LATIN AMERICANS GOING POPULIST?

Populist candidates in Latin America have benefited from a frustrated public due to economic damage caused by the COVID War and aim to give establishment candidates in upcoming elections a run for their money.

Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, a think tank, told the Financial Times these politicians are “only slightly more popular than used car salesmen.”

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean said last month that South America has been the region’s “hardest hit” by the coronavirus outbreak, both in “public health and economic development.”

The FT report said many residents in these countries say their government officials did little to stop the virus’s spread despite enforcing economy-killing lockdowns. The paper spoke to a banker who said these frustrations have boiled over. 

“Any crazy guy in these countries who promises great things is going to get elected,” he said.

The report said one leader who has increased in popularity is Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been opposed to lockdowns and once called the virus mere “sniffles.”

Oliver Stuenkel, an associate professor of international affairs in São Paulo, told The New Yorker during the summer that Bolsonaro knows “it’s hard for a Latin-American leader to remain in office with an economy that gets as bad as it is now. So, in the states where governors imposed social-distancing strictures, he’ll say the coming economic slump wasn’t his fault but theirs. If the numbers level out, he’ll say, ‘Look, it wasn’t that bad after all.’

And even if they are bad, he can easily construe some narrative that actually they really weren’t.”

Arturo Valenzuela, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for the region, told the FT there is a “new generation of leaders coming out of civil society organizations saying they have had enough of the status quo. They want to change politics.”

TREND FORECAST: We have been forecasting surging populist movements throughout much of the world as economic conditions worsen and anti-establishment movements increase.

It should also be noted that before the COVID War lockdowns, there were demonstrations, riots, and civil unrest erupting in Chile, Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia as people took to the streets protesting corruption, violence, lack of basic living standards, crime, and violence.

Reaffirming our forecast, in November, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin said she has concerns that the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdowns could create a “breeding ground for populist movements across Europe.” 

“When you’re closing in the economy and people’s workplaces, it will cause political instability. Populists come with easy answers to difficult problems, but their solutions are rarely the right ones,” she said… as if the establishment’s solutions are the correct ones.

Again, as the “Greatest Depression” worsens, populist movements will escalate.