Continent of the left

Leader
Monday December 4, 2006
The Guardian

".....There is no question in a general way as to whose legacy has prevailed. Rightwing dictatorship and military rule have long disappeared from the Latin American scene. Left-of-centre governments, many of them explicitly cherishing their links with Cuba, now outnumber right-of-centre administrations. Even where conservative candidates have prevailed in elections, a notable shift is discernible. That has been evident during the presidential campaign in Venezuela, where the opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales, has been in the barrios pitching for the support of poor and indigenous people in a way that would have been unimaginable in an earlier period in the country's politics. Hugo Chávez, the incumbent president, is the man whose victory eight years ago is seen as the moment when a red tide began to wash over the continent's political landscape. Lula da Silva in Brazil, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Tabaré Vasquez in Uruguay, and Evo Morales in Bolivia followed. The tide was checked in Mexico this summer where a leftwing candidate fell just short of victory in a contest he and his followers are still energetically disputing, and in Peru, where the left also failed. But it began to swell again with Daniel Ortega's victory in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa's in Ecuador. If Mr Chávez wins handily in Venezuela, as is expected, his victory will be seen as consolidating the left's dominant position still further.
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