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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff01192010.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff01192010.html<br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">January 19,
2010<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>The Future of
the South American Left <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Chile's New Right
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By NIKOLAS
KOZLOFF <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">F</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>or those who believe that South America is in
the grip of some kind of left revolutionary fervor, this week’s election
in Chile may have come as a surprise. With partial results from 60%
of the country’s polling stations now available, it appears that
conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera has ousted the ruling center
left Concertación, 52% to 48%. It is a stunning upset in light of
the fact that the right has not won an election in Chile for fifty years.
<br><br>
It’s an ironic and difficult pill to swallow for the governing coalition,
made up of Socialists and Christian Democrats. Current president
Michelle Bachelet, herself of the Concertación, is enormously popular.
Chile’s first woman president, she enjoys an approval rate of nearly
80%. Unfortunately, Chilean law prevents immediate reelection and
so Bachelet will have to wait until 2014 if she wants to run again.
<br><br>
As a result of the legal restrictions, Concertación ran lackluster
candidate and former president Eduardo Frei who pledged to uphold modest
continuity of Bachelet’s welfare programs. It’s a big setback for
the Concertación, which has ruled Chile since the end of the Pinochet
military dictatorship in 1990. Despite Bachelet’s personal
popularity, the coalition has become synonymous with corruption.
<br><br>
Piñera, a kind of Chilean Berlusconi who owns a television channel
amongst other business holdings, and who piloted his private helicopter
around the country to make campaign stops in isolated regions, is one of
the word’s 700 richest people. The politician opposes human rights
prosecutions for military and police officers implicated in abuses during
the Pinochet military dictatorship, and as such represents a political
step backwards for Chile. <br><br>
Piñera also stands against reform of the Chilean constitution, a relic of
the Pinochet era. Moreover, some members of Piñera’s
coalition served in General Pinochet’s cabinet, and Piñera’s brother was
the general’s labor minister and an architect of the dictator’s
neo-liberal economic strategy.<br><br>
A much better electoral outcome for Chile would have brought Marco
Enríquez-Ominami to power. An intriguing and novel figure on the
Chilean political scene, Ominami is an independent who broke away from
the Concertación. A youthful 36-year old filmmaker and son of a
leftist revolutionary leader killed by Pinochet’s army during a 1975
firefight, Ominami resigned his position as a socialist congressman to
run for president. Memorably, he called his opponents “dinosaurs
... who kidnapped democracy” and called for scrapping Chile’s bicameral
Congress in favor of a single chamber of parliament elected by
proportional representation.<br><br>
Though Ominami got the endorsement of Chile’s newly formed Ecologist
party and benefited from voter fatigue with the Concertación, he was
eliminated in the first electoral round after garnering 20% of the
vote. Particularly unfortunate was Ominami’s failure to electrify
Chilean youth disaffected with the political establishment. In
recent years youth has shown some signs of engagement, and could
constitute a potent political force for change in future.<br><br>
In 2006 during the so-called “penguin revolution,” tens of thousands of
high school students, many wearing uniforms with little dark ties on
white shirts, protested throughout Chile to demand educational
improvements. Shocked by the protests, Bachelet wound up
negotiating with student leaders and actually gave in to most of youth’s
demands.<br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">*
* *<br><br>
</font></div>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>Though disappointing, the electoral turn of
events in Chile should not come as an incredible shocker. With the
exception of students and Mapuche Indians who have been fighting for land
rights, Chile has not seen the emergence of dynamic social forces in
recent years which could move the political agenda forward. <br><br>
It’s a reality sorely bemoaned by veterans of Chile’s historic political
struggles. Manuel Cabieses is a journalist who I interviewed in
Santiago for my book <i>Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New
Left </i>(Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008). During the 1960s, Cabieses was
a reporter with the Communist party paper and was picked up the military
two days after General Augusto Pinochet took power in a coup
d’etat. Cabieses was later imprisoned but made his way to Cuba
after being released. Astonishingly, he later returned to Chile and
worked with the underground Revolutionary Leftist Movement (known by its
Spanish acronym MIR) against Pinochet. Today, he publishes a
political magazine called <i>Punto Final</i>. <br><br>
The media environment in Chile has proven challenging for the likes of
Cabieses. Unlike Venezuela for example, Chile has no television
station that espouses the views of the left. There are two
left-wing bi-monthlies, <i>El Siglo</i> of the Communist Party and
<i>Punto Final</i>. Both have notoriously low circulation.
The Communist Party owns a radio station, and there are a few other
progressive leaning stations. On the internet there is more
political diversity than in TV and print, but digital media is still
incipient in Chile where most people lack internet access.<br><br>
Without a vibrant progressive media, progressive forces have had
difficulty getting off the ground. The Mapuches, Cabieses said,
were “atomized” just like the rest of society and the most radical
Indians had been beaten back and repressed by the police. Labor
unions meanwhile had suffered a severe decline since the 1970s.
