Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.
Parece incrível, mas o presidente da CREDN-CD, da Bolsofamília, pratica o mesmo tipo de machismo diplomático que seu ídolo americano, o caótico presidente da maior potência militar do planeta. Ele pensa que a "ameaça" de o país se nuclearizar levaria outros países, e a comunidade internacional, a levar o Brasil a sério, quando o contrário é o que vai ocorrer.
Com todas as derrogações do Brasil a acordos e acertos internacionais, anunciadas, semi-implementadas pela Bolsofamília, em especial pelo "chanceler paralelo" (de fato real), e seu ajudante de ordens, o chanceler nominal, algumas delas convertidas – como a retirada do Pacto Global sobre as Migrações, o acolhimento da 25a COP, a abertura de uma representação em Jerusalém, ainda que não a transferência da embaixada de Tel Aviv –, outras ameaçadas – como essa luta insana contra o climatismo, o globalismo, o multilateralismo, o comercialismo, a "China maoísta", o marxismo cultural, e outros fantasmas retiradas da cabeça destrambelhada de um guru decadente –, o Brasil está sendo objeto do ridículo universal.
O chanceler nominal, seguindo na linha dos seus mestres e "professores", anuncia que nossos novos aliados são esses líderes populistas da extrema-direta, que são racistas, xenófobos, nacionalistas primários, anti-imigração, soberanistas vulgares, enfim, todos esses traços detestáveis, num país, como o Brasil, que durante quatro séculos acolheu imigrantes, foi construído por imigrantes (ainda que muitos tenham vindo como escravos), e que se tornou um país de emigração, devido à ação perniciosa, equivocada, corrosiva, senão corrupta, de políticos como esses pertencentes à Bolsofamília, e que não permitem o crescimento econômico no país, tal a soma de distorções e privilégios acumulados por essas elites promiscuas e incompetentes.
O fato de o chanceler se proclamar anti-globalista, e provavelmente também anti-comunitário, anti-europeista – a Europa, segundo ele, seria um "vazio cultural", e só o Trump poderia "salvar o Ocidente", entre outros ridículos –, deveria resultar, por conclusão lógica, na denúncia do Mercosul, que é uma tremenda renúncia de soberania, como aliás o é qualquer acordo internacional.
O Brasil desce um pouco mais na escala da respeitabilidade e da credibilidade externa, com "líderes" equivocados como esses.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 15 de maio de 2019
Eduardo Bolsonaro diz que bombas nucleares garantem paz
Deputado e filho do presidente defende armamento para Brasil ser 'levado mais a sério'; segundo ele, o 'politicamente correto' o impede de falar sobre possibilidade de guerra com Venezuela
Natália Portinari
14/05/2019 - 18:01 / Atualizado em 14/05/2019 - 19:07
O deputado federal Eduardo Bolsonaro discursa no plenário da Câmara Foto: Michel Jesus/ Câmara dos Deputados
A reunião, na tarde desta terça-feira, foi um encontro do parlamentar com alunos da Escola Superior de Guerra, entidade em que se formam militares do Exército, Marinha e Aeronáutica.
— São bombas nucleares que garantem a paz. Se nós já tivéssemos os submarinos nucleares já finalizados, que têm uma economia muito maior dentro d'água; se nós tivéssemos um efetivo maior, talvez fôssemos levados mais a sério pelo (Nicolás) Maduro, ou temidos pela China ou pela Rússia.
Ele frisou, porém, que não há debate no Congresso sobre o assunto no momento. O Tratado de Não Proliferação de Armas Nucleares, assinado por 189 países, foi endossado pelo Brasil no governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso, em 1998. Além dele, o Brasil também faz parte do Tratado de Tlatelolco, assinado por todos os países da América Latina e Caribe em 1968, com exceção de Cuba, que o ratificou apenas em 2002.
