Unlike in Europe, the left in Latin America is still winning elections — albeit with difficulty. After 12 years in power, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has just seen his party win general elections with a much reduced majority. In Brazil the Workers’ party is on the way to its third presidency in a row — though Dilma Rousseff must run off against Jose Serra, the center-right candidate. And Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has survived an attempted coup. These governments all face similar challenges — heavy pressure from the regional oligarchs, and civil unrest from their grassroots social base. To understand this, look at how the left came to power in the first place.
In the 1980s Latin America emerged from the dark days of military dictatorship with the hope that democracy would bring social justice. It was not to be. Forced to accept the free-trade doctrines of the Washington consensus, the weak and ill-prepared governments of the day auctioned off public resources at bargain--basement prices, mainly to Spanish capital, and were drawn into global capitalism. The elite benefited, while the majority gained nothing. Jobs barely increased, public sector wages were “readjusted”, and poverty rose dramatically. Workers suffered a double disadvantage: their labor cost more than that of their Chinese counterparts, and they were less well educated than eastern Europeans.
As the redistributive and welfare roles of government were progressively abandoned, the image of the old nation state began to erode. Poorer sectors of society dissociated their idea of national identity from the state. There was a deep crisis of political representation: traditional parties alienated voters, and the politicians who replaced the military quickly exhausted their credibility.
This was the context in which the left came to power. In the last two decades mass mobilizations — particularly of indigenous peoples — brought down four presidents in Argentina, three in Ecuador and one each in Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Social movements challenged US hegemony and stopped the privatization of state enterprises and natural resources, building a new sense of identity forged by ethnic and regional demands and uniting the excluded and marginalized. Before the center-left’s electoral victories, a cultural victory had already been won.
In Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador new constitutions were the expression of these new pacts: A legal framework recognizing collective social and environmental rights and creating the conditions for radical democracy, emerging from the decolonization of states.
These progressive governments have driven a reconstruction of the architecture of power and geopolitics in the region. Throughout the continent there has been a profound redefinition of the relationship with the US and the global financial organizations, expressed both in the rejection of the policies of the White House and in the emergence of new institutional arrangements favoring regional integration on the continent’s own terms.
It was no accident that the ambitious US-backed initiative for regional integration in a free-market framework — the Free Trade Area of the Americas — was torpedoed, or that Ecuador did not renew the contract for a US military base at Manta. Foreign relations are flourishing in other directions, however: Solidarity with Cuba and active diplomatic ties with Iran are a common factor, and Chinese investment is growing.
The central element of this redefinition has been the demand for national control of natural resources — which has produced major conflicts with multinational companies. Today the states have greater control over those resources. However, social and indigenous organizations have criticized the fact that these governments have continued to base their strategies on an “extractivist” model, in which they remain primarily producers and exporters of raw materials.
These grassroots challenges over the exploitation of natural resources are gaining in strength, despite the international boom in the price of raw materials. Additional challenges have emerged — the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador accused Correa of being authoritarian, and environmental groups argue that he has given undue concessions to large mining companies. In Brazil the MST — the landless workers’ movement — has criticized President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for failing to make advances in land reform. In Venezuela there is discontent with the ruling bureaucracy and the “Bolibourgeoisie” — those who have become wealthy under Chavez’s socialism, which reveres Simon Bolivar, the 19th-century aristocrat who won Venezuela’s freedom from Spain. In Bolivia, the more radical indigenous groups have criticized new gas exploration projects.
The extraction of natural resources has brought considerable new income to the continent, which these governments have used to finance social programs and to combat poverty. During Lula’s two terms his family plan has reached 50 million of Brazil’s poorest people. In Venezuela 60 percent of tax income was dedicated to social programs between 1999 and 2009; the poverty index fell from 49 percent to 24 percent, and the level of extreme poverty from 30 percent to 7 percent. Economic elites in each country have attacked this social spending, but corporate profits have actually increased — in Brazil under Lula, three banks earned US$95 billion in eight years.
The social transformation under way in Latin America has not yet produced definitive results. Disputes over the role of the state and the direction of regional integration and development policy have not been resolved. The waters of change are turbulent — and are likely to remain so for several years to come.
Luis Hernandez Navarro is the opinion editor for Mexico’s La Jornada.
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