Brazil's election suggests a socialist wave in the Americas — but the numbers tell a different story

For all the talk of surging right-wing populism, states in the Americas from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego are now (with a few small exceptions) in the hands of political parties of the left or centre-left.

The victory of Lula Da Silva in Brazil caps a four-year wave of leftist victories in Latin America that began with the election of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (better known as AMLO) in Mexico in 2018 and continued with Alberto Fernandez in Argentina in 2019, the return of the Socialists in Bolivia in 2020, the elections of Pedro Castillo in Peru in 2021 and Gabriel Boric in Chile in March 2022, and with former guerrilla Gustavo Petro forming the first left-wing government in Colombia's history this summer.

It looks like a sea change. But the change may not be all it seems.

Rather than a profound ideological shift, the margins of victory suggest deeply divided societies. Lula prevailed in his runoff with 50.9 per cent of the vote, Colombia's Gustavo Petro with 50.4 per cent and Peru's Pedro Castillo with 50.1 per cent. All three countries increasingly resemble deeply polarized nations such as the United States, or Britain during the Brexit debate, or any number of countries in Europe.

Argentines call it "la brecha," or the gap — the division of society into two enemy camps, each convinced that the other will ruin the country. It's a phenomenon North Americans are also familiar with.

"We've been through a similar swing to the left in Latin America before, the 'pink tide' that was about 15 or 17 years ago," said Carlo Dade of the Canada West Foundation, also a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. "So this is not unprecedented, even in recent memory."

Pink Tide version 2.0 is more sweeping than the earlier wave. But Dade believes it would be a mistake to paint the wave all the same colour.

"There's a lot of nuance on the left," he said. "The leftist policies in a place like Chile are not going to be what you encounter in Venezuela."

More importantly, Latin America is struggling with exactly the same phenomena that have swept North America and Europe: disaffection with traditional parties and politics, crashing confidence in institutions, the viral spread of conspiracies on social media and the rise of populist demagogues — some of whom defy easy definition as leftists or rightists.

"The more radical groups are learning the lessons of populism abroad and they can really throw a wrench into this," said Dade. "Brazil is really the object lesson in how a new variant of authoritarian populism can creep back into the region.

"The left-right axis is useful for someone writing a PhD. But it's the question of authoritarian populism that's going to have more impact on how the government exercises power. And that can go right or left. That gives you more clues to what you can expect from a regime. I would argue that it's more important than the left-right distinction."

"I think it's tempting for people to interpret what is going on in the region as a new pink tide," said Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambassador to the United States. "But I think that the pendulum swings that we're seeing have much less to do with partisan ideological realignments, and more to do with citizens up and down the Americas — and the U.S. is no exception — feeling disconnected from traditional political parties.

"What I think has been brewing is a sense of dislocation, a sense of anger at traditional political parties. Something that worries me a lot is the increasing erosion of the credibility of the institutions that underpin democracy, and the displacement of that by charismatic leaders or strong leaders."

The pandemic undid many of the economic gains of the past twenty years for Latin America's poorest people. They suffered higher death rates from COVID-19 than people in any other part of the world and, in some cases, severe lockdown policies that killed off small and micro-businesses, disrupted educations and broke many of the ladders out of poverty.