Narrow victories for a corrupt Miami millionaire and the daughter of a fallen dictator are the latest in a slew of ultra-right presidential takeovers in Latin America. Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia and Keiko Fujimori in Peru join established despots like Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.
Of the 15 most recent presidential elections in Latin America, reactionary candidates have prevailed in 12, replacing social democratic governments in many cases.
The pronounced archconservative trend reflects voters’ concerns with economic stagnation, entrenched corruption and proliferating crime. Disillusioned with reformist incumbents, a segment of the electorate is succumbing to the far right’s fear mongering.
These candidates promise law-and-order solutions, targeting supposed narco-traffickers and scapegoating immigrants. Meanwhile, the U.S. government backs their campaigns and provides them with military support.
Colombia — a case in point
The election in Colombia provides a prime example of the far right’s successes. With Trump’s endorsement, Miami-based businessman De la Espriella won the presidency by a margin of less than one percent. He ousted the left reformist administration of Gustavo Petro by defeating his chosen successor, Iván Cepeda. Far from representing a mandate for the ultraright, the results reflect a dissatisfaction with the overall socioeconomic situation and Petro’s inability to provide adequate solutions.
Poverty levels dropped to historic lows under Petro, but Colombians continue to struggle with high inflation and political instability. And despite his radical-sounding rhetoric, the former president acted as a caretaker of the capitalist state, consistently making deals with the conservative establishment. As a result, voters who were desperate for change fell prey to El Tigre’s (De la Espriella’s nickname among his supporters) Trump-like populism and false accusations of Petro’s party’s involvement with narco-terrorism.
People from the economic middle layers were the ones who determined the election’s outcome. Many of those newly out of poverty feared losing what they had gained and sought stability by voting for El Tigre’s promises to stop crime. This was also true for other middle-income workers and business owners who hoped that tough-on-crime leaders would keep their few privileges safe.
De la Espriella’s movement is part of a regional strategy to militarize law enforcement and eliminate political opposition. In neighboring Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa has engaged the military to “hunt down criminals” with the aid of U.S. forces. In Peru, new President Fujimori has threatened military actions during states of emergency.
A legacy of intervention
During the past 50 years, U.S. presidents and lawmakers of both major parties have used the war on drugs as a pretext for intervening in Latin America. One of the most egregious examples was Plan Colombia, initiated under the Clinton administration.
Under this policy, Washington sent billions of dollars over 15 years to the Colombian government, allegedly to fight cartels and eradicate coca cultivation, used to produce cocaine.
Álvaro Uribe, president during most of that time, carried out a bloody military campaign against left-wing guerrillas. Under the plan, the army and police collaborated with death squads to carry out disappearances of social activists and massacres of thousands of peasants and workers.
With the recent establishment of the Shield of the Americas Alliance, the Trump administration plans to take things to a higher level. The U.S. led alliance plans to use its operative arm, the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (AC3), to employ joint military operations and lethal force against cartels and “terrorist networks.”
Many alliance leaders are also implementing Bukele’s mega-prison model to incarcerate dissidents and migrants, along with criminals.
After taking office, Colombia’s new president eagerly joined the Shield of the Americas. Proposed joint military strikes against the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are part of Plan Patriota 2.0, a continuation of Uribe’s legacy.
Which way forward?
Although this ultra-right resurgence is foreboding, it is important to remember that many leaders are hanging onto power by a thread. Working people and other targets of the ultraright are the vast majority across the Americas, with the power to stop the would-be fascists if we join forces.
In the United States, the fight against Hegseth’s assassinations of fishers in Caribbean and Pacific waters is directly linked to the struggle of Latin Americans standing up to dictatorial abuses of power. These outrages represent two heads of the Yankee-imperialist serpent that can only be defeated through international solidarity.
U.S. workers can unite to stop the Shield of the Americas and the bipartisan war on drugs, as Latin American workers fight the repression stemming from them. Cross-hemispheric collaboration is required to knock out the far right for good.
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