The Two Pink Tides in Latin America. Contemporary Global Prospects

1 Introduction

Latin America and the Caribbean are laboratories of social experimentation. In the last two decades of the new century, two left or pink tides (marea rosa in Spanish, onda rosa in Portuguese) have emerged in particular. This is a different phenomenon from the European Union, for example, where similar events that see many countries adopt left-wing or right-wing governments are usually not described as a political tide. This is because countries in Europe are more linguistically and culturally fragmented. Even the common European Parliament and other institutions are not yet much able to connect. In the countries of Latin America, however, the international and transnational phenomenon of left tides exists because mutual linguistic, cultural and political intelligibility and interests allow for the development of interconnected public spheres (Coupples, 2013).

Latin American integration also has its institutional background, such as MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur; Southern Common Market), ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), CELAC (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños; Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) and other regional organizations. However, the integration of public spheres in Latin America is well-known for being limited by its two zones, one made up of Portuguese-speaking Brazil and the second of Spanish-speaking countries. Nevertheless, despite their differences, these zones are still partially interconnected as (a) they share similar neighbourhood interests in Latin America, (b) they are limited by their location in the US “backyard”, (c) they have similar development opportunities and (d) their languages are similar and partially mutually intelligible. So far, these zones chiefly consist of multiple transnationally interconnected public spheres of individual countries rather than a single continental/macroregional transnational unit of public spheres (Ellner, 2019; Pereira da Silva, 2014).

However, even if the pink tides in Latin America were based on cooperation, they have not been homogeneous and have contained various economic and political orientations in different countries. The differentiation of various political streams in the first tide can be primarily divided into three groups, which are then further subdivided. First, one can identify the usual social democratic parties and their governments. Second, on the other side of the left spectrum, there was a communist/socialist model which has been updating itself towards market socialism. Countries that represented the third model situated between the first two became the main drivers of the left tide. These countries had governments that became more radical and promoted various versions of democratic socialism in their economies, social forums, participatory experiments that included indigenous peoples, as well as stronger versions of the welfare state via social programmes. There has been a similar differentiation in the second left tide. Nevertheless, the point is that all of these versions of the left were able and willing to cooperate and create together left tides across Latin America.

My analysis consists of 10 steps: First, I will recall the main characteristics of the first left pink tide, its main representatives being Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia. Second, I will explain the limits of the first tide. Third, I will focus on the main characteristics of the second left tide, which will be analysed in detail later in the article. Fourth, I will analyse the reasons behind the late tilt towards the left in Colombia. Fifth, I will describe important aspects of the economic updating system in Cuba. Sixth, I will address how Brazil is joining the new pink tide. The subsequent parts of the article will deal with Brazil in detail because it is now the main driver of the second pink tide. In that regard, I will focus in the seventh section on Bolsonaro’s legacy and Lula’s return. Eighth, I will show the revitalization of Lula’s social policy, and ninth, I will illuminate the Latin American and global impacts of the recent elections in Latin America. In conclusion, tenth, I will formulate future scenarios for the possible development of the second left tide in Latin America and its potential impact on the world.^[1]

2 The First Tide

The first tide began with a strong personality, Hugo Chávez, who won the support of many citizens and became President of Venezuela in 1999. The country followed the Latin American tradition of caudillismo, based on a strong leader (el caudillo), in order to pursue its own socialist model. Thereafter, left-wing leadership gradually came to power in other countries of South America as well. While it took place mainly in South America, it also had offshoots in the Caribbean and Central America. The symbols of the first tide were the “three musketeers”: Hugo Chávez, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (who became president of Brazil in 2003) and Evo Morales (ascending in Bolivia in 2006) (Maunders, 2021). They were joined by Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Fidel and Raúl Castros (Cuba), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Néstor and Cristina Kirchners (Argentina), Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica (Uruguay) and others (Ali, 2008).

