When Venezuela’s charismatic revolutionary, the late Hugo Chavez, won the presidential election in his country for the first time in 1998, he launched a new political era in Latin America. For the next 17 years, leftist politicians—many of them emerging from humble beginnings, as Chavez had—rose to power through democratic means in a region where that path had seldom been successful for the left or the poor. Chavez’s model of modified socialist economics and modified democratic governance soon spread to a number of countries and became the dominant political phenomenon of the 21st century in Latin America. That period of [...]
Argentina’s presidential vote this Sunday, Nov. 22, is one of its most consequential elections in recent history. After 12 years of Kirchnerismo, the next president will bring change to a country in need of an economic and political jolt. That much is certain. But how swiftly and how deeply will any transformations take place? That will depend on Sunday’s vote. In the days leading up to the first round of voting on Oct. 25, it seemed a fait accompli that President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s electoral alliance, the Front for Victory, or FPV, was in the driver’s seat to hold [...]
In a region wracked by drug-related crimes, Uruguay stood out in 2013 when it became the first country in Latin America, and the world, to legalize the growth and sale of marijuana. Critics argued that the move would open the floodgates to increased consumption and abuse, but then-President Jose “Pepe” Mujica argued that the measure would quell drug trafficking in a country where one-third of prison inmates serve time on narcotics-related charges. The decision, while unprecedented, is consistent with Uruguay’s legacy of socially progressive policies; the country legalized abortion in 2012, was among the first in Latin America to establish [...]
