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Forthcoming
Elections in Peru and Mexico Will Not Clarify Latin
America's Direction
By JONATHAN
POWER
May 17, 2000
MADRID- Two elections will shortly take place in Latin
America that could, it is being said, make a trend or
break a trend.
This, of course, depends on what you think the
trend is. If you believe that the trend is towards a
firming of democracy then a truly open contest in the
election scheduled in Mexico for July 2nd, which would be
an historic first, together with the defeat of the
autocratic quasi democrat, Alberto Fujimori, in Peru on
May 28th would confirm your opinion. But if you believe
that the trend has been on the ebb for some time with the
attempted coups in Bolivia and Paraguay and the rise of
elected autocrats in Venezuela and Peru, then a
re-elected Fujimori and the victory of the governing
party in Mexico will confirm your pessimistic
leanings.
The truth perhaps is somewhere in between. The
post-Caudillo democratic movement, which started life
partly under the influence of U.S. president Jimmy Carter
in the late 1970s, is far from out of breath. But on the
other hand there are signs of a weakening of resolve.
Hence the desire, if not for Caudillos, then for
democratically elected strong men who dispense with the
parties, the legislatures and the courts and "get things
done".
The principle sabotaging element has not been, as in
much of past Latin American history, the ambition of army
officers. By and large, they voluntarily keep themselves
in their barracks, aware of how complicated is the
question of business confidence in an age of open
markets. Nor has it been the leftist guerrillas. Most of
them have either made their peace with a negotiated
settlement, leading to parliamentary participation, as in
Central America. Or they were defeated, as with the
Maoist Shining Path in Peru. Only in Colombia do they
survive as a serious force and there they are less an
instrument for fighting for social change and more of a
group bent on self-aggrandizement through their tight
connections with the drug traffickers.
It has been, in short, the inability of the economic
reformers to realize their rhetoric and deliver the goods
that has been the problem. During the late 1980s and the
1990s most Latin American countries implemented the
so-called "Washington Consensus", the orthodox,
free-market, economic policies of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund. This meant dropping
protectionist tariffs, privatizing state-owned companies
and , above all else, squeezing out inflation. "Almost
overnight Latin America joined the world economy" says
Peter Hakim, the president of Inter-American
Dialogue.
Yet, for all the rigour, the results have been
disappointing. Economic growth has been half what it was
in the 1960s and 70s. Only three countries, Chile,
Argentina and Peru, have grown reasonably fast and
Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela actually lost
ground.
Everywhere inequalities of income, already the most
severe of any region in the world, worsened. The cities
have become more violent and the murder rate in some
countries has as much as quadrupled. Educational levels
have slipped even further behind Asia, Eastern Europe and
the Middle East.
There are, however, beacons of light. Chile, despite
the turbulence of the Pinochet affair, burns the
brightest. Indeed General Augusto Pinochet's great
achievement was to put economic reform in the hands of
rigorous Chicago School economists who instituted
Washington Consensus-type reforms before they were
popular. Not only has Chile grown at a handsome 6% a year
over the last decade, it has done much more to reduce
poverty that any other country. With the recent election,
27 years after Pinochet overthrew a Socialist government,
of a Socialist president, Ricardo Lagos , who has
promised both to continue the economic reforms and to
allow the courts to pursue the prosecution of Pinochet,
the country has attained a maturity that is the envy of
the rest of the continent.
Hard on its heels is a re-invigorated Argentina which
has made impressive economic and political advances since
democratic rule was restored in 1983. Under Carlos Menem
a penchant for economic reform took everyone by surprise.
Yet for all his unexpected virtues he tolerated excessive
corruption and cared little about the plight of
Argentina's growing numbers of poor. Under the newly
elected, relatively austere, president Fernando de la Rua
both these attitudes are undergoing a profound
change.
Brazil is the wild card. Its growth rate during the
1990s was unspectacular- and this was the country that
for the first part of the century, along with Taiwan, was
the fastest growing country in the world. Yet it has made
massive progress under President Fernando Cardoso in
squeezing out inflation. If Cardoso can convince an
unruly Congress to reduce state employment and reform an
out-of-control pension system for public employees, then
Brazil would not only face the possibility of resuming
its dazzling growth rate, it could start doing something
about its educational system, its poor and its landless.
Democracy has a vital quality in Brazil. Debate is of a
high order but congressional politics is too beholden to
narrow minded local and regional interests.
At the other end of the spectrum are Colombia and
Venezuela. To say they are in a quagmire is to be too
kind. Colombia, which used to boast a healthy economy, is
now mired in recession with massive criminal and
political violence almost throttling day to day life. At
some point democracy itself will be threatened, as it has
been in neighboring Venezuela where, after years of
misrule, it has elected a populist autocrat as leader,
Hugo Chavez, who has lost no time in marginalising both
Congress and the courts.
Still, Latin American politics and economics cannot be
said to be- Colombia perhaps excepted- as turbulent and
idiosyncratic, as in the past. There is a sense of
government being disciplined both by the market and the
voter. This is not the time to write obituaries for Latin
American democracy. If there is enough going wrong to
worry the pessimists, there is enough going right to
bolster the optimists. The presidential elections in Peru
and Mexico, whichever way they go, won't really change
that.
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By JONATHAN POWER
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