The headline of the Financial Times’s Editorial Board commentary makes their point succinctly: “Latin America’s shallow shift to the right; Colombia and other recent polls highlight polarization rather than a decisive swing.”
The FT editors report on the narrow victory of Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia’s recent presidential election, noting that there have been recent victories by right wing candidates in Chile, Honduras, Bolivia and likely Peru as well. “Yet it is increasingly clear that these victories do not add up to a new ideological wave of support for a rightwing agenda, especially on the economy,” the FT reports unhappily. What is happening is not like the “1990s, (where) voters ushered in a series of governments across the region that pushed deep reforms, opening to foreign trade and privatizing state-owned businesses. Apart from steps to tackle violence and crime, there is much less appetite now for anything so ambitious… The one striking exception is Milei” in Argentina.
