Abelardo de la Espriella’s recent election as Colombia’s president was the latest in a string of victories for right-wing candidates across Latin America. Conservative candidates also were elected president in Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Honduras and Costa Rica over the past year, and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa won re-election last year. What forces have resulted in a rightward shift in several Latin American countries, and what ties these conservative victories together? To what extent has U.S. President Donald Trump influenced these races? What will right-wing candidates’ victories mean for U.S. policy in the region and intra-Latin America relations?
Michael Shifter, senior fellow and former president of the Inter-American Dialogue: “The recent shift to the right in some Latin American countries reflects several factors, chief among them is the electoral defeat of incumbent left-wing governments in Colombia, Chile, Bolivia and Honduras. More powerful than any ideological conservative turn, however, was a profound desire for change. That same impulse propelled leftist presidents to power not long ago. The recent electoral swings are better understood as a reflection of widespread frustration with governments of different political stripes that have failed to address persistent economic, security and governance challenges. Increasingly, elections are driven by ‘anti’ voting—the rejection of the alternative—deepening political polarization. The razor-thin margins in the Peruvian and Colombian elections, which could easily have produced different winners—Keiko Fujimori received fewer votes within Peru than her opponent—should temper sweeping claims about a regional rightward shift. Moreover, the elections of Laura Fernández in Costa Rica and, arguably, Fujimori in Peru, reflect more continuity than change. Although the growing salience of public security tends to benefit conservative candidates who promise a mano dura approach, there is little reason to believe voters will not punish them if they fail to reduce crime. The rapid political desgaste of several right-leaning leaders—notably Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, and to a lesser extent Chile’s José Antonio Kast—is telling. While several regional leaders have been inspired by Donald Trump’s playbook, populist policies and political style, election outcomes remain overwhelmingly shaped by each country’s own circumstances and political dynamics. It is far from clear whether the Trump administration will be able to capitalize on a more politically aligned region to advance cooperation on security, economic and other shared problems.”
Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas in São Paulo and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington: “The dominant political force in Latin America remains anti-incumbency, and the second pink tide has now ended. It proved shorter than the first, predictably so: there was no commodity boom to underwrite it. Yet little suggests that what we’re seeing is more than another conservative wave—the second since right-wing leaders such as Macri in Argentina, Piñera in Chile, Kuczynski in Peru and Bolsonaro in Brazil surged a decade ago. What ties the recent victories of right-wing candidates together is less a coherent ideological project than voter exhaustion with whoever holds power, compounded by anxiety over public security. That anxiety tends to favor conservative candidates, even though there is scant evidence that right-wing governments actually deliver safer streets. While conservatives like to cite Bukele’s success in El Salvador, it is not applicable without large-scale human rights abuses and the erosion of checks and balances. With growth constrained across the region, the more revealing implication is that the same anti-incumbency dynamic is likely, in the next cycle, to carry left-wing figures back into office in numerous countries. Trump’s influence has been uneven. He likely provided decisive backing for Asfura in Honduras and gave Milei a meaningful lift ahead of Argentina’s legislative elections. But the effect reverses where nationalism runs deeper: in Brazil and Mexico, U.S. pressure is more likely to strengthen incumbents who stand firm than to weaken them. For U.S. policy, the lesson is that this rightward moment is contingent, not structural—and that treating it as a durable realignment risks misreading a region whose defining constant is the punishment of incumbents.”
Michael Reid, journalist and writer: “Several things lie behind the turn to the right in recent Latin American elections. One is the traditional factor of anti-incumbency, but there are others. Voters are angry and scared by the spread of organized crime, by generally mediocre economic growth and by still-deficient public services. While the message of right-wing candidates on these issues may be simplistic, it cuts through. Donald Trump’s intervention certainly helped Javier Milei win last year’s mid-term elections in Argentina; it may also have secured victory for Nasry Asfura in Honduras. But elsewhere, domestic concerns have predominated. Several of the election winners are more extreme than Latin America’s mainstream conservatives. For now, all the right wingers are signed up to Trump’s Shield of the Americas and his militarized approach to organized crime. Their unquestioning alignment with Trump makes relations with the region’s remaining left-wing governments (in Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay) difficult or impossible. If the Democrats take over the White House in 2028, these governments may face more questioning. But how durable the right turn will prove to be depends above all on the performance of these governments on the basic issues of security and growth.”
Laura Gamboa, associate professor of democracy and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame: “I am a little skeptical of lumping together the recent victories of right-wing candidates in Latin America. Not all these right-wing candidates are the same nor are they the outcome of the same processes. Fujimori is a long-time insider; De la Espriella is an outsider. Kast emphasized social-conservative tropes; Paz was more focused on a technocratic discourse. To the extent that there are commonalities, my intuition is that these are—very much like the victories of left-wing candidates in the early 2000s—the outcome of deficient representation, a wave of discontent with the status quo and the underperformance of previous governments. It is hard to tell how much Trump’s overt support helps or hinders these candidates. My sense is that his open endorsement of particular candidates is less important that the fact that, under his administration, the United States does not have a normative preference for democracy. With Trump, the incentives to keep a democratic discourse or façade are less than there were with previous governments. This means that ideologically aligned Latin American leaders with authoritarian tendencies might feel less restrained to act on these tendencies. Right-wing presidents are the norm (rather than the exception) in the region. I don’t expect the ideological position of these presidents to change U.S. policy on the region or intra-Latin American relations. The fact that many of these leaders have authoritarian tendencies is more troubling. It is hard to tell how these leaders will behave toward their neighbors.”
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