The election of Claudia Sheinbaum as president of Mexico keeps the ideological balance of Latin America tilted to the left, a fragmented region that requires consensus in the face of its multiple challenges, experts say.
Sheinbaum, 61-year-old scientist, won a landslide victory to lead the second Latin American economy until 2030 after Brazil, where the also leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva He is serving his third term.
Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras also have progressive leaderswhile Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are under radical regimes that proclaim themselves socialist.
The first woman to win a Mexican presidential election, Sheinbaum will replace the popular Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s first left-wing president, starting in October.
Due to the continuity of AMLO’s project, the regional counterweights will not vary.
“There probably won’t be many changes on the regional political board” under Sheinbaum’s presidency, says Michael Shifter, a researcher at the Inter-American Dialogue analysis center, based in Washington.
Even If “she were more committed than AMLO” to a leftist vision, “it is not likely that her administration would seek to exert too much influence over like-minded allies,” he added.
The reason: Mexico maintains “deeper ties” with the United States, of which it is now the main trading partner after displacing China, says Shifter.
Sheinbaum was elected with the promise of preserving López Obrador’s legacy, but there are nuances between the two that bring the president closer to a “progressive left”says the writer and analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson.
While AMLO, 70, is a “social fighter from rural extraction” with “traditional traits of Mexican culture,” Sheinbaum is a public administrator from “the modern urban middle class, much more cosmopolitan,” he explains.
In fact, the president, who advocates high social spending with fiscal austerity, admits that his successor “could run to the center and there would be no problem.”
Dominant alternation
Two decades ago, Latin America began to travel a path of alternation of power marked more by social demands than by ideologies, says Marcela Ríos, director for Latin America of International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that promotes democracy.
Except cases like that of Mexico, “alternation is now the norm in Latin America,” where “more than an ideological orientation, a search for change seems to prevail due to disappointment with governments that are ineffective in keeping promises,” explains the former Minister of Justice of the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric.
Of the 22 presidential elections held in the region since 2019, only four had political continuity, according to an IDEA analysis, in a context of low growth and social deficits accentuated by the pandemic.
“It is positive because it shows that electoral institutions are fulfilling their role,” highlights Ríos.
Among the changes of sign, that of Argentina stands out, with the arrival to power of the ultraliberal Javier Milei in 2023, andn the midst of a severe economic crisis.
The re-election of the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, also stands out, conservative in nature, thanks to his war against the gangs that other Latin American leaders try to emulate, also in the midst of financial difficulties.
The Trump challenge
Aside from these pendulum movements, Latin America faces great challenges that require cooperation, such as climate change, insecurity and migration to the United States, at a time when illegal crossings reach historic highs, warns the former Chilean minister.
But Integration has been affected, among other things, by the multiplicity of multilateral forums, some with ideological bias, which prevent the region from having a “single voice.” adds Ríos, who believes that this trend is coming to an end.
In his opinion, cooperation takes on special relevance in the face of Donald Trump’s possible return to power, with threats of mass deportations.
“It’s going to be a huge challenge. I think the configuration of alliances will change again and it could be a big problem in seriously addressing issues such as migration (…) Latin America has to be prepared,” warns Ríos.
* AFP journalist
