Latin America begins 2023 amidst chaos and political instability

Article at El Diario de Hoy, published on 13 January 2023 https://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/nacional/latinoamerica-inicia-2023-caos-inestabilidad/1031978/2023/

Several countries in Latin America ended 2022 with major political crises, which continue to affect their political systems and threaten their democracies.

"Latinoamérica va a reventar como petardo en Navidad (Latin America is going to explode like a firecracker at Christmas.)"

With these words, in 2000, the Argentine punk band Dos Minutos crowned their popular song Disneylandia. The song predicted a beautiful subcontinent "with beautiful landscapes and lovely people," but in constant crisis, instability, and political chaos.

More than two decades later, and in just over a month, Latin America seems to be living up to what the band from the turbulent Valentín Alsina neighborhood wrote.

In the span of one month and one day (from December 7 to January 8), two countries experienced the worst crisis of the last three decades. The end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 forecast a complicated, turbulent, and potentially violent year in a region that, after decades of flirting with democratization, still struggles to consolidate it, leaving behind the ghosts of political violence, coups, self-coups, and authoritarian abuse of power.

According to the prestigious Argentine political scientist and jurist Daniel Zovatto, the region is experiencing "a very tumultuous end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, marked by political tension and instability, as well as various forms of harassment towards democracies."

These democracies may be the biggest victims of the chaos and discontent, which often breeds distrust in the political system and the temptation to seek solutions outside the rule of law.

The Great Crisis in Peru

The most recent season of deep instability in the subcontinent began on December 7 with Pedro Castillo, who was serving as President of Peru at the time.

That day, Congress was set to hear a request for impeachment against the president, though media outlets reported that there were not enough votes to remove him.

Despite this, and in a surprising move, Castillo announced that he was dissolving Congress and that the country would be governed by decree for a while. He also declared a state of emergency and announced a restructuring of the entire judicial system and the Public Ministry of Peru. In short, a self-coup.

This self-coup was rejected by Congress, which immediately removed Castillo. He was later captured and will spend at least a year and a half in prison while his legal case progresses. In his place, former Vice President Dina Boluarte assumed power, and since then, widespread social unrest from Castillo's supporters has erupted across the country.

This has been met with force by security forces, and the clashes have already resulted in several deaths, including 17 people who lost their lives in a single day in Puno.

In the streets, they demand Boluarte's resignation and early elections. Until that happens, Peru is expected to remain in a state of turmoil, crisis, and turbulence.

The Insurrection in Brasilia

That month, sparked by the Peruvian crisis, ended with another major crisis in the Southern Cone.

A week after Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva took office in Brazil, hundreds of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the headquarters of the three branches of government in the country’s capital, Brasilia.

Although the former Brazilian president, who represented the far-right, did not personally participate in this assault, the crisis originates both from his words, which never gave any confidence that he would accept an electoral defeat, and from his silence after he lost the elections. In a polarized country where elections are decided by a narrow margin, the failure of a leader to recognize the result of elections is particularly troublesome. Brazil became a breeding ground for violence, unfounded fraud claims, and, eventually, an assault on institutions by radicalized followers.

The images from Brasilia closely resemble what was seen on January 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., United States. That day, the most vocal followers of Donald Trump stormed the legislative building to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump did not participate in this event, but his attempts to discredit the election and his fraud claims were enough to convince many of the worst assault on institutional integrity in the country's history. Later, thanks to the testimony of a former Trump advisor, the world learned that he had personally wanted to attend and lead the insurrection.

In Washington and Brasilia, it became clear that for a segment of the population vulnerable to radical and anti-political rhetoric, elections only matter if they win. Otherwise, they will raise cries of fraud and are willing to use violence to take what they couldn't win at the polls.

Beyond Peru and Brazil

The scandals that are setting the tone for 2023 go beyond what happened in Brazil and Peru. While less "explosive," there are political events that signal a complicated year ahead, with intense clashes between branches of government, difficulties in governance, and major tensions that could escalate into extreme violence.

In Bolivia, 2022 ended with the detention of Santa Cruz's governor, Luis Fernando Camacho, a strong opponent of the ruling Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), who is accused of conspiring to overthrow Evo Morales in 2019.

Since the detention, thousands of Camacho's supporters have taken to the streets, denouncing growing authoritarianism and the instrumentalization of justice by the MAS and President Luis Arce Catacora.

This crisis has raised tensions in an already volatile country with unresolved frictions between La Paz, the center of power, and Santa Cruz, the country's economic engine and one of the provinces most opposed to the MAS.

In Argentina, President Alberto Fernández announced in his first speech of the year that he would pursue impeachment proceedings against the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and seek investigations into the other members of the tribunal. This comes on the brink of an electoral year marked by growing tensions.

Across the Andes in Chile, President Gabriel Boric has already faced his first major crisis, forced to accept the resignation of his Minister of Justice, Marcela Ríos.

This followed the poor and careless execution of his campaign promise to pardon those convicted in the context of the social unrest. While Boric promised there would be no pardon for common crimes, some of the pardoned had previous records, which opened the door for the opposition to condemn the president's decision, accusing him of acting more as an activist than a head of state.

Boric was forced to remove an important figure from his cabinet while negotiating a security policy. All of this, while Chileans are facing rising violence. The Chilean president faces a complicated year ahead, where his low popularity might combine with an opposition that is increasingly finding weak points in his administration.

In Colombia, the government has yet to finalize a peace agreement with the ELN, while the state fails to exercise effective control over all territory.

A Challenging Year for Latin America

Beyond these tensions in the mentioned countries, the region continues to house three openly authoritarian and dictatorial countries: Cuba, where dissidents face prison sentences for protesting; Nicaragua, where the regime has lost its fear of killing and imprisoning its critics; and Venezuela, which seems to see no end to its long political and monetary crisis.

On the other hand, in El Salvador, power continues to consolidate around one person, President Nayib Bukele. He faces a pre-election year with significant difficulties, including a crisis in local governments and a tight economic situation. But so far, he has shown no signs of seeking major national agreements. On the contrary, he seems committed to continuing down the path of polarizing rhetoric, promoting hatred against critics and opponents, and further consolidating power.

Moreover, 2023 is when the Supreme Electoral Court must decide whether to become part of the worst blow to institutional integrity in decades: re-election.

In Mexico and Guatemala, efforts continue to combat the penetration of drug trafficking into state structures, as well as political parties. In Guatemala, 2023 is a year for general elections, marked by a clear exhaustion of traditional politics but also by the dominance of seriously questioned figures who resist stepping aside in their electoral aspirations, including Zury Ríos, the daughter of the general who died accused of genocide, and Sandra Torres, the former first lady linked to alleged corruption in social programs from 2007 to 2011.

The crises across the continent set the stage for, in Daniel Zovatto's words, a "challenging year."

And beyond these four countries, he identifies some characteristics that are hallmarks of the prelude to profound political crises.

"The combination of heated streets and irritated ballots, low growth, and inflation, will increase uncertainty, instability, and political risk, making governance recently complex," he warns, delivering a grim conclusion: "Buckle up, turbulence zone ahead."