In a few days or weeks, Latin America is defining its future. The attack on Cristina, the Chilean referendum, the Brazilian elections, and their consequences, make the continent end the year with a different face, for better or for worse.
The truth is Latin America reaffirms itself as the epicenter of the great contemporary political struggles. It was here that neoliberalism had increasingly radical governments. It was here that the anti-neoliberal governments and the main leftist political leaders of the 21st century emerged.
This is where the most important clashes of our time continue to take place. Here, where the death or survival of neoliberalism is defined.
In all countries, the clash between the left and the right took new forms. With an anti-neoliberal left and a radicalized right, assuming the hate speech.
The attack on Cristina was the episode that most expresses this discourse and its criminal consequences. It was there that the extreme right went from words to deeds, with the escalation of threats against Cristina, Alberto Fernández and Argentine democracy, the trigger was fired.
The country, involved in an economic war for the sabotage of big capital, for the call to raise prices indiscriminately as a way to multiply their profits and sabotage the government, appealed to political forms to try to hit hard the left, for the attack against Christina. The shots would assassinate the main Argentine leader, but also the Argentine democracy.
Las popular mobilizations in defense of democracy and Cristina and Alberto Fernández’s attempts to put together a national pact in defense of democracy, can change the political landscape of the country. But the right wing, after formal declarations condemning the attack, shows no willingness for a major formal peace agreement. Accusations are repeated that the government would use the attack to attack them, instrumentalizing the situation.
The next few weeks will be decisive for the economic and political future of the country, even projecting the scenario for next year’s presidential elections.
The Brazilian elections, with the probable election of Lula, are his great novelty. It will be necessary to see if he manages to triumph in the first round, at the beginning or end of October. The right gathers all its forces to, aware of Bolsonaro’s inability to be re-elected, resume and intensify antipetismoto try to make the definition given in the second round, to try to prevent Lula’s victory from coming in the first round, with a very strong new president.
In any case, the probable election of Lula will be the most significant advance that Latin America can count on, together with the governments of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, to coordinate their forces in the fight against neoliberalism.
The Chilean referendum adds a new element. The reversal of previous results, the product of a brutal right-wing campaign, such as Chile had not yet known, poses new and complex dilemmas for the Boric government.
Why and how did this investment occur? It is a subject for a more detailed analysis, but it can be said, at least, that there is three levels of defeat.
The first was a political defeat. The right knew how to make its positions more flexible, hiding the return of the Pinochet constitution, to affirm its will to accept a new constitution, but made in a different way – without gender parity, without an indigenous caucus – and with longer terms. He conquered sectors of the center and even of the moderate left -such as the Christian Democracy- who expressed their support for the rejection.
While the official position could not retain even more than half of the votes of those who had voted in favor of a new Constitution. He believed that the good proposal of a new Constitution, by itself, would serve to gather the votes of those who were in favor of the Constitutional Convention.
Contributing to the political defeat was the rapid decline in support for the Boric government -38%- in the first months of the governmentwhich was slow to react and resume the initiative, with projects that meet the needs of the population.
The second was a media defeat. Chile experienced the most brutal fake news campaign the country has ever knownfocused on the lying disqualification of what was happening in the Convention and the behavior of its members, on what the government was preparing (from changing the color of the Chilean flag to giving the Mapuches the right to veto everything they did government).
There was no political and media command of the Approve campaign, which sought to respond to these lies, which proliferated throughout the campaign. Public opinion was strongly against the Convention and the government, extending this to the rejection of the new Constitution project.
The third level of defeat was at the mass level. The Broad Front and the social movements did not reveal that they had the capacity to take the Approval campaign to a massive level throughout the country. The magnitude and extension of the defeat, in all the regions of Chile, even in the metropolitan region, a bastion of the left, expresses this.
The isolation in relation to the feelings of the people took by surprise such a consistent result of rejection of the new Constitution, not captured by the leaders of the campaign for the Approval.
How will the country react to this defeat? The media are responsible for concentrating the weight of the defeat on the government. The moderate sectors of the left and center will propose entering the government as a way to break the isolation of the government.
Boric’s speech on national television is very good, a statesman’s speech, which assimilates the result, but reaffirms the objectives of the 2019 movement, to provide Chile with a new democratic constitution, which once and for all turns the page on Pinochetism and the neoliberal model.
The most important disputes will develop around the reform of the government and the call for a new constituent, which will reveal how Chile comes out of defeat and what forces the left has to recover the initiative. Fundamental, above all, is the unity around the defense of the government. And secondly, that the government take measures that defend the immediate needs of the population, as well as address citizen security concerns, among others.
The attack on Cristina and the defeat of the referendum in Chile reinforce the centrality of the media disputeof public opinion, the decisive importance of the ideological, cultural and value dispute, which ends up being the great lever of great political events.
The Latin American turmoil will not stop, not even with Lula’s likely victory. The continent will continue to be the epicenter of the great struggles of the contemporary world, as well as continuing to project and consolidate its leaders as the main leaders of the 21st century left.
But Latin America has to make use of the conquered governments -Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, to which Lula’s will be added- to collectively face the set of problems facing the continent.
There is a large new political majority in Latin America, which must serve as a lever to carry out fundamental transformations on the continent -at an economic, political, social, and media level-, so that the upheaval serves to build a less unequal world. Latin America, fairer, more supportive, more democratic.