According to conventional wisdom, Latin Americans are suffering from reform fatigue and are using every opportunity to toss politicians with out pro-market, ‘neo-liberal’ ideas. But, as usual, conventional wisdom is wrong.
True, people are sick of the bungled policies that have condemned most countries to slow growth and high unemployment. Certainly, left-wing and populist candidates are doing well as discontent deepens. In Venezuela, a coup hatched by right-wing businessmen folded in a few days and President Hugo Chávez remains by far the country’s most popular politician.
In fact, this view is simplistic and superficial. Rabble-rousers and leftists have not won any recent elections in Latin America. In Bolivia, Evo Morales came close, losing by a hair’s breadth to Gonzalo Sánchez de Losada, the conservative former president who began free market reforms in the 1980s. Alvaro Uribe easily won Colombia’s presidential election on a tough anti-guerrilla platform. He promises no change in his predecessor’s policies, indeed, he plans to deepen reforms. Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, founder of Brazil’s Workers Party, is leading in the polls ahead of October’s presidential election. Yet the election is still not his to win and Lula is promising no sudden break with past policies.
Voters seem to be saying they want change, but not too much, and they certainly want no revolution. They will vote for anyone from the left or right with a credible plan to create jobs, pay a decent wage, and stop crime and corruption. It seems that Latin Americans – or at least, this generation of voters – realize that the old policies of protectionism, big budget deficits and inflation are ultimately ruinous.