“The dictatorship,” Cabieses remarked, “through repression and imposition
of its economic model, were able to fracture social movements and almost
succeeded in liquidating any kind of left political movement.” <br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">
***<br><br>
</font></div>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>Just a few years ago it seemed as if the left
was sweeping across South America, but the question on many observers’
minds right now is whether this tide may be turning. Already, the
mainstream media is salivating over the prospect that Hugo Chávez and his
ilk may have hit a road block. <br><br>
In a recent <i>Newsweek</i> feature entitled “Latin America isn’t tilting
left, it’s tilting right,” Mac Margolis writes that many voters
throughout the region are experiencing incumbent fatigue coupled with the
fallout of the economic downturn. In this sense, what is happening
politically in South America might bear some resemblance to the United
States where voters have become dissatisfied with Obama and the Democrats
in Washington. <br><br>
“Another explanation,” Margolis writes, “might be that the Latin American
left is no longer what it used to be. Or rather, it was never what it was
made out to be.” “Make no mistake,” he writes. “Beating the
gringo devil and bashing capitalism can still make pulses race in much of
the hemisphere, but, when it comes to casting ballots, what appears to
move the majority is pragmatism.”<br><br>
Juan Forero, no friend of the Chávez regime in Venezuela, has also chimed
in. Writing in the <i>Washington Post</i>, he remarks that while
the right is not making a comeback pragmatists are on the upswing.
“Voters,” he says, “are showing a preference for moderates rather than
firebrand nationalists who preach class warfare and state intervention in
the economy.”<br><br>
There’s a bit of smug self satisfaction here though Forero’s argument is
worth considering. Take a look at Chile’s major political figures
and it’s clear they hardly differ in the nature of their proposals.
Bachelet has pumped money into social programs and publically criticizes
neo-liberal economics and the Washington Consensus. Fundamentally
however she never rocked the broad consensus around free trade and
Chile’s fiscal conservatism. So ingrained is free trade in Chile
that even had the Concertación won, the country would not have shifted
its adherence to this underlying economic ideology. <br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">
***<br><br>
</font></div>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>Such pragmatism and political conservatism is
bad enough in Chile, but what is really distressing is the possibility
that such a trend could spread into neighboring countries and thereby
derail the left within the wider region. Indeed, 2010 is fast
shaping into an anti-incumbent year which could water down and dilute
many recent political gains.<br><br>
Take for example the case of Brazil. Though Lula of the Workers’
Party has promoted important anti-poverty programs, Brazil boasts one of
the most conservative monetary policies on earth. After he rattled
financial markets during his first presidential campaign in 2002, Lula
won over skeptical investors by embracing economic pragmatism.
Brazilian labor may not care for such economic policies, but the fact is
that Lula, like fellow pragmatist Bachelet, is enormously popular.
<br><br>
But now the Brazilian left, such as it is, may be headed on a similar
collision course to Chile. Like Bachelet, Lula is barred by law
from running for a third consecutive term. He has backed his chief
of staff, Dilma Rousseff, to be his presidential successor and to run in
the October, 2010 election. However, Rousseff has little political
savvy and none of Lula’s charm and charisma. In polls, she trails
centrist São Paulo governor José Serra of the opposition Brazilian Social
Democracy Party or PSDB.<br><br>
Regardless of who wins, neither candidate is expected to undertake
dramatic changes to Lula’s market friendly policies. Investors
meanwhile are enchanted by a race between two mainstream
candidates. For its part, the left is placing its hope in either
Ciro Gomes, a former governor of the state of Ceara, or Marina Silva.
<br><br>
Lula’s former minister of the environment, Silva has said she might run
on the green party ticket. A remarkable woman whose personal story
I recount in great detail in my upcoming book,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0230614760/counterpunchmaga">
<i>No Rain in the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Affects the Entire
Planet</a> </i>(Palgrave-Macmillan, April 2010), Silva could appeal to
women voters, amongst others. However, she trails in popularity and
polls show that voters are more interested in jobs, crime and other
concerns more than the environment --- Silva’s signature issue.
Moreover, the green party has little clout and is viewed as fringy.
