Pink Tide



The Pink Tide is a nickname given to the wave of progressive governments in Latin America after the consecutive elections of Hugo Chávez in 1998 in Venezuela and Lula da Silva in Brazil. The term is a reference to the nature of these political movements as they are not communists (normally identified by red) but some more moderate version of the left (thus pink). However, the term has been criticized for being vague and simplistic, as it connects several quite different political movements with the only thing in common to be more left-wing than the traditional parties or regimes that precede them. The ideologies of these governments go from democratic socialism, social democratic to libertarian socialism to even far-left, populist and authoritarian governments. It has also been argued that there was a second Pink Tide starting in 2019, in response to the far-right governments that replaced many of the governments of the former Pink Tide. In fact, the second Pink Tide has surpassed the first in terms of how many Latin American governments had left-leaning leaders at the same time, even if many of them were elected in close, highly divisive elections.

The reasons behind the sudden turn to the left of many Latin American countries include such things as the infamous a series of US-backed operations in South America that included economic warfare, political murders, coups and sponsorship of brutal far-right regimes in order to fight communism and everything that looks like it. These activities provoked the overthrow of several democratically-elected progressive governments during the 1960s and 1970s, including among others, Salvador Allende in Chile, Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala, Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina and even João Goulart of Brazil followed by far-right dictatorships that committed all sorts of human rights violations including internment camps, torture, rape, political kidnappings, child trafficking, and other obscene acts under the supervision of the CIA. These caused a strong anti-American sentiment in the region.

To be fair, once the crimes of these dictatorships and the US government support became common knowledge, public outcry did happen among the American public and some sectors of the Democratic Party (Democrats were the opposition for most of this time). They pushed for American withdrawal of South and Central America and a cessation of support for these regimes. In fact, international pressure from the US (particularly during Jimmy Carter's government), Europe, and the Latin American countries not under far-right dictatorships, was part of the reason why most of these regimes fell. The end of the dictatorships was followed by neoliberal policies promoted by democratically-elected conservative governments that failed miserably, and the region soon faced problems such as income inequality, increased poverty, corruption and high unemployment. Naturally, anti-American sentiment and skepticism over neoliberal policies led to the success of parties that were critical of both, with the eventual victories of Chávez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Néstor Kirchner and then his wife Cristina Fernández in Argentina, Tabaré Vazquez in Uruguay, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, among others.

But, although these governments tend to be grouped together, other than mutual international diplomatic support for geostrategic reasons, each one has very little in common internally. While some are clearly authoritarian with questionable ethics and blatant antidemocratic behaviors like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, others tend more towards socio-liberal or libertarian socialist tendencies with socially liberal policies (support of LGBTI rights including gay marriage, abortion, marijuana legalization, etc.), others are moderate and economically progressive such as Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Costa Rica. Others are somewhere in between like El Salvador, Ecuador, and Peru. Even so, English-speaking media often tend to accentuate the negatives and often overlook important gains of these governments in aspects such as poverty reduction, indigenous peoples' rights, and economic growth.

The Pink Tide in maps
Red indicates left-wing governments and blue indicates right-wing governments.

Where are they now?
The countries in the region have experienced the Pink Tide differently. In some countries, the leftist parties still remain democratically in power, while in others, there has been a peaceful transition away to the conservatives (and sometimes back again to the leftists).


