Tabaré Vázquez, Uruguay's newly elected leader took office today and Larry Rohter comments here on the leftward swing in South America. For a change he's being sensible:
Indeed, though many of the new leaders have roots on the revolutionary left, they now seem inspired less by Che Guevara than Felipe González, the Socialist who was formerly Spain's prime minister. They have shown they are willing to play by the established rules of the game, even if it forces them to abandon cherished ideological goals.
That overriding pragmatism has left the Bush administration less overtly antagonistic to the trend than it might have been in another era, with the clear exception of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, who is more fiery and provocatively populist than most.
Still, across the board, the attitude toward the United States has been one characterized by at least polite distancing, the case here and in neighboring Brazil and Argentina, as the economic reforms being rejected are closely associated with Washington and the financial institutions it backs, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
"There is a growing consensus against the way the United States is using its power," said Marta Lagos, director of Latinobarómetro, a Chilean public opinion firm that regularly conducts surveys of political attitudes around the continent. "Ten years ago that was an attitude typical of the elite, but now we see it across the board, regardless of class or level of education."
I really think (and hope) that Chávez is sui generis. Although some are likely to lump everyone on the left together, there are several characteristics that distinguish Lula, Lagos (of Chile), Kirchner (of Argentina) and Vázquez from Chávez and someone like Lúcio Gutierrez. The most obvious detail is that the leaders of the Southern Cone countries were not career military men and Gutierrez and Chávez were. Moreover, at one time three of the four presidents of these Southern Cone countries were jailed by repressive military regimes and many of Vázquez's political allies in Uruguay had been jailed. I have little doubt that this has helped strengthen their belief in the firm foundations of democracy.
Boz tipped me to this article in the Los Angeles Times by Michael Shifter and Vinay Jawahar of the Inter-American Dialogue about what it means to be a leftist leader in Latin America these days:
The prescriptions that have come from Washington and global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund — advocating greater privatization and liberalization — have produced disappointing results. Rates of poverty and inequality have remained stubbornly stagnant or have deteriorated.
It is thus not surprising that voters in Uruguay, where poverty has climbed by about 45% since 2000, turned to an alternative like Vazquez.
In some countries, the alternatives that voters have chosen have not been so attractive. Venezuela is a case in point. In that country, the dramatic drop in living standards in recent decades was fertile ground for the election of Hugo Chavez, now in office six years. Chavez, close to Castro, resembles the classic definition of a leftist far more than the Southern Cone presidents. He explicitly rejects the kind of market economics and democratic politics embraced by the other leaders. But even Chavez, who has not to date undertaken any dramatic economic restructuring and has managed to keep Wall Street relatively happy, doesn't conform easily to that traditional label.
The differences among governments in Latin America are instructive. To merely lump it all together as leftism sweeping the region can easily blind outsiders — including U.S. officials — to nuances that matter a great deal.
Nevertheless, I'm sure that there will be some who can't resist the old ideological blinders.
Comments