One of the commemorative moments was the attendance of Lula, Chávez, Morales, Lugo and Correa at the World Social Forum, which hosted more than 120,000 participants in Belem, Brazil, next to the Amazon River in 2009. They were enthusiastically welcomed by many activists, social movements and indigenous people and developed a broad coalition with them. Their governments represented the main driver of the first pink tide. They wanted to go beyond the usual social democratic model and pursue democratic socialism. Still, they positioned themselves differently along the left-wing spectrum. Venezuela was the strongest supporter of Cuba, with its socialist model, and it formulated its own political programme: its version of Socialismo del siglo XXI (Socialism for the 21st Century) (Berrizbeitia, 2020). It regained control over (renationalized) the oil industry (PDVSA – Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.) and introduced substantial social benefits. Brazil represented strong social and participatory democracy. It promoted civic experiments in participatory budgeting and the World Social Forum. It used oil resources (Petrobras) in order to strengthen the welfare state, including relevant social programmes. Bolivia meanwhile paid attention to social and indigenous aspects of its social model and supported environmental issues.

Cuba was looking for a more viable economic model of socialism than the Cuban Soviet model. Following the Special Period after the collapse of the Eastern Block and its main supporter (the USSR), Cuba was forced to transform itself to a certain degree. Later, after Raúl Castro took over, he started introducing transformations in order to revitalize the Cuban economy in a more significant way.

Other countries of the left tide were represented by more or less ordinary social democratic governments. Michelle Bachelet, a president of Chile, was a relevant representative of that stream, even if she also talked about socialism.

Therefore, I can conceptually divide the pink tide in Latin America into three models. First, a model of democratic socialism, with at least three versions: radical socialist (Venezuela), social and participatory democratic (Brazil) and indigenous (Bolivia); second, a model of communism in the process of transformation (Cuba); and third, a model of traditional social democracy (other countries) but inspired by more radical partners in other countries.

Behind these policies were concrete material economic causes that were one of the conditions for social change. The gradual economic development of China and other countries strengthened global commodity demand. Increased world commodity prices enabled Latin American countries with natural wealth to pursue social policies. Venezuela and Brazil in particular became early models of how to take advantage of increased oil prices. Other countries with leftist governments did what they could to follow this social path as well, although many did not or could not take advantage of their natural wealth (Ellner, 2014; Gold & Zagato, 2020).

3 Limits of the First Tide

The countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have been weaker dependent economies in various aspects in the system of global capitalism. The dependence is also partly due to the one-sided focus of some countries’ economies, which depend on agricultural monocultures, raw material exports or other narrowly focused economic sectors. These problems have been reproduced because of disproportional profits of national or global capital, in some cases since the days of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism. More recently, the US corporations and governments and other more powerful Western countries exercise their dominant influence and intervention. Meanwhile, since the new millennium a multilateral order has been developing in the world, which is favourable to the countries of Latin America, but it has so far been limited and distorted by the increasingly fragmented and conflictual global system.

The pink tide countries strengthened not only social programmes that have since helped vulnerable citizens, but also tried to initiate socially oriented economic structural changes. However, these changes proved to be less profound than necessary and, therefore, only temporary (Enríquez et al., 2019). Exemplary structural changes have included the building of public strategic infrastructure, ranging from public ownership of water resources and electricity distribution, to public ownership of hospitals, schools and banks, to the development of cooperatives, municipal and provincial companies, etc. These efforts also included ensuring agricultural self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs, medicine production, etc. Nevertheless, these efforts were little developed in the first tide. The shortcomings emerged especially in times of national or transnational economic and financial crises.

Although the Venezuelan government made specific structural changes in favour of public ownership and introduced various organizational changes (Berrizbeitia, 2020), these transformations were not deep enough. As soon as commodity prices fell on the world market, the Venezuelan government lost large amounts of funding for these social programmes. As Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro wanted to maintain them, the country suffered an economic crisis as it was hit by US sanctions.

Other countries also made mainly surface changes. Essentially, only one particular phase (with one or more government terms) of the political cycle was used—when a social democratic government was in power—to increase funding for social benefits for the poor and the middle class. Then, in the next phase of the political cycle, right-wing governments came to power and limited the social programmes.

Were these right-wing governments not to return, many politicians and analysts pointed out that the United States would help implement a constitutional coup d’état (golpe de Estado), as has happened in Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia recently. The gradual decline of the left in Latin America culminated symbolically in a constitutional coup in the biggest country of Latin America, Brazil, in 2016 when President Dilma Rousseff was impeached.

