South America: The Bolivarians strike back
South America: The Bolivarians strike back
by: Emile Schepers
January 4 2016
As 2015 wound down, the left wing Bolivarian "pink tide" in Latin America suffered two serious setbacks. On Oct. 25, in a runoff election, right winger Mauricio Macri won the presidential elections in Argentina by a small margin, ending a 12 year streak of left-center rule under first Nestor Kirchner and then his wife and successor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Then in Venezuela on December 6, the right wing MUD coalition was victorious in elections for the national legislature, giving it an ability to undo some of the progressive measures that governments run by the Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) and allies have accomplished since the election of Hugo Chavez as president back in 1998.
Both are sobering results for the left, which have it reassessing its political tactics and approaches to governing not only in those two countries but in other left-wing governed nations as well. At the same time, the left is launching a fightback aimed principally at defending the gains made by the working class and poor during the last decade and a half.
The defeat of the left in Argentina was not by a huge margin. Macri of the CAMBIEMOS coalition beat Daniel Scioli of the leftist Front for Victory, by only 2.6 percentage points, or 681,000 votes out of the approximately 25 million cast. Moreover, the Front for Victory continues to have a solid majority in the Senate, and Macri has a plurality but not a majority in the lower house. This will make it difficult for Macri to dismantle Kirchner era programs and policies that have strong popular support.
More:
http://peoplesworld.org/south-america-the-bolivarians-strike-back/
