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Presidential Elections in Latin America: the Ascent of an Heterogeneous Left

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Presidential Elections in Latin America: the Ascent of an Heterogeneous Left 1 Presidential elections in Latin America: the ascent of an heterogeneous left Ignacio Medina Núñez September 2010 [email protected] 2 This book was published in Spanish Title: Elecciones presidenciales en América Latina. El ascenso de una izquierda heterogénea Author: Ignacio Medina Núñez Pages: 354 ISBN: 978-987-1070-89-3 Year: 2009 Elaleph. Buenos Aires, Argentina. 3 INDEX PROLOGUE by Jorge Alonso INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. DISSOLUTION OF BORDERS OR IDEOLOGICAL CONFRONTATION? Right and left: dissolution of borders Continuance of the ideological confrontation In a plural world CHAPTER II. UTOPIA AND A NEW SOCIAL IMAGINARY Rationality and utopia The social Imaginary From reality to the Latin-American utopia CHAPTER III. RIGHT AND LEFT IN LATIN AMERICA A plural setting CHAPTER IV. TOWARD THE RIGHT 4,1 COLOMBIA: reelection of the hard hand 4.2 MEXICO: ascent of the left but triumph of the right CHAPTER V. IDEOLOGICAL CENTER POSITIONS 5.1 HONDURAS: continuation of the bipartisanship 5.2 COSTA RICA: beating the bipartisanship 5.3 PERU: second opportunity for APRA CHAPTER VI. AN HETEROGENEOUS LEFT IN ASCENT. 6.1 BOLIVIA: a surprising democratic revolution of native characteristics 6.2 CHILE: continuance of the ―Concertación‖ 6.3 BRAZIL: the reelection of Lula 6.4 ECUADOR: beating the restricted democracy 6.5 NICARAGUA: the return of the Sandinista movement 6.6 VENEZUELA: the new Bolivarian project CHAPTER VII. THE CENTER-LEFT IN 2007 7.1 Guatemala: Transition to social democracy? 7.2 Argentina: the continuity of a political Project CONCLUSIONS Bibliography 4 PROLOGUE The present book is very opportune. It gives detailed account of the main changes occurred in the politics of Latin America in recent years. It carries out a penetrating theoretical discussion on the origin, development and relevance of the right-left dichotomy, which is reused in a new way to analyze what happens in the main Latin-American countries that have experienced electoral processes between 2005 and 2007. Another merit is that for each country is offered a social and historic context, with different discussed interpretations about what it may occur. The Latinobarómetro data in 2008 showed this data: 2% from the latin- Americans do not know or they do not want to respond if they are in the left or in the right; and 4% would prefer to be identified with an indeterminate political center; but they are those who persist wanting to be recognized being rightist or leftist. From 1998 to 2008, the ones that confess being rightists have descended 14 points (from a 36 to 22 percent). The ones that proclaim being lesftists have descended also five points (from 22 to 17%). Nevertheless, there are fundamental themes with significant proportions that approach a great majority to own area of the left. In this way, questioning about what activities should be mainly in the hands of the State and not in the private enterprises the answers are forceful: 80% prefer that the State should control education (from basic to the university level), health, drinking water, pensions and retirements, electric services and petroleum1. This book explains why Latin-American landslide has gone toward the left. The fight against the predators and terrible measures of the neoliberal globalization has pushed to a large quantity of people to the left. But the book does not fall in simplification because it shows that there are many and very diverse lefts. There are leftists political parties and social movements that prompt demands that can only be responded by the left. There is a convergence between these two institutionalizations, but also deceptions, conflicts and breakings. There is one left wanting the power of the state and to make the social changes from above, and there is another left proposing to make the social changes from below and without having the power of the state. In the left, they are presented as much moderates as radicals. Although these last are not necessarily those that shout stronger, but who know "to build lines of deep break"2. Besides the internal differences of the left, the fights for which would be proclaimed "a legitimate left" are given in the condemnations established among the diverse groups. There are those who accuse the other remaining in a reformist left. The Bolivian Oscar Oliveira, who has maintained himself in the fight from below, has accused the government of Evo Morales of breaking the demands about 1 Corporación Latinobarómetro, Informe 2008, Santiago de Chile: www.latinoabrometro.org 2 Raúl Arancibia, “La izquierda a debate” in La Fogata Digital, www.lafogata.org (page consulted December 19, 2008). 