The results of the Spanish municipal and regional elections this Sunday express the return of the right to govern the Iberian country. The Popular Party and Vox achieved a historic victory by increasing their electorate and surpassing the socialist parties in nine of the twelve disputed autonomous regions, six of which were governed by the socialists.
After being defeated by the right, the outgoing regional president of Aragon, the socialist Javier Lambán, admitted that a “tsunami [de la derecha] It has happened today in each and every one of the autonomous communities [regiones] from Spain”.
Earlier this month, the Chilean right also achieved a broad electoral victory, winning 34 of the 51 councilors who will draft Chile’s new constitution. The victory of the right-wing formations is considered especially symbolic, at a time when the popularity of Gabriel Boric’s socialist government is at a low point. It was a strong and clear signal of the direction that Chileans want for the South American country, assured the leader of the Republican Party, José Antonio Kast, who precisely lost the 2021 presidential elections against Boric.
A month ago, in Paraguay, the right-wing Colorado Party retained the presidency. It beat its historic rival, the Liberal Party, by more than 15 points.
The victory of the Colorados in the Guarani land breaks a trend in the region towards the left that returned with the electoral victory in Chile of Gabriel Boric; in Colombia by Gustavo Petro and more recently in Brazil by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Furthermore, this was the first time since the pandemic that a party in power was not punished by the electorate.
In the upcoming general elections in Argentina, on October 22, polls indicate that a likely electoral scenario would be a measurement between two right-wing candidates: Together for Change and La Libertad Avanza.
Regarding the Primary, Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory (PASO), scheduled for August 13, they also point to the loss of power of Kirchnerism, which would rank as the third political force in the gaucho country.
A large part of the youth of the Buenos Aires suburbs does not see themselves reflected in Peronist and Kirchnerist populism. They believe in Javier Milei’s proposal on the principles of the free market, limited government intervention and the reduction of bureaucratic regulations. In addition to the fact that the State should have a minimal role in the economy, and that free competition and individual freedom lead to prosperity.
The foregoing events may have far-reaching and unforeseen consequences in Latin America today, presenting a complex and dynamic panorama characterized by unemployment, poverty, inequality, corruption, and the lack of political freedoms.
It is what is known as the butterfly Effect ―the flutter of a butterfly in Japan could spark a tornado in Texas. A phenomenon described in chaotic systems as the sensitive dependence on certain initial conditions whose variation, no matter how small, in a non-linear deterministic system, will end up having greater consequences in other States.
An example of this phenomenon is the Arab Spring. It was a series of protests, uprisings and revolutions that occurred in various countries in the Middle East and North Africa beginning in late 2010. The initial spark was ignited by the self-immolation of a young street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in the city of Sidi Bouzid, in Tunisia. It was a desperate response to the oppressive and corrupt practices of the local Tunisian authorities, who confiscated his vegetable cart.
This fact, along with widespread frustration over high unemployment, poverty, regime corruption, and lack of political freedoms, sparked mass protests that led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben after 20 years in power.
The wave of protests then spread to other countries such as Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, among others. Each had its own characteristics with a common thread: political repression, economic inequality, youth unemployment, corruption, and the demand for democratic reforms.
In this sense, a hope is underway in Venezuela that is embodied by the politics of “movement of movement” that rejects the forms and the substance with which the madurismo exercises power: lies, cynicism, opportunism. And against his political project of radicalism, the rancor and the challenge of the constitutional order of 1999.
The butterfly effect will facilitate the vote of common sense, sensible, of democratic maturity with which it will be demonstrated that the country will not continue to fail as a political project. It will be the end of Castrochavism. Because the fight is between socialism and freedom.
The fed up that people feel with respect to Nicolás Maduro is general. Institutional and moral degradation in politics will be rejected by a reasonable and sensible Venezuela that says: Enough is enough!
Therefore, the events in Spain, Chile, Paraguay and almost certainly in Argentina, are going to have an impact in Venezuela. The cycle change towards the democratic right and freedom has already begun.