In the past year, in electoral terms, the highlights have been the triumphs of the progressive forces in Colombia and Brazil, bringing Gustavo Petro to the presidency and, for the third time, Lula da Silva, after the fierce judicial persecution to which he was subjected.
Of great importance is the strengthening of the peace process in Colombia and also the change of sign in the relationship between Colombia and Venezuela, governments that have taken concrete steps with the opening of their borders and the progressive normalisation of their relations.
A significant step forward was also made in Cuba with the majority approval of a new Family Code, which extends and updates the protection rights of children, the elderly and the disabled, condemns domestic violence, and recognises the diversity of realities that exist among Cuban families, among other positive issues.
In the English-speaking Caribbean, the re-election of the Labour Party’s Mia Mottley as prime minister of Barbados, which has become an independent republic from the British crown, stands out in a new step towards decolonisation.
In both Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis, the opposition triumphed, with Grenadian Dickon Mitchell of the National Democratic Congress representing a generational renewal in the island’s political environment.
The right-wing was also able to score some victories, such as Rodrigo Chaves’ victory in Costa Rica against José María Figueres Olsen, candidate of the now-ancient National Liberation Party, former president and son of the founding leader of the Second Republic.
One of the most painful defeats this year occurred in the constitutional plebiscite in Chile, which was to ratify the new constitutional text to leave behind the Pinochet legacy and was rejected by a large majority.
In Uruguay, despite the achievement of the left, which collected 800,000 signatures to lift the referendum on the Law of Urgent Consideration, Lacalle Pou’s neoliberal ruling coalition achieved a narrow victory that opens the door to a programme of conservative restoration.
At other levels of government, elections in Mexico in some states resulted in the strengthening of Morena and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, while in municipal terms, the Sandinista Front won all the mayors’ offices in Nicaragua without major opposition and the ultra-right won the central mayor’s office in Lima.
In what was thought to be a total political eclipse due to the World Cup in Qatar, several political events shook the regional map.
In Peru, after repeated and unsuccessful attempts, the centralist oligarchy violated the will of the people by overthrowing the rural teacher and trade unionist Pedro Castillo less than a year and a half into his term.
In Argentina, while popular euphoria was running high after the country won its third World Cup, the popular camp suffered a major setback. With the country tied down by an odious debt contracted by the Macri government and with clear pre-election signs, the judicial-media mafia, in its capacity as manager of the concentrated power groups and the US lawfare strategy, managed – at least for the moment – to remove it from the field the main progressive leader, the current vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, outlawing her possible candidacy by means of a flawed sentence.
Meanwhile, in the convulsed and intervened Haiti, the popular movements reached an agreement with the irregular government of Ariel Henry, which stipulates an institutional solution to the difficulties faced by its population and the threat of a new invasion by multinational forces.
Likewise, in Chile, a new chapter is being opened to move towards a new constitutional text. A constitution that will emerge (in the best-case scenario) in an “as far as possible” fashion and will unblock some issues, but given the top-down nature of this renewed attempt, it will in no way meet the needs for change expressed by the Chilean “Awakening” of 2019.
As the year drew to a close, one of the main agents of the coup in Bolivia, Luis Fernando Camacho, was arrested. Together with the dominant Santa Cruz lodges, he staged a new attempt this year to shock the country, with the same racist and secessionist character as in the course of the constitutional process that led to the foundation of the Plurinational State, or with the disregard of the election results in 2019.
Prospects for 2023
If the context of a hyper-concentrated and financialised capitalist system is maintained, there are few – if any – escape valves for the Latin American people in this scheme of things.
The creeping digital technologisation of the economy and social relations, promoted by the same actors (corporations and investment funds) without control or social impact, is revealed as a false promise of “innovations”, fulfilling the function of a distracting fetish, of reconversion of the productive forces without real human progress and, therefore, of procrastination.
In geopolitical terms, the increasingly hard struggle of the United States to stop the advance of a more multipolar world generates a framework of permanent tension against the aspirations of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples of the region, who will have to strengthen intra-regional alliances of an emancipatory nature (such as CELAC) and extra-regional ones (such as BRICS+) in order not to be dragged down by neo-colonising intentions.
In this framework, it is foreseeable that the right will continue to use all the stratagems at their disposal to avoid, minimise the scope, isolate, and even liquidate new progressive or left-wing experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Thus, we should not be surprised by a combination of media demonisation strategies, judicial proscription, parliamentary blockades, unilateral commercial and financial coercive measures, new coup attempts or even assassinations against governments that are inclined to produce changes in favour of their populations. In other words, the entire repertoire of the established power’s artifices to curb popular demands.
On the other hand, it is evident that a widespread and just popular dissatisfaction persists, which does not leave much room for medium-term processes. The people demand from their elected representatives, coherence and speed in the solution of the serious problems they are facing, a coherence and speed that finds barriers difficult to overcome in the closed opposition of the economic and media powers – the main executors of capitalist cruelty.
In this way, there will also be new mass protests, strikes, popular rebellions and also repression in the face of the attempts of conservative governments to maintain and deepen the decrepit and asphyxiating established system.
In general, the political map has become somewhat more favourable to transformations, with three blocs. On the one hand, the “moderate hexagon” of social democratic leanings, made up of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Honduras and Chile, governments that are the fruit of unity in diversity. On the other hand, the “square” formed by Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, whose anti-imperialist character is much more defined. Finally, the archipelago of English-speaking Caribbean nations, whose sign, by necessity of the present and shared past, is generally one of collective action in pursuit of greater self-determination.
In the face of this, reactionary enclaves such as Paraguay, Guatemala, Ecuador, Uruguay, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama persist and, with increasing violence in their interior, testify to the urgent need for a change of direction at the political helm.
In synthesis, the outlook for 2023 presents similar challenges to that of the year just ended.
Given the deterioration of formal democracy, it is necessary to move towards a real democracy of a multidimensional nature, that is, one of progressive distribution of power in all ambits, strengthening the decision-making capacities of the social base.
In this direction, the conquest of pluralistic communication, income redistribution, increasing decentralisation of political power, direct election of the judiciary, democratisation of the digital space, collaboration for the joint resolution of common challenges through regional integration, the expansion and fulfilment of human and social rights, the full inclusion of generational demands, the transformation of the consumption model that generates indebtedness and environmental depredation, the suppression of multinational corporate management of common natural resources, the decommodification of health and education, are some of the measures to be implemented in the immediate future.
However, for these transformations to take on the character of revolution again, it is necessary to include in the conception of revolution, simultaneously with social conquests, putting energy into promoting changes in its interior.
It is unthinkable to believe that the collective historical struggle for liberation can be undertaken without modifying the common senses that guide the current actions of the great human groups.
From the perspective of a new humanism, in order to deepen the endless and unstoppable route from the field of determination to the field of freedom, it is essential to reflect on the most profound meaning of existence and on the need to modify in every home, block and neighbourhood, habits imposed by violence, which hinder, slow down or set back progress.
A revolution is needed that combines the transformation of the external world with the transformation of the inner world of each person, that structures both worlds in the same unity, giving them coherence between thinking, feeling and acting. In short, an integral revolution, outside and inside, whose advent will not depend on mechanical forces but on the intentionality of the people.
May the new year and the tide of history find us strengthened in the task of humanising and humanising ourselves, of learning without limits, of overcoming resentment and contradictions and of loving the reality that we build, day by day, from all and for all! Then, the new year will be truly new.
