The three Latin American elections in 2022 and how the politics of the region can be changed or strengthened

The exception was Nicaragua, but its elections, which took place in November, were contested and considered illegitimate by some countries: o President Daniel Ortega Re-elected for the fourth time in a row, all other candidates were in prison.

“There is general discontent from the political class, and the ruling party ends up footing the bill,” says Paulo Velasco, professor of international politics at Rio de Janeiro State University (Uerj).

This picture of discontent could be completed in 2022, with three elections planned in the region, two of them in the most populous country in South America: Brazil and Colombia.

The first elections are scheduled for February 6 in Costa Rica, with a second round likely to take place on April 3 among the candidates with the most votes.

Among the more than 20 registered candidates, there are well-known names there, such as former centrist president Jose Maria Figueres, conservative former vice president Lineth Saborio, and Fabricio Alvarado, the right-wing evangelical leader who lost in 2018 to the incumbent president. . , Carlos Alvarado.

In another sign of popular discontent with changing governments, Wilmer Ramos, the candidate for the ruling Citizen Labor party, plans to vote without a margin of error in some opinion polls.

But the two elections that will focus attention in the region this year are, in chronological order, Colombia and Brazil.

The first round of Colombia’s elections is scheduled to take place on May 29 (more than two months after the legislative elections in March) and a possible second round on June 19.

Regarding Huge street protests in 2021 And various economic challenges, most opinion polls in Colombia point to the lead of leftist Gustavo Petro, an economist, former guerrilla and former mayor of Bogota who lost in the second round in 2018 to the current president, Ivan Duque.

Petro’s eventual victory would mark something unprecedented: the first time a left-wing candidate has been elected president of Colombia.

But there may be a different scenario for the left-right polarization of the recent Latin American elections.

The Colombian right, led by former President Alvaro Uribe, is worn out after the Duque government, and Petro may have to compete with a centrist candidate, such as former Medellín mayor Sergio Fajardo, economist Alejandro Gaviria, and ex-president Senator Carlos Fernando Galán.

“This is a strong possibility: today we do not have this polarization between a left-wing candidate and a right-wing candidate,” says Patricia Muñoz, a professor of political science at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.

On the other hand, everything indicates that, in the October elections, Brazil will face a confrontation between current President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT), currently the leader in opinion polls. October 2 election intentions (with a second round likely on October 30).

So far, opinion polls do not indicate the main voting intentions of the so-called “Third Way” candidates, such as former judge and ex-minister Sergio Moro (Podemos) and ex-governor Ciro Gomez (PDT).

Lula and Pietro’s victories will eventually give a new boost to the left in Latin America, not only because of the relative weight of Brazil and Colombia on the continent.

Between 2020 and 2021, left-wing candidates won most of the elections held in the region: Luis Arce in Bolivia, Pedro Castillo in Peru, Xiomara Castro in Honduras, and Gabriel Boric in Chile, as well as the special case of Nicaragua.

However, some analysts rule out that it is now possible to anticipate a new regional trend like that which occurred in the 2000s, when many left-wing governments were unified and re-elected.

“I’m starting to paint a picture in which left-wing governments are the majority, but they don’t follow the same trend and I don’t see a wave like the one in the 2000s,” Velasco says.

In his view, it is normal for voters in many countries to migrate to the left after the disappointment that emerged with the election of right-wing presidents to replace their counterparts in the other pole.

“If there were more left-wing governments at the moment, the trend would have been to win the right or the center-right,” he says.

The great challenge for Latin American governments remains to meet the demand for better public services and better social security, as well as to reduce inequality, and perhaps issues with which the left is more aligned.

However, getting the job done will be difficult in Latin America with moderate growth (the regional average is around 3% in 2022, according to ECLAC), inflationary pressure, high public debt and the uncertainty it has now brought. The omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Some experts also warn that social unrest could re-emerge with popular protests in the region.

The Sweden-based Intergovernmental Institute Idea, noted in a report on the state of democracy in the region, published in November.

Although the report highlights that democracy has shown signs of resilience during the pandemic, it adds that “attacks on electoral bodies are becoming more frequent” in Latin America, both by governments and the opposition in countries such as Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico and Peru. .

In this context, all eyes will also turn to the Brazilian elections after Bolsonaro’s attacks on the electoral system (in November, he retracted and said that he “has come to believe in e-voting”) and the Brazilian president supported Donald Trump’s claim, without evidence. That there was fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.

Have you seen our new videos on Youtube? Subscribe to our channel!