Because Brazil is the biggest country in Latin America in several aspects (size, population, economy, global influence, etc.), it is worth describing this case in greater detail, specifying internal (domestic) and external (foreign) problems (Bezerra, 2019). First, Lula’s successor, President Dilma Rousseff, tried to be more radical in some aspects of her domestic policies but she overestimated her powers. It was she who tried to tackle corruption more rigorously, for example. However, when her anti-corruption campaign took aim at the majority of congressmen, she was impeached. Of the 81 senators, 58 were prosecuted on corruption charges. This demonstrates well that idealistic vigour is not enough to perform as president and can cause the mandate to collapse. After losing the presidency, she was not able to help the citizens much.

Second, Rousseff was also ousted due to pressure from transnational politics and capital, because she wanted to limit foreign influence on Brazilian financial institutions, for example. Wikileaks reported that Rousseff was wiretapped by US intelligence services and that then-Senator Michel Temer, who succeeded Rousseff as President, consulted extensively with the US consulate, embassy and intelligence services. Then, the impeachment removed Rousseff from office in 2016. The first pink tide from 1999 to 2016 was thus over. After that, there was not much remaining of the left on the continent, and also the Bolivian president was ousted soon after.

At the national level, wise and courageous political leadership is needed to make the necessary deeper economic and social structural changes. At the international and supranational level, regional and macroregional integration is needed to create and enable a stronger territorial union to emerge and operate, one capable of resisting negative foreign pressures and maintaining its own model. This implies more interconnected public spheres across Latin America, or at least between its parts, than is currently the case (Ellner, 2019; Vanden & Prevost, 2020).

4 The Second Tide

Whereas Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia were the most prominent representatives of the first left tide—also thanks to their charismatic presidents—the second tide marks a geographical shift (Lampter, 2022a, 2022b). Venezuela continues to pursue its original socialist focus, but it has lost its former inspirational power due to the country’s economic and financial crisis. Today, Venezuela is no longer riding a commodity boom, is exposed to US sanctions and has experienced severe inflation and political instability. Bolivia has recovered from the constitutional coup against Evo Morales, but it is no longer a South American leader anymore. Of the original trio of leading countries, only Brazil remains after President Lula’s re-election in October 2022.

However, two countries have newly joined. The first is Colombia, which for the first time in its two hundred years of independence, thanks to the June 2022 elections, has a left-wing president of this relevant country. Second, and more significantly, Cuba may now be making its way to being one of the leaders of the left tide. During the first wave, Cuba still largely implemented the classical Soviet model of a communist country, only slightly reformulated. Now, it is moving closer to other Latin American countries, “updating” itself in a unique economic transformation. Constitutional transformation and efforts to combine a planned economy and public ownership with market socialism and more space for private economic activity are bringing about a mixed socialist model.

The second pink tide has grown less intensely (Stuenkel, 2022). The base of the wave still consists of Cuba and Venezuela with their distinct versions of socialism, but both these countries face severe economic problems. In other countries, politically more moderate social democratic figures have come to power. In 2018, López Obrador became president of Mexico, followed by the 2019 elections of Alberto Fernandez in Argentina and Laurentino Cortizo in Panama. In 2020, Luis Arce came to lead Bolivia, and, in 2021, Gabriel Boric in Chile, Pedro Castillo in Peru and Xiomara Castro in Honduras became presidents. Last year, in 2022, as I mentioned, Colombia elected the first leftist president in its history, Gustavo Petro, a truly significant change in Colombia, and Luiz Inácio Lula won the presidential elections in Brazil. And, since 2007, Nicaragua has continued to be governed by Daniel Ortega, who was formerly the country’s revolutionary leader between 1979 and 1990 but has now clashed with his former allies in recent years as well.

Because Brazil also switched to the left, the left is in power in all six major economies in Latin America—Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru—in addition to other smaller countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean. Only a few smaller economies still have right-wing governments. This is a solid transnational basis on the left for economic and social changes on the continent. But these will have to be more comprehensive and deeper than during the first pink tide. In addition to necessary social benefits, this would require major social and economic structural changes that go in the opposite direction of the asocial structural adjustments previously demanded by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States and other neoliberal pressures.

