CUERNAVACA,
Mexico (By Chris Hawley, Arizona
Republic) February 4, 2006 —
For nearly 500 years, the
palace of conquistador Hernán Cortés has loomed over the central plaza
of this Mexican city, a solemn, stone reminder of Latin America's
subjugation from abroad. But on a recent winter's day, the old mansion stood witness to a new force that seems to be conquering Latin America: a new breed of leftist leaders, steeped in nationalism, armed with oil and suspicious of foreign influence.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the front-running presidential candidate who embodies this movement in Mexico, was making a campaign stop in Cuernavaca's main plaza, and thousands of curious Mexicans had turned out to see him.
Some climbed into laurel trees for a better view as López Obrador pledged to start a national pension system for the elderly, raise the minimum wage, give out free school supplies and crack down on corporate tax evaders.
In recent years, platforms like that have propelled liberal leaders to power in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Chile. Mexico could be next, as voters grow impatient with free-market reforms that have failed to improve the lives of many people.
"People have reached the end of their rope. From the Rio Grande to Patagonia, it's a common phenomenon," said Andres García Valle, a 40-year-old activist selling DVDs about Fidel Castro and other leftist leaders on a tarpaulin spread out on the plaza.
The so-called pink tide of new leaders ranges from moderates to radicals. But they are all wary of the United States and less likely to back President Bush on trade policy, the anti-drug fight and world affairs. They include:
• Evo Morales of Bolivia, a former coca grower who became president on Jan. 22. He wants to nationalize the oil and gas industries and decriminalize the coca plant, so long as it's not used for cocaine.
• Michelle Bachelet of Chile, a moderate socialist who was jailed under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. She was elected president on Jan. 15 and takes office March 11.
• Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay, who took office March 1. He is Uruguay's first left-wing president.
• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil since January 2003. He is up for re-election in October.
• Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, the most popular president in the Western Hemisphere, according to polls. He is credited with pulling Argentina out of a severe financial crisis since taking office in May 2003.
In Peru, Ollanta Humala has risen in the polls ahead of the April 9 presidential vote. A nationalist and the leader of a 2000 coup attempt, he opposes the U.S.-funded eradication of coca.
On the far left of the scale are Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been in power since 1999, and his close friend Fidel Castro of Cuba.
In Mexico, 33 percent of voters say they favor López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, according to a Jan. 20-23 poll commissioned by El Universal newspaper.
Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party polled 27 percent, and Roberto Madrazo of the center-left Institutional Revolutionary Party was trailing with 20 percent. The presidential election is on July 2, and conservative President Vicente Fox is barred by the constitution from running again.
Restless voters
The rise of the leftists shows a growing restlessness among Latin American voters since the fall of many authoritarian regimes in the 1980s and 1990s, analysts say.Many of those countries, like Argentina, went through economic slumps in the first years of the decade, shaking voter confidence in more established political parties.
"You're seeing main-line political parties not having achieved what they set out to achieve," said Raúl Saba, associate director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona.
"So the vast majority of the population, the poor, are looking for someone who's not aligned with any of the traditional parties; someone who speaks their language," Saba said.
Latin American economies have been slowly recovering from their recent recessions, and in 2005, they grew an average of 4.3 percent, according to a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America.
The unemployment rate among Latin America's city dwellers dropped from 11 percent in 2002 to 9.3 percent last year.
Although more people are working, personal income grew by only 2.8 percent in 2005. Prices, meanwhile, rose by 6.3 percent. Competition from Asia has helped hold down wages, the commission said.
In Bolivia, voters are frustrated that the country's vast reserves of natural gas have not benefited the poor. In Mexico, they're angry about persistent corruption, which is hobbling development.
Meanwhile, Latin Americans are still flooding to the United States because of the huge gap between U.S. wages and those in the rest of the Americas. In the United States, the federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. In Mexico, it's $4.10 a day.
Effects on U.S.
Latin America's tilt to the left could be felt most strongly in world affairs: issues like supporting the United States in a future war, voting to condemn Cuba in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, teaming up against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency, or voting on Israeli-Palestinian issues in the U.N. Security Council.The United States may not have many interests in a country like Uruguay, but if U.S. diplomats ever need to put together a coalition against North Korea or a task force to intervene in Haiti, they will need all the friends they can get.
Many Latin American nations, like Brazil and Argentina, have much influence among developing countries and are well-respected in Europe.
Argentina takes over the presidency of the 15-member U.N. Security Council in March, and Peru is a council member until 2008. Chile and Mexico both opposed giving U.N. blessing to the invasion of Iraq when they were Security Council members in 2003.
The ideological differences between north and south will likely be muted in the case of Chile, analysts say, because Bachelet is considered a pro-business leader with good ties to the United States. Lula, of Brazil, and Kirchner, of Argentina, also have proved to be mostly moderate.
But Morales, of Bolivia, promises to be a thorn in the United States' side. Coca production in Bolivia rose 68 percent from 2000 to 2004, and about 60,800 acres of the plant is now grown in the country, twice the amount allowed for traditional uses by Bolivian law.
Morales' election has cast doubt on U.S.-funded efforts to eradicate illegal coca growing.
"The fight against drug trafficking cannot be an excuse for the U.S. government to dominate our nations," Morales said in his inaugural address. "We want true dialogue without conditions or oppressions or bribes."
The United States also is closely watching oil policies in Latin America. Mexico and Venezuela rank among the top four suppliers of crude oil to the United States, along with Canada and Saudi Arabia. Brazil and Argentina also have vast reserves.
As of this year, Venezuela is requiring all companies involved in oil production to be majority-owned by the government oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela. Chavez also has struck deals with several countries, using cheap oil to increase his influence in the region.
In Bolivia, Morales has vowed to nationalize the country's oil and gas reserves, which currently are controlled by Repsol YPF of Spain and Petrobras of Brazil.
López Obrador, meanwhile, says he stands by existing rules limiting foreign investment in Mexico's oil sector.
But the leftist leaders are unlikely to stop selling oil to the United States or try to drive oil prices higher, said Bob Tippee, editor of the Houston-based Oil & Gas Journal. There are too many other suppliers in the world, and the Latin American countries need the money too badly.
"I don't see any real risk to U.S. oil supplies," Tippee said. "There aren't too many ways that a maverick producer can make his threats come true."
New nationalism
The new left-leaning governments pose a bigger threat on such trade issues as the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a hemisphere-wide trade pact that the United States has been championing for years.The Bush administration is hoping such a bloc will help counter the growing economic power of China and the European Union.
But in November, negotiations over the pact stalled after Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay demanded the United States do more to open its markets and end agricultural subsidies.
López Obrador has vowed to uphold the North American Free Trade Agreement. But he also has called for closer economic ties to Asia and Europe and to "care for our relations with Cuba because of the historical tradition of friendship between our countries."
He also has vowed to be more aggressive on migration issues and to "convert the 45 Mexican consulates in the United States into legal centers for the defense of Mexicans who live and work in the United States."
For his part, Bush has said he is unconcerned by the rise of liberal leaders in the Americas.
"I am pleased that there are democracies in our hemisphere," he said during a summit last year.
"As a matter of fact, every country is a democracy except one, Cuba, and that's incredible progress.
"I look forward to working with whomever the people of Mexico choose."
In general, a more left-leaning Latin America won't have many immediate effects on the United States, analysts say.
But it will make it harder for the Bush administration to strike trade deals and gather support for its foreign policy.
"We are seeing a neonationalism in Latin America," said Patricio Sepulveda, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
"For a long time, the Bush administration has not had a Latin America policy," he said. "I think they're going to have to talk and listen more now."