<br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">
***<br><br>
</font></div>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>With pragmatism on the rise, South America
needs to foster the creation of a solid bloc of left leaning countries
that can counter Brazil’s huge political influence throughout the
region. The problem however is that within the immediate
neighborhood there are very few candidates which could fill this
void. <br><br>
Across the border from Chile in Argentina, the Peronist party stands for
the political and social status quo and President Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner’s political fortunes have waned as of late. Uruguay and
Paraguay have progressive leaders but have been rather centrist and
politically quiet. In any case, neither country carries much
economic weight. That leaves the perpetually convoluted Andean
region. The problem here however is that Colombia and Peru still
have right wing, pro-U.S. regimes in power and the future does not bode
well for the left. <br><br>
“To the Latin left,” remarks Mac Margolis of <i>Newsweek</i>, “there is
no leader more reviled than the Colombian president [Álvaro
Uribe].” Nevertheless, there is no denying that Uribe, who has
clamped down on FARC guerrillas and revamped bullet-ridden cities like
Bogotá, Medellín and Cali, enjoys huge popularity. <br><br>
If Colombia’s constitutional court rules that he can run for a third term
in the May, 2010 election Uribe would probably win. Even if the
change is not put into place, experts anticipate that Uribe’s handpicked
successor Juan Manuel Santos would prevail in the election. In Peru
meanwhile, disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori’s daughter Keiko
is a political frontrunner for the 2011 election and wants to pardon her
father for past human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.
Ollanta Humala, a dubious left populist, trails in polls.<br><br>
At least Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia don’t seem to be moving towards
pragmatism. But more than ten years on, Chávez’s Bolivarian
Revolution remains a bundle of social and political contradictions.
The ALBA barter program, creation of an alternative Sucre currency and
Bank of the South are all positive and innovative initiatives which stand
to foster alternative economic development. If they are designed in
such a way as to encourage radical democracy and not top-down decision
making, the communal councils ought to continue and to be strengthened.
<br><br>
In other ways however Chávez has conducted himself as a rather
conventional populist advocating for classic resource nationalism.
There may be a ceiling on the Chávez model, however: if oil prices surge
again expect Venezuela to gain new adherents. Otherwise, one might
expect the Bolivarian alliance to lose traction. If the opposition
can unite for legislative elections in December, 2010, it could win a
majority as recession, inflation and mismanagement erode Chávez’s
support.<br><br>
In any case, Chávez has already lost some ground in Central America with
the toppling of ally Manuel Zelaya. In El Salvador, the new left
under Mauricio Funes seems more partial to Brazilian pragmatism than any
kind of populist, Chávez-style populism. Chávez himself meanwhile
seems to have become mentally unhinged and recently remarked that former
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was a “patriot.” Such comments suggest
that the South American left should look elsewhere for a new standard
bearer.<br><br>
Andean populists confront other contradictions and problems, chief
amongst them the extractive model of development. Across the
region, leaders have been pushing boondoggle infrastructure projects in
order to facilitate the export of raw resources. Historically, this
extractive model has not fostered equitable economic development let
alone social harmony.<br><br>
As I’ve been writing on my blog Senor Chichero, Ecuador is enmeshed in
oil extraction and this has sparked deep social and environmental
unrest. Apprehensive about oil development proceeding on their
lands, Indians recently protested the Correa regime by blocking Amazonian
roads. Condescendingly, Correa called Indians “infantile” for objecting
to legislation which would deny them consultation on mining and oil
drilling projects. <br><br>
Tragically, protests along the blocked roads led to violence. The Indians
claimed that 500 police attacked them which resulted in two deaths and
nine wounded by gunshots. The Correa government, the Indians declared,
had “blood on its hands” and pledged to carry out international legal
action over violations of their collective and human rights.<br><br>
Because of these inherent contradictions, the most politically and
socially hopeful country right now in the Andean region is not Venezuela
or Ecuador but Bolivia. That’s not too surprising given the nation’s long
tradition of grass roots indigenous mobilization. Indeed, it was
the Indians who propelled Evo Morales to his recent and second electoral
victory which has solidified the president’s desire to proceed with his
socialist program. <br><br>
Less demagogic and messianic than Chávez, Morales has also pursued
resource nationalism and has a compelling vision of Bolivia as a
“plurinational,” multi-ethnic state. However, unless electric cars
take off and Bolivia becomes an energy powerhouse by developing its
lithium deposits, Morales won’t have nearly as much cash to throw around
as Chávez. <br><br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">
***<br><br>
</font></div>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>South America is no longer following a right
wing political trajectory or extreme economic neo-liberalism. However, as
Chile demonstrates, the region could easily fall into uninspiring
pragmatic leadership. <br><br>
From the United States, it’s easy to romanticize South America as being
in the throes of dramatic political upheaval and a move towards some kind
of radical left. The reality however is that right now social
movements, with the possible exception of Bolivia, are not powerful
enough to truly effect deep seated change or to transform the intrinsic,
fundamental structures of society. <br><br>
If Chile becomes a trend and Brazil elects more uninspiring pragmatic
leadership, the South American left will have to reinvent itself if it
wants to remain relevant in future.<br><br>
<b>Nikolas Kozloff</b> is the author of the upcoming
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0230614760/counterpunchmaga">
No Rain In the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Change Affects The
Entire Plane</a>t (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010). Visit his website,
<a href="http://senorchichero.blogspot.com/">senorchichero</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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