Recent left-wing triumphs in Latin America may prove short-lived

Look more closely, however, and there are reasons to believe that a swing to the right is about to begin, and it may prove more profound. For a start, the main trend in recent elections has been anti-incumbency: an opponent of some kind or other has won the past 16 free presidential contests in the region. Economies have slowed and governments have generally struggled since the end of the commodity boom that benefited Chávez, Lula and the others. And political cycles have become shorter.

The swing back to the right is likely to start in Argentina’s presidential election in October next year. The ruling leftist Peronists have failed to control inflation and are divided. Presidential elections in Paraguay and Guatemala next year are also likely to favour the right.

And despite the prevailing discontent with incumbents, some of the left’s victories have been narrow. Lula won by just 1.8 percentage points against Jair Bolsonarothe right-wing populist president, whose record on the pandemic was disastrous. In Colombia this year Gustavo Petro, a leftist, won by three percentage points against Rodolfo Hernández, an eccentric outsider. Both victors were mistrusted by many voters. In Lula’s case that was because of corruption and economic mismanagement when his party was last in power. Meanwhile Mr Petro was viewed with suspicion because of his past enthusiasm for Chávez, his tendency to pick fights and his chaotic tenure as mayor of Bogotá, the capital.

Left-wing politicians benefit from concerns over inequality and poverty. Nevertheless, and this is the third factor potentially helping the right, the string of leftist victories does not reflect big shifts in voters’ ideological preferences.

LAPOP, a regionwide opinion poll, shows that around half of respondents identify with the political centre and around 20% each with the left and the right. These figures have not changed much for a decade or more. But there is a caveat: LAPOP finds that identification with the right increased in Brazil from 18% in 2008 to 32% in 2019 (its latest finding), with smaller increases in rightist sympathy in Argentina.

There may be several reasons for this. One is a rise in support for conservative values of religion, family and patria (fatherland). “Religiosity probably hasn’t increased but it probably has become a more important factor in how people vote,” says Noam Lupu of LAPOP. Another, says Esther Solano of the University of São Paulo, is a fear of falling in the social order. This is marked among members of the fragile new lower-middle class, who see themselves as self-made and favour economic freedom. Elsewhere, the left’s championing of indigenous peoples has prompted a recent defence by some conservative polemicists of the “civilising” value of the Spanish colonial conquest of America.

Another factor is crime, for which the right tends to offer a tougher rhetoric and for which the left has few answers. Lastly, as Ms Solano notes, right-wingers tend to be more “digitally native” on TikTok and other social-media platforms. The left is less adept at communicating digitally with younger people.

These trends have coincided with the resurgence of the hard right in Latin America, influenced by Trumpism and European populism. It has recently held get-togethers in Brazil and Mexico. Yet its rise may be the biggest problem for the broader centre-right.

In Argentina Javier Mileya libertarian gadfly who attracts the aspirational TikTok generation, poses a serious threat to Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the mayor of Buenos Aires. Mr Rodríguez, of the mainstream centre-right, might otherwise expect to win the presidency easily. In Chile’s presidential election a year ago Gabriel Boric of the left won partly because his conservative opponent, José Antonio Kast, was too extreme. Tendencies are not inevitabilities. But the underlying message is that the left has much work to do if it is to consolidate its recent successes.

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