{"id":58550,"date":"2026-08-25T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=58550"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:44:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:44:47","slug":"the-leadership-of-the-far-right-in-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/the-leadership-of-the-far-right-in-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The leadership of the far right in Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Argentine President Javier Milei, like other far-right political leaders, seeks to establish the idea of the leadership of the new Latin American right. But while there has been significant growth in governments of this ideological persuasion, it is worth considering whether these new right-wing governments are sufficiently homogeneous to require\u2014or at least sustain\u2014a political leadership at the regional level, something akin to a primus inter pares<\/em>. And, secondly, whether these right-wing forces have, or believe they have, a political projection sufficiently long-lasting to form a power bloc in Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keiko Fujimori\u2019s electoral victory in Peru, after four attempts, expanded the map of the Latin American right: Milei in Argentina, Noboa in Ecuador, Pe\u00f1a in Paraguay, Paz in Bolivia, Kast in Chile, De la Espriella in Colombia, Bukele in El Salvador, Asfura in Honduras, and Mulino in Panama. Floating in the background is the precedent of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Flavio Bolsonaro\u2019s electoral bid for November. A politically and ideologically diverse map that directly confronts the hegemony of left-wing governments during the first decade of the 21st century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These leaders define, perceive, and promote themselves as right-wing governments. But what kind of right? Or should we say that there are several types of right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a common denominator among these governments: a firm adoption and implementation of the foundations of the market economy. Macroeconomic stability, control of the fiscal deficit and, consequently, of public spending, incentives for transnational private investment, and a reduction of the state, both in its economic role and in its regulation of the economy and public-sector employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But behind this shared policy recipe lie two distinct visions regarding the social and political order. On the one hand, certain governments have a conservative agenda through which they seek to leave their mark by implementing policies that reverse certain rights and customs left behind by the shift to the left at the beginning of the century. Something akin to an anti-woke<\/em> political agenda that reverses or displaces rights related to gender, sexuality, minorities, migration, and certain social movements. The aim is to reestablish a more traditional social order, one that is less mobilized and more capable of controlling and negatively processing new social demands. The governments of Kast, Pe\u00f1a, Fujimori, and Paz would represent this conservative ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, there are right-wing governments eager to wage what they call the \u201cCultural Battle.\u201d This agenda is not content with a conservative restabilization of the social order but instead seeks, reactively, to dismantle established institutions and rights and lay the doctrinal foundations that would make the outcome of their \u201ccultural victory\u201d immutable. Bolsonaro, Bukele, Milei, De la Espriella, and Noboa\u2014the latter perhaps pressured by Ecuador\u2019s immersion in the drug-trafficking economy\u2014would embody this reactive right-wing scenario. It should be noted that far-right governments such as Bukele\u2019s, in their actions, at times go beyond the limits of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other question regarding regional leadership among these new right-wing forces concerns their durability over political time\u2014that is, these governments\u2019 ability to reproduce themselves through electoral victories, establish a new political era in Latin America, and, from that scenario, create the need for common leadership. This remains highly uncertain today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ideological shift has another factor in common: the promise of \u201ctough-on-crime\u201d policies following the profound deterioration of public security due to the rise of organized crime. One point of relative agreement is that a large part of the electorate that brought about this political shift in the region comes from a structural matrix shaped by socioeconomic precariousness, insecurity, and declining expectations for the future, particularly among younger generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this expression of anger is manifested through this ideological shift, it is possible to think that the consolidation of this new politics depends on governments\u2019 ability to respond to the socioeconomic situation that produced this resentment. Specifically, through policies capable of pacifying societies, incorporating the social majority into employment, and, above all, improving expectations for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the time being, there is no evidence that these governments, beginning with the \u201coldest\u201d among them, are showing signs\u2014through the policies they are developing\u2014of seeking to achieve the objectives expected by their electoral bases. The \u201cneoliberal\u201d governments of the 1990s, while not as aggressive as some of the current ones, experienced a period of strong electoral momentum at their outset, hegemonic consolidation, and reelection. But then, in little more than a decade, there was an ominous retreat accompanied by intense political conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes it difficult for these new right-wing forces to consolidate as a homogeneous bloc. In any case, before thinking about leadership of a new political era in the region, these governments will have to pass the test posed by reelection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The advance of the far right in Latin America raises a key question: whether it will be able to consolidate as a regional bloc capable of enduring beyond its current leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":58515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16729,16925],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-58550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politica-en","category-ideologia-en","tag-debates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58552,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58550\/revisions\/58552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58550"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=58550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}