 * Néstor Kirchner died in 2010, after leaving office in 2007 to the winner of that year's election, his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. After ruining most of the Argentinian economy, she was replaced in 2015 by the incompetent right-wing president Mauricio Macri who couldn't resolve the problems. Left-wing Peronism came back to power in 2019 after Cristina's protégé, Alberto Fernández won the election. With Fernández, however, the already bleak situation is deteriorating faster than ever: the GDP has fallen by 2.2% in 2019, with a double-digit drop in 2020. Inflation is over 50% a year, despite the strenuous efforts by the government to forcefully freeze prices Meanwhile, the country defaulted for the ninth time and more than 40% of the population is living in poverty. Since there is nothing so bad that it couldn't be worse, Argentina was also among the worst affected countries by the COVID-19 pandemic, being the 15th with the highest number of cases per capita and the 11th with the highest number of deaths by July 2021.
 * The resilient president Evo Morales finally met his political downfall in November 2019. He lost a referendum on whether or not he should be allowed to run for a fourth term in October 2019 but the Bolivian Supreme Court reversed the decision and allowed him to run. Disputes over that issue as well as allegations of election fraud led to massive protests and, just a few hours after Morales announced a new election, the military called for his resignation and he accepted. He was replaced by right-wing senator Jeanine Áñez Chávez, who proclaimed herself president and walked into the presidential palace brandishing an oversized Bible. . A new election was held in October 2020, and Arce, the candidate put up by Morales's party, won.
 * Lula da Silva left office to his protégé Dilma Rousseff. The all-consuming scandal resulted in Rousseff's impeachment, Lula's show and conviction, and seems to be touching politicians in Brazil regardless of their ideological backgrounds (here's looking at you, Temer). Hypothetically, Lula might have won the 2018 elections; however, he was disqualified due to his controversial conviction. Instead, the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro managed to prevail, and things have gotten worse during his term. However, in 2022, Lula was able to defeat Bolsonaro in a narrow election, making Bolsonaro the first incumbent president to be defeated in Brazil since their 1985 return to democracy.
 * The political pendulum seems to swing back and forth in Chile. Socialist Michelle Bachelet ended her second term peacefully in 2018 and conservative businessman and Pinochet-wannabe Sebastián Piñera was president from 2018-2022. His authoritarian regime struggled with widespread protests against neoliberalism and economic inequality, and he would be ousted by the left-wing.
 * Historically one of the most conservative countries in Latin America, a leftist president, Gustavo Petro, was finally elected in 2022 in response to the rising inequality in the country that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 * Carlos Alvarado Quesada from the center-left Citizens' Action Party won the 2018 election. He peacefully transitioned power to the conservative Rodrigo Chaves in 2022.
 * Miguel Díaz-Canel is the first non-Castro family member to be elected president of Cuba since 1976. He's also relatively young (well, compared to his immediate predecessors). Cuba saw asking for economic and political reforms.
 * Danilo Medina of the left-wing Dominican Liberation Party won his election in a landslide in 2016.
 * Lenín Moreno of Rafael Correa's party won a narrow victory in 2017. However, Moreno is way more conservative than his predecessor and began distancing himself from left-wing populism after he took office. He secured a referendum to impose term limits on the office of president, thereby locking Correa out of office.
 * The FMLN party (formerly a communist guerrilla) won two straight elections before coming in last in a three-way race to a third-party ex-FMLN candidate, Nayib Bukele.
 * Álvaro Colom peacefully transitioned power to his right-wing successor in 2012.
 * Liberal-turned-left-wing-populist Manuel Zelaya was removed in a bloody US-backed military coup in 2009. Right-wing leaders have since tightened their grip on the country, including "winning" the . However, by 2022 leftists regained control with.
 * Leftist Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador won the 2018 election in a landslide, after having lost both the 2006 election (which result was... rather questionable to say the least) and the 2012 election, securing over 50% of the vote and his party and allies securing the first majority in both chambers of the country in decades, probably in response to the "Orange Tide" that happened in the United States. To be honest, everyone expected him to win after the disastrous government of Enrique Peña Nieto, but he still managed to disrupt pollsters who did not think he would win by that much.
 * Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007. In 2018 he responded violently to a and experienced demands for his resignation. Following Hugo Chávez path, Ortega has eroded more and more the democratic institutions in Nicaragua, arresting opposition leaders as well as journalists and activists.  In June 2021, the top US diplomat for Latin America, Julie Chung tweeted that the arrests "should resolve any remaining doubts about Ortega's credentials as a dictator."
 * The center-left won the presidential election of 2019, promising to take care of the corruption that was exposed by the Panama Papers.
 * The former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo was and removed from the presidency in 2012 over a controversial handling of a land dispute that turned violent and alleged sexual abuse during his time as a Catholic bishop. The next election was a peaceful transition of power to the conservative Colorado Party, which supported the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship.
 * Peru's center-left president Ollanta Humala was forced to withdraw from his reelection campaign due to Lava Jato. The next election was won by right-of-center Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, in a very close call against the daughter of former right-wing dictator Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori. He was later impeached, and even though the impeachment process was blocked in Congress, he had to resign over further corruption scandals, also from Lava Jato. He was replaced by the increasingly authoritarian center-right Martín Vizcarra, who was impeached and removed from office after Congress declared him "morally incompetent", and was replaced by Manuel Merino, the President of the Peruvian Congress, who ran a "far-right government." This sparked mass protests from Peruvians who felt the impeachment was unfounded, an overreach of congressional power, and even many analysts, experts, and media outlets across the country called it a coup. Five days after taking office, Merino resigned due to two deaths in the protests, and was succeeded by Fransisco Sagasti, who took over as an "emergency" and "transitional" president. Come 2021, elections were finally held, with former teacher and longtime activist Pedro Castillo winning over Keiko Fujimori, who disputed the results of the election in a very Trumpian way, which delayed the transition period for Castillo and grounded the country to a halt. Castillo, a left-winger who wanted to replace the constitution inherited from Fujimori's regime, was finally declared president on July 19th and took office on July 28, 2021. However, Castillo wasn't able to accomplish much due to the aforementioned Fujimori-era constitution, and in December 2022, he tried to dissolve the Peruvian Congress after they attempted to impeach him for the third time for spurious reasons. Ultimately, this was considered an attempted coup by many international observers, with Mexico's leader Obrador being one of the few to support Castillo. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, Castillo was impeached and arrested. He was replaced by Dina Boluarte, who called for a political truce, essentially returning things to the status quo.
 * Uruguay's center-left Broad Front party managed to win three straight elections until their candidate lost to the conservative Luis Lacalle Pou (by a narrow margin) in 2019.
 * Hugo Chávez died in 2013 and was succeeded by Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela has been slowly spiraling into disaster after the opposition parties re-took the congress in 2015. In 2019, there was a presidential crisis on whether the self-proclaimed "acting president" Juan Guaidó or Maduro should be recognized. Countries such as the United States recognize Guaidó while countries such as Russia and China recognize Maduro. According to the Venezuelan constitution, if the president is illegitimate, then the leader of the National Assembly (Guaidó) shall be recognized as interim president to ensure free and democratic elections. Although Maduro was re-elected in 2018, the voter turnout was very low and the main opposition parties were banned from participating.