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or we have said over and over again: History has no laws, it is not linear, much less does it move ineluctably forward. There are advances and there are setbacks. Today the world – and Latin America is no exception – looks and walks backwards, towards involution; the loss of fundamental freedoms, of important acquired social rights and of conquests that seemed consolidated.
We also always said it in this same space of reflection: the progressive forces of the world, in the broad spectrum that that denomination represents, democrats, social democrats, socialists and defenders of the essential freedoms of women and men, had to be alert. Today we see that the necessary measures were not taken.
We cannot say that the right is simply another option in the range of routes of representative democracy because, as political scientist Anne Applebaum has already widely documented in her emblematic work, The decline of democracy, the seduction of authoritarianism, It is a new right, different from the traditional one, which now, although it comes to power with the rules of democracy, once installed in power it denies and suffocates democratic principles: it no longer tolerates political dissidence, considers civil rights dispensable, limits social rights, blows up republican institutions and criminalizes immigrants.
It is the xenophobic and authoritarian right of the Le Pens, Vox and Georgia Meloni with their group Brothers of Italy that is now invading Latin America. Today the archaic right and the neo-fascist extreme right triumph from one country to another, in a domino effect, under the inspiration of those overseas forces, and above all influenced by governments of that ideological tendency on the continent that announce the promised land, uncertain support that can be very expensive – in terms of territorial sovereignty and political self-determination – as demonstrated by the history of the 20th century and part of the 21st.
A cursory review of Latin American geography makes it very clear that the authoritarian, elitist and disdainful discourse towards marginalized sectors is no longer exclusive to Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, who governs under a regime of exception, extended at least 34 times, by which more than 100 thousand people have been detained, many without clear charges or access to legal defense, torture, deaths in custody and forced disappearances, “an enormous system of arbitrary detentions built on a foundation of legal changes, which allow the government to detain whoever it wants and suspend their rights so that they cannot defend themselves,” as summarized by Noah Bullock, executive director of the non-governmental organization Cristosal. That is the model of security policies that now inspires the new right-wing governments.
Now candidates hostile to respect for the rule of law and progressive social thought have also triumphed in Argentina, with Javier Milei; in Ecuador, with Daniel Novoa; in Peru, until recently with Dina Boluarte, after the coup d’état against Pedro Castillo, and today with José Jeri, in a transitional government; in Bolivia, with Rodrigo Paz; in the Dominican Republic, with Luis Abinader, and now Chile, with José Antonio Katz. Two right-wing options in Honduras, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, are also fighting for power.
Javier Milei became president of Argentina in 2023 with a frontal speech against “communism”, the welfare state and social justice. Admirer of the xenophobic policies of the first world economy, refractory to migrants, he withdrew social services such as education and health; Also from the first moment it restricted the social rights of the local population, raised the rates of public services, reduced public spending and froze salaries and pensions.
In November 2023, Daniel Noboa, heir to a banana empire, won the presidency of Ecuador with an agenda focused on security and militarization, leading a government, like that of El Salvador, alien to the rule of law and governed by states of exception, with multiple violations of human rights.
Just last November, Bolivia also turned to the right with the inauguration of Rodrigo Paz, who promised to balance the country’s finances, but at the cost of reducing acquired social rights, the elimination of fuel subsidies, indigenous exclusion and a realignment with neoliberal governments.
Finally, Kast, who will take office in March 2026, is an open admirer of the Pinochet dictatorship, which he denies of all responsibility for the death, confinement and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Chileans; Between 2022 and 2024, she chaired the Political Network for Values, an international ultra-conservative network against abortion, radical feminism, the so-called “gender ideology” and the rights of the LGBT community.
At this moment, only Mexico, Brazil and Colombia retain progressive governments, with all their risks due to external siege, and Guatemala. Everything else, with some other exceptions, is a new political map of authoritarian regression, loss of public freedoms and restriction, if not outright cancellation, of social and union rights.
Today, more than ever, it is necessary to defend the achievements of freedom, justice and the inclusion of the marginalized on the continent.
