Pink tide: Supporters of left-wing Chilean president Gabriel Boric celebrate after the results of the runoff presidential election in Santiago in 2021. (Mauro Pimentel/AFP)
A deep and powerful current is surging through the Latin American continent. It springs from decades of grassroots organisation building, mobilisation and militant action against the extreme right-wing authoritarianism, neo-liberalism and patriarchy that has dominated many Latin American countries.
While it is a contested terrain, such as the 4 September plebiscite outcome for the content of a proposed new Constitution in Chile, the current of fresh and progressive ideas is palpable. No less than seven right-wing governments have been defeated over the past four years, with another defeat likely next month.
This surging current is made up of many interesting facets. It is driven by community-based movements united across political party, trade-union and other organisational affiliations. New alliances and coalitions are welling up.
The flow of the current is strongly anti-neoliberal, anti-imperialist, anti-authoritarian and feminist in nature. Environmental and indigenous organisations and movements are an important part. Women’s emancipation and empowerment are central. Women and youth organisations are a powerful force, with the leadership spearheading campaigns and struggles.
This current has outmanoeuvred and exhausted the right wing in key countries and is flowing onwards to others. The masses of people are seeing through the neoliberal scam and are marching and voting in their numbers to oust right-wing, deeply corrupt and brutal governments.
In some countries the right still holds power, but this power is being vigorously challenged and contested.
The current is also washing up against, and eroding, US imperialism everywhere — which has so wracked and devastated many Latin American countries.
This not only builds on previous progressive surges, including what was termed the “pink tide”, but also consists of new and powerful currents. This involves countries that have never had progressive governments, or not for a long time.
To start with, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua have held firm in the face of US imperialism and were not part of the raging sea of right-wing governments that took power by various means a decade or so ago. This has included US-supported coups of various kinds.
While not without problems (Nicaragua in particular) and still under heavy attack, left-leaning governments have prevailed in the three countries for at least the past two decades, with Cuban left history going back to 1959 when Fidel Castro took power.
What is new and remarkable is the rapidly flowing current of popular movements and coalitions that has welled up and surged through Latin America over the past four years.
Seven right-wing governments have been defeated so far, with the most important defeat of all destined to happen next month. The countries involved are Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Chile and Colombia, with Brazil likely to follow in October. With the exception of Honduras and Bolivia, these are Latin America’s six largest economies. The significance of this cannot be underestimated.
This is a brief, high-level overview of the pathway taken by this current. Each case has its own detail, including the degree to which the new government was supported in the electoral process and the extent to which it holds power in the legislature and on the ground.
What is common to all is well-organised, united, deep-rooted, community-based organisation. Importantly, this level of organisation runs deep and stands to resist future right-wing challenges.
Mexico was the first country to undergo a dramatic political shift to the left with the election of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in July 2018 after decades of conservative governments.
This was followed by Argentina in October 2019, with leftist Alberto Fernandez gaining power.
Two weeks later in a major setback, President Evo Morales in Bolivia was overthrown by a US-supported coup. However, a year later, after massive protest action, Luis Arce of the same Movement for Socialism Party as Morales ascended to the presidency with a landslide win.
Peru was next to follow, with Pedro Castillo, a teacher and peasant leader from the Marxist-Leninist Peru Libre Party, narrowly winning the presidency in June 2021 after a protracted voting process. The shift to the left in Peru was followed by the re-election in Nicaragua of Sandinista President Daniel Ortega in November 2021. This was after an attempted coup in 2018 supported by the US.
Also in November 2021, the first female president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, was elected with a landslide victory. Castro’s Libre party arose from wide scale grassroots opposition to a coup in 2009.
In a tectonic shift to the left and flowing from the October 2019 youth-led uprising, 35-year-old ex-student leader Gabriel Boric convincingly won the presidential election in Chile in December 2021. This was an important reversal of the extreme authoritarian and violent legacy of Augusto Pinochet going back 50 years, with the now well-known protest slogan: “If Chile was the birthplace of neoliberalism, then it will also be its graveyard”.
Prior to Boric’s victory, a plebiscite held in May 2021 resulted in overwhelming support for a new Constitution and a constitutional assembly to forge it. However, in a plebiscite held on 4 September 2022, there was a large no vote for the content of the new Constitution drafted.
While a setback, this does not mean a rejection for a new Constitution. There is agreement that further negotiations will be held.
Leading up to the 2019 uprising, left formations, such as student, indigenous and feminist movements, had been growing over the previous decade.
In perhaps the most dramatic leftwards shift to date and for the first time in Colombian history, Gustavo Petro and his running mate Francina Marquez were victorious in June this year (assuming office on 7 August). Preceding this victory was a decade of mass mobilisation. Petro is a former leftist guerilla and Marquez an Afro-Colombian environmental and feminist activist and human rights lawyer. She is also the first Colombian vice-president of African descent.
To complete this inspiring scenario, in Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, former union leader and president of the country Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from the Workers’ Party (PT) is the frontrunner in the oncoming presidential election on 2 October.
In Colombia, the Afro-Colombian environmental and feminist activist Francina Marquez) was elected vice-president this year. (Raul Arboleda/AFP)
Contributing to Lula’s potential success are revitalised ties between the PT and social movements.
The year 2022 moving into 2023 will be crucial for the further building and consolidation of the left surge in Latin America. The policies and plans of the new governments are impressive.
Using Colombia as an example, structural changes proposed include: “to mobilise Colombian society as a caring society that recognises and rewards women’s care work; to establish a new relationship between society and nature that prioritises the defence of life over economic interests, promoting energy transition and democratising environmental knowledge; to move from an extractivist economy to a productive economy that reduces inequality in land ownership and use through agrarian reform, including access to and use of water” (“Petro, Francia and Hope”, 21-06-2022, Alice News).
New regional alliances are also forming, such as between neighbours Colombia and Venezuela, and the march for a transformed and better world is gaining momentum in Latin America.
The challenges are many, but there is a new force, a new energy that inspires great hope.
After years of grassroots organising and struggle, communities are rising, driven by working-class organisations, particularly by women, the youth and indigenous people.
Important space is opening for the left to occupy and to hold new, considerably more progressive governments accountable for their policy undertakings. We in South Africa can do well to follow their lead and draw inspiration and learning.
Jeremy Daphne is a former trade unionist and NGO activist
The information for the section titled ‘’The current pathway’’ was based on the following sources: Latin America’s Second Wave of Left-Wing Governments Could Be More Powerful Than the First, Kyla Sankey, Jacobin, 17 July 2022, and The Pink Tide Surges in Latin America, Roger Harris, CounterPunch, 15 July 2022
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.