5 going back in the privatization process and continuing with repression. He complains that a government can say that his old companions fighters in trench should be called "an extreme left" financed by the right in order to destabilize the government, when the reality is that the the left is trying to maintain the fight and demands of the poor people. In this way, some people have thought that arriving to the government "does not serve", because it remains obedient to the factual powers, and because the power consumes not only the institutions but the people, and because it turns out to be insufficient to nationalize what has been expropriated as public patrimony if it does not arrive to the social appropriation, and to the exercise of the decision about what is social and public matter3. There is a left that privileges the electoral fight; another left that wants to combine the electoral and the social fight, and another one than no longer trusts in which can be done by governments earned by votes. Various groups of this great range of the left present the key to know if there is a truly left or not when there is an anti-capitalist goal. The Italian left in 2008 was practically erased during the electoral setting. This prompted to some groups of the left to the need of constituing a new anti-capitalist left being set apart of the old leading groups responsible for the electoral failure. They speak not about reconstruction but about a construction with new bases. They want to be placed in the social opposition in order to build an extensive resistance. They say that a new left should be thought being anti-capitalist, ecologist and feminist. They insist that the absolute democracy should be the practice to begin again; therefore the charismatic leaders or the infallible leading groups cannot be trusted. They demand the rigorous rotation of charges at all levels. They are conscious that this kind of left cannot be prompted but in the breast of the contradictions of social conflicts and not in the meetings of parlors. They know that the new subject is not born during a sefldeclaration but in the construction of a movement. The themes of their fight should be going against the precariousness, for the employment properly paid, for the ecological defense, against the large harmful and useless works, for the self-determination the women, etc4. The left oscillate among adjustments to the prevailing situation and purist sectarianisms5. There are those who recommend not going accumulating defeats because this finishes in demobilizing and discouraging people. Also the false expectations eventually are demobilizing. One must show that the fight "pay", because victories are obtained, because injustices are not only denounced but also they are stoped. Also it is important that one must be careful that the social fights are not recovered for the power. Among those who insist that the left should show that its fight is truly anti-capitalist, there are sectors that do not want to abandon the electoral field. It is said that in the anti- capitalist left is possible to build capacities to compete with the reformist left, but 3 Oscar Olivera words in a group who make reflexions about the social mouvements in Guadalajara. December 2, 2008. 4 Some authors: “Once puntos para una nueva izquierda anticapitalista y de clase”, in Viento Sur, num. 98, July 2008, p. 12-15. 5 Alex Callinicos: “¿Hacia dónde va la izquierda radical?” in International Socialism, November 28, 2008. 6 also it is said that it is required that the left with parliamentary representation should be amplified with critical speech so that the social fights can be be supported in the areas the traditional left has abandoned6. When we see the boom of the left in Latin America we recommended not to forget that by the electoral way the right can return. Against those who maintain that we should change the world without taking the power, it is necessary to emphasize the impossibility of eluding the state action, because the sate has a great influence in front of the popular demands7. Nevertheless, others emphasize that there are many invalid elements in the old left and that we all would have to seek new forms of organization and strategy that privilege an autonomous politics8. The autonomy is a key item of the new left. It is a matter of building institutional but above all vital conditions for a selfacting framework. There are many wrongs that have been accumulated. Suddenly they sprout extensive movements that question the prevailing order. For example, in Chile, in the middle of 2006, the secondary students occupied lyceums, and they made crowded demostrations against the neoliberal politics and for a public education of quality. By the end of 2008, in Greece, the students showed the serious social crisis of neoliberal managements. They said: "we are the generation of the 400 euro, of the stage programs of the agency of employment, of the flexible work, of the eternal training always with our expenses, of the precariousness, of the scarcity, of the two titles that are no usefull at all, of the elimination of the labor rights, of our humiliation by the part of the bosses… we are the boys and girls that many humiliate… we are the injured in the marches… we will die soon because we were against the laws that are stealing our life… we are many and we are furious… we have not illusions, we have not hopes"9.
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