current President of Brazil, had been well known for his vocal opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and drug legalisation prior to his election in 2018 yet he still won 55% of the vote. Despite its impact however, many believe the ‘blue tide’ is nothing more than an ebb in what is a generally leftwards flow. 

During the ‘blue tide’ era resentment had slowly been building towards these conservative governments. A growing sense of environmentalism among voters clashed with pro-oil and deforestation policies, while austerity measures became more and more unpopular as inequality increased. The COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, was unsurprisingly one of the triggers for a second ‘pink tide’, given the way in which it laid bare societal inequality as well as the tendency for the ‘blue tide’ governments in the region to underestimate the virus in their response. The figures of the second ‘pink tide’ were partly able to gain office through realigning their positions, as many candidates took more regressive positions on issues such as abortion or the environment in order to draw voters away from conservative candidates. The second ‘pink tide’ has so far seen several left-wing leaders elected, like the aforementioned Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and Gabriel Boric, who won the Chilean election with the most votes in Chilean history, with Brazil perhaps being the next country to turn pink, given that right-wing populist and sitting president Jair Bolsonaro is currently 17% behind his left-wing rival Lula in the polls. It remains to be seen, however, whether this new generation of leftist leadership will find greater stability than their predecessors, or whether the cyclical nature of changes in political leadership will continue to persist in Latin America.