The Conservative Restoration in Latin America
The Conservative Restoration in Latin America
Written by Emir Sader
Wednesday, 10 September 2014 10:52
Source: Página/12, Translation by Lo-de-alla.org
The failure of the military coup against the government of Hugo Chávez in 2002 left the Latin American Right practically disarmed in the face of the proliferating progressive governments of the continent. Since then, it has managed to regain only two governments through bloodless coups – those of Honduras and Paraguay – where the processes of change had not yet managed to gain strength. But there are signs of a rebuilding of conservative forces in countries on the continent with progressive governments. The threats to continuity in countries like Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, as well as the problems faced in Venezuela, and, in a different way, even in Ecuador, indicate a phenomenon of this kind.
What do these conservative attacks consist of and how are they carried out?
There are common elements among them: the destabilizing role of the private communications media, with the strength that their monopolistic control provides them; campaigns denouncing alleged irregularities committed by the governments, which serve to weaken their image in the view of the public, as well as discrediting the states, governments, parties, policies, as an indirect way of glorifying the market and large private businesses; activity that seeks to create climates of pessimism about the economic plan, of depression, of discouragement, which lowers personal self-esteem. Without that activity, which it uses as an opposition party, no attempt at a conservative regrouping of forces would be possible in our countries.
Based on the power that this kind of activity brings, candidates are offered who represent the antithesis of the progressive governments, although they have to recognize these governments’ successes, above all in the social area, and whose principal programs they say they will continue. For this they need young, “new” faces that would represent a renovation of politics and of the parties, which they continue to attack.
They may have different faces – Marina Silva in Brazil, Luis Lacalle in Uruguay, Henrique Capriles in Venezuela, Mauricio Rodas (the mayor of Quito) in Ecuador, Sergio Massa in Argentina – but they all try to represent themselves as “new,” as persons who would renovate politics. They all have behind them the large businesses and their mercantile interests, as against the public interests and the social rights gained in these years. They have international alliances with the United States as a central reference point, as opposed to the politics of regional integration and south-south exchanges.
The experience of Sebastián Piñera in Chile was a first attempt of this kind, with a businessman with success in the private sphere as a supposedly better governor for the state. His passage through the executive branch demonstrates how these new faces reproduce the old programs of the traditional Right and end up failing.
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/5039-the-conservative-restoration-in-latin-america
