SOUTH AMERICA: Political Impotence in Face of Crisis

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente*

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 3 2003 (IPS) - Loss of political credibility, agreements to cut short terms in office, calls for resignations and the rupture of party alliances are increasingly frequent proof in South America of its leaders’ inability to confront both economic crisis and the demands of an impoverished population.

"Presidents are finding it difficult to reach the end of their terms and their popularity tends to decline rapidly once they reach power. These are indications of governability problems," sociologist Ernesto López, professor at the Argentine University of Quilmes, said in a conversation with IPS.

"The most significant of these problems is the tension between the demands of a globalised economy and the capacity for social inclusion," a challenge that the political systems in the region have proved unable to meet, López said.

The subordination of politics to the market devalues the democratic system, provokes a crisis of representivity and feeds scepticism among citizens, writes the sociologist in his book "Globalisation and Democracy".

This situation is expressed with different nuances throughout South America. On one extreme is Brazil, where President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva continues to enjoy strong popularity since taking office Jan 1.

On the other is Paraguay, whose president, Luis González Macchi, barely ekes out one percent approval in opinion polls.

Shortly after taking office in 1999, González Macchi achieved 80 percent popularity ratings, according to polling firm Gabinete de Estudios de Opinion. In February he scarcely escaped impeachment by the Paraguayan Senate, though he could not refute the various charges of corruption made against him.

The Senate decided to keep González Macchi in office only because of the proximity of presidential elections, to take place this month, say analysts.

A survey conducted in March by the same polling firm showed that 64 percent of the Paraguayans consulted considered the government’s performance "very poor", 22 percent said "poor", 12 percent "adequate" and just 1.2 percent described the González Macchi administration as "good" or "very good".

Paraguay’s southern neighbour Argentina suffered a dramatic institutional shock in December 2001, when massive protests erupted due to the Fernando de la Rúa government’s failure to respond to deepening social problems. De la Rúa stepped down amidst the chaos just two years into his four-year term.

Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, his replacement named by the Argentine Congress, survived in the post just 10 days. Current president Eduardo Duhalde was designated in his place on Jan 1, 2002.

Duhalde moved up elections seven months, with his successor to be chosen in a national vote on Apr 27.

Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was on the verge of resigning in January when, just five months after taking office, he was faced with massive peasant protests. Clashes with security forces left 19 people dead. Then, in February, marches by the capital’s police force and the media ended with 33 fatalities.

The inability to satisfy the demands for social programmes while also complying with the fiscal adjustment demands imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) destroyed Sánchez de Lozada’s popularity, just as occurred with Argentina’s De la Rúa.

The Bolivian president remains in office, but his approval rating plummeted from 46 percent to 21 percent in six months, according to a study by the polling institute Apoyo, Opinión y Mercado.

Another sign of today’s political climate is the rupture of government alliances as soon as the first difficulties arise in keeping campaign promises. This phenomenon is manifest in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Uruguay.

The demand for Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation came not only from the leading opposition party, the leftist Movement to Socialism of peasant leader Evo Morales, but also from the Revolutionary Leftist Movement (MIR).

It was precisely the votes of MIR in Congress that allowed Sánchez de Lozada to defeat Morales – the second-place candidate in last year’s elections – to win the presidency.

In Peru, President Alejandro Toledo faced similar demands to step down in early 2002, when the economic crisis dragged him down the auspicious heights with which he began his mandate.

Toledo was sworn into office July 2001 with an approval rating of more than 60 percent, but his image was eroded to the extent that he maintained the same neo-liberal economic programme of his predecessor Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and did not introduce new ways of "doing politics".

Rising fuel prices, an end to reduced telephone rates, continued privatisations and increasing unemployment chipped away at Toledo’s popularity until it hit bottom in September, with just 11 percent of respondents supporting him, according to Apoyo, Opinión y Mercado.

"IMF commitments stand in the way of Toledo keeping his electoral promises," commented Peruvian economist Hugo Aquino, of the private Instituto Avance Económico.

"The drama of representative democracies in countries of lower political development is that it favours candidates who make spectacular promises. The electorate does not have the means to realise that they are impossible to fulfil," noted Aquino.

The same sort of decline that Toledo suffered also hit leftist President Lucio Gutiérrez of Ecuador. The economic crisis that erupted soon after he took office in January pushed his initial popularity of 65 percent down to 50 percent by March, according to local polling firm Spectrum.

Meanwhile, his partners in the governing coalition threaten to abandon ship.

Gutiérrez’s main ally, the indigenous movement, says the president is not fulfilling his campaign promises and has staked his bets on continuing the neo-liberal policies of his predecessors, with hikes in fuel prices, utility rates and transportation charges.

Another government that is between a rock and a hard place is that of Jorge Batlle in Uruguay. The president has seen his initial approval rating of 57 percent (in March 2000 when he was sworn in) plunge to 15 percent of respondents in surveys conducted by Factum polling company.

His negative ratings, meanwhile, have been just the inverse, jumping from 15 to 63 percent.

Batlle, of the long-standing Colorado Party, was also abandoned by his electoral ally, the country’s other historic political group, the National (Blanco) Party, soon after Uruguay began sinking into its current economic crisis.

"The two traditional parties lost articulation with civil society and have not been able to adapt in changing times," according to Gerardo Caetano, director of political science at the state-run University of the Republic of Uruguay.

"This inability to adapt has brought with it institutional debilitation," he told IPS.

"The politicians are beginning to recognise their difficulties in mediating, in representing diverse interests and in synthesising those demands in their political programmes (due to the fact that) they continue to resort to the same old measures in dealing with new problems," explained Caetano.

In this sense, said the political scientist, the region’s democracies today are at an "institutional crossroads", with a panorama of great economic instability and profound social inequalities.

This tense combination will only allow those countries with solid institutions – such as Brazil, Chile and Uruguay – to successfully confront the challenge, said Caetano.

Argentine sociologist López agrees, noting that Chile "painstakingly maintains its model of openness to globalisation… and is the only successful case" in South America, if one defines success as "a country whose administration is not greatly affected in its ability to govern," he said.

In López’s opinion, Colombia and Venezuela are on a different political plane. Colombia is unique because its political situation is "determined by the internal war" against insurgent groups and drug trafficking, and Venezuela because of the polarisation between those who support President Hugo Chávez and the opposition.

The polling firm Datanálisis reports that Chávez took office in 1999 with 80 percent support of respondents at that time. But today he has just 35 percent support of the Venezuelan people.

Datanálisis director Luis León says that 64 percent of the population would vote against Chávez remaining in office if a referendum on the matter were held today.

The future of democracy in Latin America depends on what happens in Brazil, say political analysts. Lula was sworn into office in January with an approval rating of 57 percent, according to the local polling firm Sensus, and by March it had decreased to 45 percent.

"But the political deterioration of those in office is common currency," said López.

In the case of Brazil, he pointed out, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003) left Lula "a governable nation", and the new president "made a smart choice" in maintaining the structure he inherited while attempting to improve the state’s role in providing social programmes.

"If no major economic obstacles arise, Lula will be able to handle the governability problems that some of his neighbours are suffering," López said.

Indeed, despite the economic problems Brazil faced during Lula’s first months in office, the new administration maintains a respectable approval rating, given the predominant trend in South America.

* Marcelo Jelen (Uruguay), Mario Osava (Brazil), Kintto Lucas (Ecuador), Abraham Lama (Peru) and Humberto Márquez (Venezuela) contributed to this report.