A lot has changed in the world since the first pink tide began, and some tendencies have become more relevant as time has progressed. BRICS (an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), a grouping comprising five large emerging economies, was established in 2006. Since then, the BRICS countries have had increasing influence on the world economy and have been working together under the current conditions as well. Some other developing countries in Africa and Asia have also significantly stepped up and are cooperating with Latin America in a South-South cooperation. The main developing country today is China, which has also become the main trading partner of South America and the second largest in Latin America overall. It has developed cooperation on a China-CELAC basis. This is, of course, on the radar of the United States. Since the rise of Trump, containment of China has begun. This policy is also partly being applied in Latin America, with an attempt to maintain US hegemony there as its backyard.

5 The Late Tilt Towards the Left in Colombia

The victory of the left-wing presidential candidate Gustavo Petro in 2022 is a political breakthrough both in Colombia and in the new Latin American pink tide (Lampter, 2022a). Petro, a former guerrilla politician, became the first leftist president in Colombia’s independent history, symbolically completing the defeat of colonialism and undermining neoliberal capitalism. This may indeed bring significant positive changes for the lower and middle classes in Colombia. It is possible to mention Petro’s partial predecessor, Enrique Olaya Hererra, who was president of Colombia from 1930 until 1934. He tried developing a welfare state including workers’ rights, even if, from the beginning, he was hampered by the international consequences of the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

Petro’s presidency is animportant turning point also for the whole of Latin America because, until now, Colombia has played the role of Trojan horse for the United States. It was Colombia in particular that weakened the first Latin American pink tide, which began with the 1999 election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Perhaps the politicians will learn from the first and be inspired by other examples globally in order to finally deliver social structural progress.

How is it possible that Columbia is only now reaching this turning point? One of the reasons was theunsustainability of the long-standing right-wing ideology in the country. Secondly, the current tilt towards the left is due to long-standing problems that have not been sufficiently addressed: social inequalities and injustices, narconomics, the consequences of disputes between the right-wing regime and earlier radical-left alternatives and so on. Thirdly, Gustavo Petro is probably suitable as he had already established himself as mayor of Bogotá. Moreover, when Petro ran for president, he was pushed to declare that he would not expropriate large private properties, as Chávez did in Venezuela. In doing so, Petro reassured the owners of domestic and especially foreign corporations as well as the United States. Under the current Biden administration, preoccupied with waging a proxy war against Russia and containing China, such a declaration was apparently sufficient. Fourth, the current new left tide in many Latin American countries is an important external support and motivation for electing a left-wing president. And still, there are other reasons.

6 Cuba’s Updating

At the beginning of the first left tide, Cuba was still in a period of economic transition, but in the course of that transition, it began to transform and has undergone the greatest change of any country in Latin America and the Caribbean to date. Since the 1990s, the Cuban government has gradually introduced partial transformational economic adjustments from the classical Soviet model to a mixed socialist model in several stages (Morgenstern et al., 2019). The transformation took place especially after 2006, when Raúl Castro began to effectively replace Fidel and was then elected head of state and the party.

The economic transformation unfolded under an idea of prosperous and sustainable socialism (Conceptualización, 2017). Still under a planned economy, a certain role for the market has been acknowledged, and leadership has been given more powers in the provinces and companies. The possibility of small private business and housing sales was opened up. Four groups of participants became important in the non-state sector: small landowners, the self-employed, independent farmers on state lands (usufructuarios), and those working for the three groups mentioned. In addition, members of cooperatives, which stand at the boundary between state and private ownership, should be counted (Mesa-Lago et al., 2016). Closely related to this, an important part of the transition was the introduction of laws on the possibility of foreign investment.

Since the beginning of the second left tide, Cuba has built on and strengthened these transformations. With the ascension of Miguel Díaz-Canel to the leadership of the state (2018) and the party (2021), Cuba began to move more significantly towards so-called market socialism. While the term market socialism does not accurately capture all aspects of Cuba’s model, it is fruitful to use it because it is already well established and known. This model primarily contains elements of state planning and common ownership and, secondarily, elements of market and private ownership. The Cuban model is both specific and contains foreign inspiration. As the Chinese economy began to gain more volume and momentum after 2000, it came to Cuba with aid and investment. This is where some of the inspiration for updating Cuba’s model comes from. However, Cuba does not want to go as far as China’s model in freeing up the space of the market and private property, as it wants a greater share of socialism.

