It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the election of Gustavo Petro as President of Colombia. For the first time in two centuries of independent history of the third largest country in the region (in terms of population), the left has reached Casa de Nariño, Bogotá’s presidential palace. He did so with the most votes of any president (over 11 million) and after an election with the highest voter turnout (58%). It is also with the overwhelming support of the country’s youth. He also brought to the vice presidency, for the first time, an Afro-Colombian woman, Francia Márquez, an environmental activist from Cauca, one of the poorest and most marginalized regions of Colombia.

A similarity

Colombia’s unique history, which inspired the genre of magical realism to Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez, makes it stand out against the vast and colorful canvas of Latin America. The same goes for Mr. Petro’s condition as a former urban guerrilla, a member of M-19, a group that wreaked much havoc in a country marked with the dubious distinction of having had the longest conflict armed in the world — that between another guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government, from the 1960s to 2016. In another sense, however, the story of the election of Mr. Petro and the challenges he faces once he takes office on August 7 are not too different from that of several other countries in the rest of the region.

Fallout from the pandemic

Mr Petro’s victory follows those of Gabriel Boric in Chile, Xiomara Castro in Honduras, Luis Arce in Bolivia, Pedro Castillo in Peru and previous wins for Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and Alberto Fernández in Argentina, all largely to the left of the political spectrum. Polls indicate there is a good chance that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will win Brazil’s presidential elections in October, which would turn this change into a wave. Most of these leaders came to power propelled by the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the region, by far the most affected by the virus, with 30% of global deaths and 8% of the population. world. The epic mismanagement of the pandemic by often negationist right-wing governments in place, including the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro (the country has killed nearly 700,000), is Exhibit A, has a lot to do with it.

It has also led to what the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has called the region’s worst crisis in 120 years, with the economy shrinking by 7% in 2020. twice the rate of world GDP. A country like Chile, the most developed in the region, and for a long time the best performing economy, is expected to grow by 1.4% in 2022 and 0.1% in 2023, which says a lot about the depth of this crisis in a region that oscillates smoothly. , from one “lost decade” to another.

Does this herald a new “pink tide” in Latin America, similar to that which manifested itself in the first decade of the new century (only to run out of steam in the second)? Riding the super cycle of the commodity boom (2003-2013), this period brought prosperity, poverty reduction and progress towards greater income inequality in the most unequal region of the world. Leaders such as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, and Tabaré Vázquez and José (“Pepe”) Mujica in Uruguay have shown that it is possible to be on the left and to establish social programs, while being fiscally responsible and keeping the house in order. It also led to a flourishing of regional cooperation, with the creation of entities such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Alliance of the Pacific. In 2012, the troika of CELAC foreign ministers (those of Chile, Cuba and Venezuela did something unthinkable today) — held dialogues with China and with India in Beijing and in New Delhi, respectively.

Bogota’s agenda

Are we likely to see something similar in the years to come? In other words, are we at the beginning of another “political cycle”, marked by the rise in power of the left? Yes, the left is back. The question is, what kind of left, and how long will it last?

In many ways, this is a different left. Mr. Petro, 62, economist and former mayor of Bogotá, is particularly sensitive to the environmental challenge. His program includes weaning Colombia from its dependence on fossil fuels such as oil and coal (40% of the country’s export revenue comes from oil), stopping hydraulic fracturing (a technique used in the production natural gas and oil) and the transition to an energy transition . Mr. Boric, the Chilean leader, is in favor of gender issues and gender equality (his Cabinet has more women than men), as well as the rights of indigenous peoples, and underlined the the need to move towards the equivalent of a European social protection state, in another country with some of the highest income inequality indices in the region, where 10% of the population earn 60% of the country’s income ( Chile, like Colombia, has a very unequal income distribution). The problems in Honduras, which former President Juan Orlando Hernández (now under arrest in the United States) built into the first narco-state in the Americas, are of a different order. Its new president, Xiomara Castro, has a lot to do trying to dismantle the corrupt state apparatus it inherited, fight drug trafficking and control the endemic violence that has earned San Pedro Sula, the one of the cities of Honduras, the title of “world capital of murder”.

Editorial | Paradigm Shift: About Colombia’s First Leftist President

In addition to a more favorable international environment, the advantage enjoyed by the previous “pink tide” was continuity. The Workers’ Party ruled Brazil for 13 years. The Concertación did so in Chile for 20 consecutive years, then tried again for Michelle Bachelet’s second term (2014-2018) for another four years. The Kirchners in Argentina ruled for 12 years. Evo Morales in Bolivia was in power for 13 years, Rafael Correa in Ecuador for 10 years, and the Frente Amplio in Uruguay did so from 2005 to 2020. It’s a different political environment now; anti-incumbent sentiments reign, and the sentiment of “throwing the rascals out” after just one term is gaining momentum.

Ambitious reform programs without (in most cases) parliamentary majorities, under severe budget constraints and a turbulent international environment are generally not a promising combination for incoming governments. A silver lining may be rising commodity prices (which lifted Colombia’s 2022 GDP growth forecast to 6.1%), but in several cases they tend to trigger.

Mr Petro spoke of his interest in working with Lula’s Brazil and Boric’s Chile, pointing to a key area where these incoming governments could make rapid progress. A first cut in the creation of a political coordination entity in South America, which will have learned the lessons of the ultimate failure of UNASUR, should be a priority.

On active non-alignment

As a second Cold War loomed, the notion of active non-alignment, which was inspired by the Indian concept presented by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s, but adapted it to the realities of the 21st century, aroused widespread interest in academic and political circles. It can provide a useful guide for channeling the foreign policies of Latin American nations, at a time when the international system is changing and when the region’s need to re-establish its presence in world affairs is particularly urgent.

Jorge Heine is a research professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and a former Chilean ambassador to India. His most recent book, with Carlos Fortin and

Carlos Ominami, is ‘Active Non-Alignment and Latin America: A Doctrine for the New Century’