Ten years after the death of Hugo Chávez and more than six years after the death of Fidel Castro, most of Latin America’s territory is ruled by the left. However, the differences between them appear to be more pronounced than they were at the beginning of the 20th century, when these two leaders attempted to conduct regional politics from premises they had inherited from the revolutionary and anti-imperialist Cold War left. Today almost all left-wing governments come to power by democratic means, do not seek to perpetuate themselves, maintain good relations with the United States, and do not change the macroeconomic structures of their countries.
During the first progressive cycle, the differences between the ruling left in Latin America were noticeable but skillfully managed. The same in terms of their respective constitutional frameworks as in politics towards the United States and the rest of the continent. The experiences of the governments of Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica in Uruguay, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Chávez and Maduro in Venezuela or Correa and Moreno in Ecuador were very different. Nonetheless, this cycle’s strong regional integrationism has fueled a geopolitical consensus in the face of US administrations as diverse as George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
In the new progressive cycle, broader than the first, differences are exacerbated by the lack of stable and inclusive regional forums. Unasur is struggling to recover from the 2018 defeat in response to the Venezuelan conflict. Neither does Celac, despite the efforts of governments such as those of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and Alberto Fernández in Argentina, or the prompt reintegration of Brazil, find a solid succession scheme as existed in its first phase: when the pro tempore presidency alternated between administrations of very different ideological Coinage like Chile, Cuba, Costa Rica and Ecuador.
In recent times, disputes have been reproduced despite attempts by the hegemonic left to hide or minimize them. These are disputes whose main source is the tension between democracies and authoritarianism, which transcends left-right divisions but is projected onto regional geopolitics with obvious costs. The very different tones of criticism or condoning of the human rights situation in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba by New Left presidents such as Alberto Fernández, Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro provoked subtle reprisals from the Bolivarian Pole at the Celac summit in Mexico; in the lack of support for the constituent process in Chile and in the ambivalent support for the peace process in Colombia.
The frictions have in their favor the new diplomatic presidentialism, which strengthens the role of the heads of state in foreign policy. This presidentialism leads to a search for regional support for internal struggles between governments and oppositions, as Presidents López Obrador, Arce and Petro have done in favor of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the midst of their court case, or in favor of former President Pedro Castillo, after his dismissal by the Peruvian Congress. This is also reflected in leaders’ greater verbal disinhibition when voicing their opinions on internal conflicts in countries where their allies do not govern, as noted in López Obrador and Petro’s interviewing of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who was confirmed by the Puebla Group and the governments of Chile and Brazil.
With everything and their leading role, the positions of López Obrador, Petro and Fernández cannot be equated with the activism of Evo Morales or the most ideological sectors of the Bolivarian bloc and its continental bases. Morales has deployed strong proselytism in Peru, particularly in Puno, in recent months as part of his Runasur project: a new variant of regional alliance, mainly in the Andes, albeit with growing links to the unions and social movements of the southern cone . In his recent trips to Argentina and Brazil, Morales has reinforced these links in a perfect enactment of the relativism of respect for national sovereignty and peoples’ self-determination.
The agenda of the plurinational state propagated by Morales in South America itself lacks a constitutional consensus on the subcontinent’s left. However, this activism, like that practiced in favor of the regimes of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, is not seen as “intervention” but as “solidarity”. Intervention is denounced when it comes to critical visions of authoritarianism, left or right, or relations with the United States, although López Obrador reiterates that interventionism is over in Mexico. When reference is made to the promotion of the Bolivarian Axis or the Mexican President’s casuistry of Latin American diplomacy, sovereignty or the “Estrada Doctrine” are called into question.
The unacknowledged or rhetorically concealed differences of opinion already have a cost for regional integrationism, as was demonstrated at the last America Summit in Los Angeles, where there was no common Latin American position. Or in the postponement of the Pacific Alliance meeting in Mexico, so relevant for its enormous convenability and pragmatic commitment, and focused on a priority relationship with Southeast Asia. The deepening of the old political crisis in Peru and the diversity of positions it produces are also reducing the incentives for a restart of the Pacific Alliance frowned upon by the Bolivarian bloc.
Another price is already beginning to emerge in the different ways in which migration crises are dealt with in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Since the Mexican government posits that integration must include the United States and Canada, which is a contradiction in terms for most on the left, negotiating immigration with Washington is creating tensions with its own Latin American neighbors. López Obrador and his government tend to balance these tensions with a discursive rather than practical demagogic and paternalistic relationship with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
This and the coming confrontations should convince the ruling left that integration cannot progress or be permanent if it is to be based on ideological harmony within a largely democratic and therefore pluralistic region, or on friendship between rotating presidents. Unfortunately, the facts are not enough to convince governments that give priority to the immediacy of the exercise of power and, in the medium and long term, are gradually abandoning state diplomacy, without which real progress on integration will always be impossible.
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