The new political and legal norms have started this updating in several steps. Before the new constitution was approved, there was extensive consultation in the public sphere via many meetings with citizens. In the new 2019 constitution, the ownership structure became fundamental. This includes not only state ownership or socialist ownership by all the people, but also other types of ownership, including private. Specifically, the ownership types are as follows: (a) socialist of all the people (socialista de todo el pueblo), (b) cooperative, (c) of political organizations, (d) private, (e) mixed or a combination of two forms of ownership, (f) of institutions and associated forms, and (g) personal, without means of production (Constitución, 2019, II, 22). This arrangement also continues to provide for foreign investment.

It is important to stress that Cuba still retains a socialist system under the leadership of the Communist Party. However, what has changed in the structure of the government is that the leadership of the country has become more collective, as the leader is no longer a representative of the “historic generation” that was associated with the Cuban Revolution. President Díaz-Canel is more focused on management and less on ideological caudillismo. This economic structural updating of Cuba’s system brings Cuba closer to other Latin American governments of the new left tide. For this reason, Cuba may be able to play a more prominent role in the second left tide than it did in the first one.

7 Brazil has Joined the New Left Tide

In the previous presidential election in Brazil, the main candidate, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was unable to run because he had been thrown in jail after a political trial. This time, he was allowed to run. After the recent election of left-wing governments in most Latin American countries, Lula won the second round of the presidential elections on 30 October 2022 with 50.9 % support (Lampter, 2022b). He held his own against his rival, the far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, who gained 49.1 %, almost two million fewer votes than Lula (Eleições, 2022; Resultados. Eleições, 2022). The runoff election was ‘just an extension’ of what had been done so far, Lula said. However, victory was not certain, as there could have been a series of manipulations or violence used by Bolsonaro to reverse the current results.

I pay more attention to the Brazilian case because the presidential election was an event that was strongly felt by hundreds of millions of people in Brazil and abroad. Not only because Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, with more than 217 million citizens and 156 million eligible voters, and thus was expected to strengthen the new left wave in Latin America and cooperation across the Global South. The reason was also that this year’s Brazilian elections were extremely polarized politically. The ideological clash between the far-right incumbent president, Bolsonaro, and the socially oriented Lula, who was previously president from 2003 to 2010, was strongly apparent to the citizens (Anthony, 2023).

Although, for obvious reasons, the presidential elections are the most watched in Brazil as they have the greatest impact on the future government, the current election was not just about choosing a president. Along with the president, the vice-president, deputies and senators of the lower and upper houses of the federal Congress, and governors and deputies of the various Brazilian states were also elected. The election of the president, however, determines the fundamental political trends for the coming years.

8 Bolsonaro’s Infamous Legacy and Lula’s Return

Bolsonaro’s government during the pandemic caused many to fall into poverty. Some 33 million Brazilians are now coping with this decay. The range of groups targeted by Bolsonaro during his presidency over the past few years is enormous. First, the damage that Bolsonaro has done is antisocial in nature, harming the majority of low-income citizens and also the middle class. Second, the damage is violent in nature, manifested, for example, in brutal raids in the favelas, racial and ethnic discrimination against Afro-Brazilians and indigenous peoples and aggression against women. Third, the damage is also dehumanizing, as it deforms the political culture by declassing the poor, women, different ethnic groups and so on. Fourth, the damage is environmental, especially in that Bolsonaro has empowered mining companies to increase their devastation of the Amazon. Fifth, many of these excesses have also begun to bother companies and harm the development of the Brazilian economy.

Nevertheless, Bolsonaro managed to garner more public support than expected in the election campaign. Of course, he won the support of his Liberal Party (PL; Partido Liberal) and the right-wing governors of the various Brazilian states. At the same time, he strengthened his position as current president by abusing the state administration for his campaign. Bolsonaro also threatened a coup, saying before the first round of the elections that he hoped his supporters would be willing to sacrifice their lives. This was interpreted as a call for a violent takeover of power, a more successful version of the occupation of government offices than that which occurred in the occupation of the US Congress on 6 January 2021. This implied not only a possible occupation of government institutions by Bolsonaro supporters among the citizenry but also potential action by a section of the military with which Bolsonaro had support. However, he only had the support of part of the army, and the situation was not yet ready for such a scenario. A military coup is therefore unlikely, at least for the time being.

