A win for right-wing Flávio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential runoff on October 25 would be a heavy blow to the Latin American left.
He edged incumbent Lula in the first round on October 4, with about 47 percent of the vote to Lula’s 45 percent. Colombia has already swung right, and a Bolsonaro victory would leave a thinning left bloc: Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua and Uruguay, plus a Venezuela now governed under heavy U.S. pressure.
Far-right politics have never found much traction in Mexico. Even Vicente Fox, a conservative and the first president from outside the long-ruling PRI, was a fierce critic of Donald Trump. And the subsequent rise of Morena, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his successor Claudia Sheinbaum, whose “Fourth Transformation” prioritizes the working class, has virtually reduced the entire opposition to bit-part players.
But could a regional drift rightward eventually permeate Mexico, and is there a conservative populist waiting in the wings?
The man to watch
Most eyes are on Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the outspoken billionaire who turns 71 later this month.
Please login or subscribe to view the complete article.
