Upon her return from the Easter holiday, the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez, led a ceremony at the Government House. Among other things, she said there, “I would like to leave a much better country for the next President.” It is the first time that she has openly acknowledged the end of her political term in public. Her hegemonic pretensions of power and electing her successor seem now to be a sort of dream to pass.
Of course almost a year will go by before a new leader will take office, and the economic and social landscape is far from the artificially sweetened official version of the current administration. Inflation overflow is projected to reach 40% next December.
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Accelerated loss of purchasing power, retraction of consumption and the lack of necessities in supermarkets, increased poverty and destitution, high social conflicts and a dizzying loss of currency reserves, are some of the aspects of the inheritance left by Fernandez after ten years of mis-managing her country.
International mistrust
At the international level, the situation here is not the best. Argentina cannot access international credit because of the unpaid debts to the Club of Paris and the litigation with the Houldouts. In the latter case, the United States Court has not shown any mercy with the country yet. Argentina’s friendship with conflicting countries like Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and, recently, Russia, has also not garnered a large international sympathy.
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Populism is coming to its end
Venezuela and Argentina represent the purest expression of the populist authoritarian system in the region. They were, until very recently, regional leaders which dragged other countries into making joint decisions that were, at the very least, erroneous. But the economic and social situation in both countries seem to be pointing to exhaustion and the end of the populist authoritarian hegemony in Latin America.
No misunderstanding here, they still have enough power to influence the region. They are the last of them, but have managed to avoid the Organization of American States (OAS) to hear the voice of the Venezuelan opposition, a fact that ended sadly by a metaphorical trashing of the long democratic and pluralist tradition of that organization.
Brazil looks to the other side
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
It should be noted that this has all been possible thanks to the disregard, and sometimes open support, of the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff. Occupied in the economy and domestic social situation, Rousseff seems to have resigned Brazil’s historical role as regional leader to let its troubled neighbors do as they like. Brazil’s declining, there is no nation today that appears to have clear regional leadership.
The current weakness of the governments of Cristina Fernandez and Nicolas Maduro has deteriorated the regional power accumulated by Chavez. The recent election of Michelle Bachelet as president in Chile generated some expectation of leadership, but it seems that the still fresh earthquake recovery process and the rebuilding after the fire of the city of Valparaiso have led the focus away from Chilean foreign policy.
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Cristina Fernandez’s rule has left the bitter taste of bad management in the mouths of her people. The expectation with Dilma Rousseff has been slowly diluted, although it would appear she still has the potential to be a good leader. In Chile, Michelle Bachelet returned to Government with great expectations of the population and also in the region.
It seems that both the good and the bad was in the hands of women in Latin America and, for better or worse, it’s the ladies’ time to decide the region’s future.. We have to ask, could this be the end of machismo in Latin America? Maybe there’s, at least, one area of progress for Latin America, adios machos, bienvenidos ciudadanos.
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