\n\n“With Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s narrow victory over president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil\u2014the two-time former president defeated the incumbent by a 1.8 percent margin (50.9 to 49.1)\u2014the Latin American left has completed its strategic dominance over the region’s seven largest countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 2000s, much was made of Latin America’s so-called “Pink Tide,” which began with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez’s first electoral victory in Venezuela (1998) and da Silva’s first term in Brazil (2002\u20132006). There followed an unprecedented rise of left-wing governments across the region. However, there were still important holdouts at the time; Mexico and Colombia didn’t veer left at all; Chile maintained its post-Pinochet social democracy; Peru’s original “Pink Tider<\/a>,” Ollanta Humala, initially scared the markets<\/a> in 2011 but proved to be mostly moderate in power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By late 2022, however, hard leftists\u2014often in cahoots with local communist parties\u2014had handily won the last elections in each of these countries and in Argentina, which returned to Peronist Kirchnerism in 2019. Bolsonaro was the last right-winger standing”
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