How the crisis will impact the left in Latin America, as published in the Safe Democracy Foundation blog, 11th February 2009
A new round of elections in a region showing diminished growth
Chile and Uruguay will kick off a new round of elections in Latin America at the end of the year. Will there be a shift towards the center or will the left reassert its dominance? How will the electoral results in these two countries influence the rest of the Latin American elections?
(From Montevideo) URUGUAY’S NATIONAL ELECTIONS, which will take place in October, will mark the beginning of a new string of elections in Latin America. Indeed, they will be followed a month later by elections in Chile, and many others countries in the region will hold their own in 2010 and 2011.
This new round of elections will be characterized by a significant change in the region’s economic situation. The previous round “The troubling data regarding the performance of the Mexican and Brazilian economies will spread to the rest of the continent”–which began with the Argentinean presidential elections in 2003 and came to an end in May 2008 with the elections in Paraguay– took place during a very positive economic time period, characterized by strong growth throughout the entire region, together with a very significant increase in the international price of the region’s principal exports, low levels of inflation and decreasing unemployment.
However, this new period of government transition is going to take place within the framework of a profound global crisis, which is beginning to affect the Latin American continent to a great degree.
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