For Lula, success in the elections must be incredibly satisfying, as he had faced a grave injustice previously. In the last election, the right-wing government had filed a fabricated lawsuit against him to suppress his campaign, leaving him unable to participate. In 2018, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison but was freed after 19 months when the court overturned the sentence. He then managed to make a full return to the political mainstream.

In the first round of the presidential election at the beginning of October, Lula of the Workers’ Party (PT; Partido dos Trabalhadores) won more than 48 % of the vote, while Bolsonaro won 43 %. Of the other nine candidates, only two others exceeded 1 %: Simone Tebet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB; Movimento Democrático Brasileiro) received 4.16 %, and Ciro Gomes, vice-president of the Democratic Workers Party (PDT; Partido Democrático Trabalhista), garnered over 3 % (Eleições, 2022; Resultados. Eleições, 2022).

Lula’s tally in the first round was expected. According to opinion polls, his support had long been just under 50 % during the increasing drama and emotional intensity of the campaign. Behind Lula was a broad centre-left coalition of political parties determined to counter Bolsonaro’s re-election.

After the first round, both Simone and Ciro expressed their support for Lula in the second round. A group of former presidential candidates and former presidents also backed Lula, such as former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Lula also received support from other prominent figures and left-wing political parties—in addition to his own PT party, mainly from the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL; Partido Socialismo e Liberdade) and the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB; Partido Comunista do Brasil).

9 Revitalizing Lula’s Social Policy

In the second round of elections (October 2022), Lula’s victory was likely, although not certain, of course. His charismatic appearances in, many meetings with citizens during the campaign were very relatable and impressive. However, Brazil’s political-geographical divide remains. While the poorer northeast voted mostly for Lula, the richer southwest generally voted for Bolsonaro.

Lula’s social programmes have helped many of the poor and middle class. For example, the Family Pocket (Bolsa familia) and My House, My Life (Minha casa, minha vida) programmes were two of his most successful (Pinzani & Leão Rego, 2019). During its greatest expansion, the Bolsa familia programme benefited up to 55 million Brazilians out of more than 200 million. In addition, the Zero Hunger (Hambre cero) programme has eliminated malnutrition in almost all children.

Under Lula’s governance, Brazil achieved an average annual GDP increase of 4.1 %. He also managed to reduce unemployment from 10 to 5 %. He tripled the education budget and established new public universities. The national oil industry paid for much of the government expenditures. At the same time, he ensured a higher level of environmental protection, especially of the Amazon rainforest. Brazil also gained greater global influence in international politics. It has become an example worth following for many countries around the world in terms of social experiments, such as participatory budgets and the World Social Forums, which rose to greater prominence under Lula’s rule.

Now Lula wants to build on his previous focus with an emphasis on social programmes and education, helping women and marginalized black and indigenous populations, eliminating violence and so on. However, his leftist influence will not be as pronounced because of the broader coalition of left and centre parties. Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, for example, may have moved partly to the left, but his position remains distinct from Lula’s. Nevertheless, Lula’s experience will allow him to focus on key policy decisions that could support strategic infrastructure development and major social measures that will last beyond his presidency.

Considering the broader context of Latin America, there have been some limits to the contemporary cooperative politics of the left in other countries as well. In 2020, the Argentine government of President Alberto Fernandez criticized Venezuela for its human rights violations in a vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council, promoted by the Lima Group, for example (Argentina’s, 2020; Leading, 2020). I already mentioned some limits due to the political transformation of Colombian President Petro, who has, nevertheless, developed good cooperative relations with Venezuela. Of course, the main missing point of the second left tide in Latin America is the absence of the deceased Hugo Chávez, a charismatic socialist leader who was able to attract leaders and citizens from Cuba, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and other countries in order to develop the first left tide.

10 Latin American and Global Impact of the New Pink Tide

While most commentaries focus on the Brazilian elections as a national issue, they also need to be understood in the mentioned context of Latin American and global developments, as Brazil plays a vital role on a macroregional and global scale. As Brazil is a big country with a large population and a large economy, the elections have great significance beyond the country’s borders.

