Just over a decade ago, a sea of supporters dressed in red and lining the streets of Caracas celebrated Hugo Chávez’s landslide election victory in Venezuela, marking a watershed in the Latin American political landscape and signaling the emergence of the so-called populist left in the region. Chávez was subsequently followed by a wave of left-wing leaders elected across the continent — Lula in Brazil (2002), Néstor Kirchner in Argentina (2003), Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay (2004), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2005), and a year later Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Rafael Correa in Ecuador — leaving roughly 75 per cent of South America’s 382 million inhabitants living under a leftist government.

While these leaders share some common characteristics, there are vast differences between them. Chávez and Bachelet, for instance, are worlds apart, reflecting what Jorge Casteñada, an academic and former foreign minister of Mexico, described two years ago in a Foreign Affairs article as two distinguishable Latin American lefts. One of them, characterized by Chile and Brazil and referred to alternately as social democrats, the moderate left, and sometimes the soft left, is “modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist.” By contrast, Castañeda argued, the other left, exemplified by Chávez, Morales and Correa, is “born of the great tradition of Latin American populism,” and is “nationalist, strident, and close-minded.”

Nevertheless, the current tide of left-wing leaders shares a historical context. First, their rise can be seen as a backlash to the economic neoliberalism adopted across Latin America during the 1980s. Forming part of the so-called Washington consensus, neoliberal policies emphasized free-market reforms, the privatization of state industries, trade liberalization such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and deregulation as key ways to advance development and prosperity. Neoliberalism was subsequently blamed by some for the region’s poor economic growth, the widening gap between rich and poor, currency devaluation and chronic debt crises such as that experienced by Argentina in 2001.

The neoliberal policies prescribed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also came with tough restructuring and fiscal adjustments that often included deep and politically unpopular cuts in social spending. Leftist parties offering alternatives to neoliberalism campaigned on the mantra of social reform, and gained increasing resonance and support among the marginalized poor. As such, the rise of the left can also be seen as an inevitable and natural shift, responding to the region’s lack of social mobility and inequality that, over the course of decades, traditional ruling parties had failed to address and that neoliberalism had exacerbated.

In Venezuela, Chávez’s call for a Bolivarian revolution as an alternative to neoliberalism had great appeal among the urban poor. By 1998, after several years of declining oil prices, the Venezuelan economy was on the brink of collapse. Chávez exploited the disenchantment felt towards Venezuela’s ruling elites, who were seen to be out of touch, corrupt and agents of U.S.-advocated free-market reforms. He projected a genuine concern for the plight of the poor and attacked the privatization of industries controlled by the white oligarchy, blaming them for confiscating oil profits that, he argued, rightfully belonged to the people.

In many ways, Chávez’s message harks back to the days of good old-fashioned populism — a demagogic leader promising to redistribute the nation’s wealth to the poor. It’s a tradition that has always been present in Latin American politics, with Juan Perón’s appeal to the urban working class in Argentina in the 1940s and Lazaro Cardenas’ defense of poor farmers in Mexico in the 1930s just two examples.

The end of the Cold War also played a role in the resurgence of the Latin America’s left. According to Castañeda, the fall of the Soviet bloc helped remove the “geopolitical stigma” from the left, allowing leftist ideologies to be judged in their own right, rather than in association with revolution and subservience to the Soviet model.

The strengthening of democratic processes after years of dictatorship in some Latin American countries combined with the gradual rise of a more educated electorate, allowing the poor to become more assertive at the ballot box in support of left-leaning candidates who best represented and defended their interests. At the same time, the various currents of the left also broadened their political agendas, widening their traditional, largely trade unionist base of support to include the unemployed, feminists, grassroots student groups and landless rural workers.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales, a former coca union leader, found his mass support base among the country’s majority indigenous population, who felt disenfranchised and marginalized from society. Morales became the country’s first indigenous leader in part by arguing that indigenous people had the right be different and autonomous, a message that became as important as the need to combat poverty. In a country where just two generations ago the capital’s main square was reserved for whites, Morales’ pledge to reverse the legacy of centuries of discrimination perpetuated by the white elite was a powerful message that marked his unique, radical brand of populism.

