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[ printer-friendly PDF version ] n e w s Latin America 2002: The Electoral Outlook This is the year to watch electoral politics in Latin America. In the shadow of a political crisis and major course-change in Argentina, five other Latin countries will be holding presidential elections over the next seven months. They include Latin America's largest country and economy, Brazil, where the leading candidate has long been a critic of neoliberalism and free trade. The region's political experts are pondering the issue of whether developments in Argentina and Brazil signal the beginning of the end for neoliberalism in Latin America. "Neo-liberalism is suffering a setback ... and the pendulum is once again turning toward populism," argues José Antonio Gil Yepes, president of the Caracas, Venezuela-based consulting firm Datanalisis and author of a new book on the subject, La sexta república venezolana: Un balance entre liberalismo y el estatismo. "Neo-liberalism failed to provide the population with an improvement in daily life," he notes. Gustavo Arteta, director of the Ecuadorian think tank Corporación de Estudios para el Desarrollo (Cordes), agrees. However, in Arteta's home country, scheduled to hold presidential elections in October, it is hard to predict if the disenchantment will be reflected in the balloting, he notes. None of the candidates, including millionaire Alvaro Noboa and former presidents León Febres Cordero and Rodrigo Borja, have opposed privatization, he adds. But with a largely undecided electorate, according to polls, and a contemporary history of popular and military upheaval over dollarization of the economy dictated by macroeconomics, the candidates' rhetoric has been tempered to hint at the promise of reining in market reforms. Brazil Teeters on the Edge of Maintaining Status QuoIn Brazil, neoliberalism's potential nemesis Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva from the Workers Party has consistently been leading all polls ahead of the October elections. For a short time, it looked like another candidate, Roseana Sarney, governor of Maranhao state in northeast Brazil and a member of the center-right PFL party, would pass him. Then police raided a company owned by Sarney and her husband in connection with a fraud investigation. Sarney and the PFL claimed the raid was politically motivated, but her popularity has declined, all the same. Now, José Serra, a former health minister and close ally of outgoing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, appears to be benefiting from Sarney's reduced popularity. According to at least one poll, he would actually beat Lula if the two went into a second round. A second round will be held between the two top vote-getters if no candidate musters a majority of the votes in the first round. In the past two election periods, Lula also led polls for a long while and then won the first round of balloting, only to be beat in the second. Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of the University of Miami-based North-South Center for hemispheric public policy studies, believes Brazil's business and political establishment will rally around an anti-Lula candidate who will triumph. Yet, if that were to be Serra, the question would remain over how close he'd come to being a Cardoso clone. While not as staunch in his criticism of neoliberalism as Lula, Serra is considered less of a free-market advocate than Cardoso. In any case, Brazil is expected to continue being the toughest negotiator in talks for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), arguing positions that don't necessarily square with Washington's vision. A Mixed Bag Elsewhere in the RegionMeanwhile, Colombia is scheduled to hold elections on May 23. A poll released Feb. 14, showed that former Antioquia Gov. Álvaro Uribe Vélez would win 53% of the votes, which means he would take the elections in the first round of balloting. Uribe, the main critic of President Andrés Pastrana's onetime policy of negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, would likely continue current macro-economic policies, analysts believe. If no candidate garners a majority of the votes in the election's first round, a second round will be held in June. But top challenger Horacio Serpa, a former Interior minister, can count on only 25% support, according to the February poll. Uribe, is running as an independent after losing the nomination of the Liberal Party to Serpa. Bolivia is also slated to hold elections later this summer. Polls show that former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada will win in the June polling. Sánchez de Lozada plans to re-start market reforms that stalled under the current government, which followed his own administration. Sánchez de Lozada speaks Spanish with an American accent after growing up in the United States. He won worldwide fame when he introduced a privatization model known as capitalization. The model awards state enterprises to the bidders who pledge the highest investment in the company, rather than those who offer to pay the most to the government. It also requires that half the shares in the privatized firms be converted into pension funds for the population. Some analysts say the approach offers an effective way to reduce government corruption in the privatization process, a central campaign promise of Sánchez de Lozada, along with more market reforms. Farther north, Costa Rica will be holding a second round of elections on April 7, after no candidate claimed the majority of the votes in Feb. 3 elections. This is the first run-off in more than 50 years. The reason: Independent candidate and former Planning Minister Ottón Solis, who ran on a semi-populist platform, managed to get enough votes to block victories by the leading candidates—from the Social Democrat PLN he once belonged to and the rival Christian Democrat PUSC. But the PLN and PUSC candidates—the only two allowed to go into the second round—are just as likely to stop the liberalization policies of outgoing president Miguel Angel Rodríguez, from the PUSC party. Rodríguez faced massive judicial and political resistance when he tried to privatize the state telecom and electricity company ICE. Now, both the PLN and PUSC candidates have stated they oppose privatization. The latest polls show PUSC candidate Abel Pacheco, a 67-year-old psychiatrist and TV presenter, leading PLN candidate Rolando Araya, a 54-year-old chemical engineer and former Transport minister. As a result of electoral politicking, it appears that Latin America may experience some shifts to reduced market reform in Ecuador and Costa Rica, some measure of increased market reform in Bolivia, and maintenance of status quo in Colombia, while the outcome in Brazil remains up in the air. It's a mixed bag for the region. Joachim Bamrud, editor-in-chief of Latin Business Chronicle, has covered Latin America for nearly 20 years for various media, including Reuters, United Press International, The Miami Herald, and Latin Trade magazine, where he worked as editor-in-chief. He can be reached at joachim.bamrud@latinbusinesschronicle.com.
Links:"Guide to Latin
American Government and Politics on the Internet" | Keele University,
UK "Election Guide"
| International Foundation for Election Systems "Political Parties
of the Americas" | Georgetown University, USA "Political Resources
on the Net" Published by the Americas Program at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC). ©2002. All rights reserved. Recommended citation: Web location: |