Of course, Brazil plays an important role in Latin America, representing one-third of the population. Lula’s victory in the presidential election must be seen in the context of the new, second tide of the left that has gradually developed in Latin American countries since 2018. Lula was already one of the main leaders of the first left tide. The strengthening of the new pink tide will also affect the development of Latin American regional economic institutions. Hugo Chávez had proposed the implementation of a revolutionary Bolivarian project in line with the nineteenth-century plans of Zamora, Bolívar and Rodríguez (Bolívar, 2009). In doing so, Chávez understandably sought support and allies in Cuba. The result was the regional organization ALBA. It seeks left-wing cooperation and integration in Latin America, and its members include Nicaragua, Ecuador and other smaller countries of the Caribbean, in addition to Cuba and Venezuela. Other regional organizations in Latin America that could potentially draw on the new transnational left tide are MERCOSUR, CELAC as well as others. Potential common currencies may also play its role here.

Brazil is also influential on a global scale. It plays a relevant role in BRICS and in other international institutions. As developing countries are sensitive to global economic fluctuations, BRICS also has an impact on the dynamics of developing countries’ responses to the current military conflict in Ukraine and to the anti-Russian sanctions of the United States and EU countries.

The new left tide in Latin America will have the opportunity to increase its antihegemonic multilateral political voice and show its social alternatives (Smith, 2012). This is the great challenge within which the new left tide must be understood.

11 Conclusion with Scenarios

The second left tide in Latin America has been able to include again various streams of left politics which have taken over in the majority of Latin American countries. Democratic socialism is a leading driver of the left tide, in addition to traditional social democracy and market socialism. While Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia were leaders of the first pink tide, the redefined core group of Brazil, Columbia and Cuba has ambition to carve the way in the second one now.

What are the prospects for the future? Three basic scenarios can be considered. The first and least pronounced trajectory sees the new pink tide as only a temporary presence brought forward by left-wing governments in the usual political cycle, in which left-wing and right-wing parties alternate after one or two (sometimes more) electoral periods. This scenario would no doubt be a disappointment from the perspective of the new left tide. Still, it could at least partially bring about positive changes, not just temporary improvement in the living standards of the low- and middle-income groups through various social programmes and initiatives, but also a strengthening of the development of a participatory democratic public, even if subsequent opposing governments take another step backwards.

The second scenario is a danger that the coming economic recession or crisis will shift significantly from Western countries to Latin America, and the new left tide will not be able to face it and explain to its citizens that the crisis is the result of external neoliberal speculative capitalism. There could then again be a return of neoconservative forces with neoliberal elements, or even some militant forms of Pinochetism or fascism.

Third, the scenario expected by the proponents of the new left tide, i.e. the leaders of the tide together with engaged participatory citizens, may seize the opportunity both to strengthen social programmes and, more importantly, create relevant structural economic changes that are of the opposite nature to the earlier antisocial structural changes promoted by the World Bank and the IMF. Socially oriented structural changes could provide adequate conditions to raise the standard of living for all the population in the medium and long term, especially in eradicating poverty and increasing democratic participation.

The success of the new left tide will require more emphasis on key infrastructure investments; strategic planning as a framework for a market socialist economy; key strategic ownership in the hands of the state, provinces and cities; and structural poverty eradication. If they fail to provide an innovative model, it could end like last time: overly reliant on civil society and unsecured resources for social welfare, resulting in the gradual fall of the left in each country and the end of the tide. This time the fall would be even easier because Venezuela and Brazil are no longer riding the crest of a commodity boom. More needs to be done than simply reinforcing the necessary social redistribution.

Because the contemporary trajectory is not just a development in one country but a tide across the continent, all of the positive changes mentioned can take place in an integrative way via the international and transnational framework of Latin America. It requires more interlinked public spheres and politics, which now means the multiple transnationally interconnected public spheres of individual countries and stronger regional organizations in Latin America, such as ALBA, CELAC and MERCOSUR. It may be done with inspiration for other countries on a transnational and global scale and, at the same time, with help and inspiration from other parts of the world, mainly from developing countries co-organized together upon the interests and principles of solidarity.

In joint Latin American cooperation, strategic foreign partners will need to be well chosen to counter the hegemonic efforts of the norther neighbour. It will be important to strengthen socially-focused international cooperation, particularly with developing countries in Latin American and global organizations, including BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the United Nations. The new left tide in Latin America could also be an inspiration for the developed Western nations, where economic recession and crisis are beginning to arrive. While developing countries may also be threatened by the crisis, the Global South can cooperate more fully and offer social and environmental alternatives.