Chávez’s version of populism — Bolivarianism — is a loose, diffuse and vague mixture of ideologies drawn from the teachings of Simon Bolivar (the 19th-century independence hero), revolutionary Marxism, socialism, nationalism, militarism and some borrowings from Castroism. Bolivarianism is “an effort to revive Bolivar’s dream of the integration of South America, with an emphasis also on the need for social justice in the region,” explains Professor Cynthia McClintock, a Latin America specialist at George Washington University.

Morales and Correa share an affinity and mutual respect with Chávez, the self-appointed standard bearer of the new populist left. These Andean leaders all rose to power on an anti-neoliberal platform, and they project themselves as staunch defenders of the excluded in society. They also all rely on the mass support of new social movements that have emerged since the late 1980s, such as Ecuador’s Pachakutik party — the political wing of the country’s powerful indigenous organization, CONAIE. They also share a desire for greater autonomy from the U.S. economy and global financial institutions, and regard Washington’s involvement in the region with mistrust.

Perhaps the most striking thing these Andean leaders have in common is that they have all tried to spearhead change through wide-ranging constitutional reform submitted to referendums, in the hopes of consolidating their power and that of the executive branch of government. Chávez failed in his attempt two years ago to overhaul Venezuela’s constitution, which would have allowed, among other things, his indefinite re-election. But Ecuador’s Correa last year won 64 percent of the vote in a referendum on constitutional reform that increased his powers and control over the economy. Morales, who has encountered at times violent opposition from wealthy landowners and business leaders in the eastern province of Santa Cruz, has also opted to write a new constitution, aimed at fully recognizing the rights of the indigenous majority and giving them more power. The outcome of that referendum will be decided in late January.

Morales and Chávez — and to a lesser extent, Correa — pepper their speeches with vocal defiance of the United States and calls for greater sovereignty. Morales has expressed his disapproval of Washington’s war on drugs — characterized by coca eradication campaigns — in Bolivia, which he sees as gross U.S. intervention in the country’s internal affairs. He argues that U.S. aid to Bolivia, the poorest nation in South America, has been unfairly tied to the results of the anti-drug campaigns. Last year, Morales suspended the operations of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Bolivia, which he accused of inciting anti-government protests. The move was promptly supported by Chávez and Correa. Meanwhile, Chávez has long accused Washington of being involved in a short-lived coup in Venezuela in 2002 that tried — and failed — to oust him from power.

Chávez, Correa and Morales all believe that increased state control and regulation of the country’s natural resources is the best way to redistribute wealth from the elites to the poor. They have claimed to be vindicated in their approach in the wake of the global financial crisis and collapse of giant banks in the United States, with Chávez blaming the crisis on the lack of government control and regulation in capitalist economies.

The Andean leaders have also all sought to renegotiate the terms under which foreign companies extract their country’s natural resources to ensure that the state receives a greater share of the profits. Nationalization is used as a tool by which to recover resources that they believe have been unfairly appropriated by foreign mining and oil companies for decades. Chávez, for instance, has nationalized the oil industry and increased the amount of royalties foreign oil companies must pay for the right to exploit Venezuela’s reserves. In 2006, Morales issued a decree giving the state control over the operations of foreign energy companies, including the country’s important gas sector.

But if Chávez, Morales and Correa have become close allies who often display a united front when it comes to disputes with the U.S. and/or Colombia, they do not represent a coherent movement. For all the beliefs they share in principle, their priorities and versions of the populist left differ in practice. So while Ecuador has called on Chávez’s support when embroiled in diplomatic rows with Colombia, and Chávez and Correa rallied around Morales when he expelled the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia last year, this does not mean that Correa and Morales want to push ahead with Bolivarianism in their own countries, or follow too closely in Chávez’s footsteps. Correa, in particular, is keen not to be seen as a puppet of Chávez, an accusation his critics often make. “They share the goal of a greater emphasis on poverty reduction and the inclusion of darker-skinned peoples, but the movement is not fully coherent. Evo Morales is closer to Chávez than Correa, and the allegiance of both Morales and Correa is linked to Chávez’s aid,” explains Professor McClintock.

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