Em uma palestra feita antes do primeiro turno das eleições, Eduardo Bolsonaro disse que “para fechar” o STF bastam “um cabo e um soldado”. No vídeo do dia 9 de julho, o deputado é perguntado sobre uma eventual ação do Supremo para impedir a posse de Bolsonaro, e qual seria a atitude do Exército neste cenário. Foto: ReproduçãoEduardo também participou de bate-boca entre integrantes do PSL em um grupo de WhatsApp. Ele entrou na discussão sobre críticas à articulação política do governo após a deputada federal Joice Hasselmann dizer que as negociações estavam "abaixo da linha da miséria". Eduardo, Joice e o senador Major Olímpio trocaram acusações e críticas por mensagens Foto: ReproduçãoEm uma viagem aos EUA, Eduardo confirmou a mudança da embaixada de Israel de Tel Aviv para Jerusalém e criou polêmica ao dizer que o Brasil apoiaria políticas para "frear o Irã" como forma de compensar os países árabes pela transferência. As delcarações provocaram reação dos países árabes Foto: Henrique Gomes BatistaO Coaf identificou, no fim de 2018, movimentações atípicas na conta do ex-assessor parlamentar de Flávio Bolsonaro Fabrício Queiroz na ordem de R$ 1,2 milhão entre janeiro de 2016 e janeiro de 2017. De acordo com o documento, oito assessores e ex-assesores do então deputado na Alerj fizeram depósitos na conta bancária de Queiroz. Ele atuou por uma década como motorista e segurança do parlamentar. Foto: ReproduçãoO vereador Carlos Bolsonaro (PSC-RJ) desmentiu nas redes sociais o ministro Gustavo Bebianno, da Secretaria-Geral da Presidência. Bebianno havia negado que era o centro de uma crise no Executivo e afirmou ter conversado, por mensagens, três vezes com o presidente. Carlos disse que o ministro mentia e divulgou uma gravação do presidente em que Bolsonaro afirma que não iria falar sobre o caso com Bebianno. Foto: Reprodução
— Esse assunto não é pauta nesse momento, eu sequer vejo debate nesse sentido. A gente sabe que, se o Brasil quiser atropelar essa convenção, tem uma série de sanções, é um tema muito complicado. Mas acredito que possa voltar ao debate aqui.
O deputado citou ainda Índia e Paquistão, dos poucos países que não assinaram o tratado, como um exemplo positivo.
— Paquistão e Índia, como é a relação dos dois? Se só um tivesse bomba nuclear, a relação não seria a mesma. Sou entusiasta dessa visão. Vão dizer que eu sou agressivo ou que quero tocar fogo no mundo, mas enfim. De fato. Por que o mundo inteiro respeita os Estados Unidos? — questionou. — Explodiram o World Trade Center, o que eles fizeram? Passaram por cima de tudo quanto é veto e invadiram o Iraque.
'Maduro é maluco associado a terroristas'
Dirigindo-se aos militares presentes no evento, Eduardo resssaltou que, em um eventual conflito com a Venezuela, eles teriam um papel importante e que as pessoas só dão valor às Forças Armadas "quando precisam", já que há umacrença generalizada de que o Brasil é um país pacifista, que não entra em guerra. O deputado federal ainda chamou o presidente venezuelano, Nicolás Maduro, de um "maluco associado a terroristas".
— Pois bem. Estamos tendo um problema com a Venezuela, e o politicamente correto me impede de falar algumas coisas, então tenho que falar que está tudo muito bem, que nós nunca entraremos em guerra e podem ficar tranquilos. É claro, é uma ironia, o que eu estou falando — disse. — Do lado de lá da fronteira tem um maluco associado a terroristas e ao narcotráfico. A gente sabe que, a qualquer momento, se isso daí evoluir para um quadro pior, que é o que ninguém deseja, quem vai entrar em ação são principalmente os senhores.
Some fear fund’s largest bailout is fraying and might not survive an electoral jolt
Colby Smith and Benedict Mander
New York and Buenos Aires - When the IMF completed its third review of Argentina’s economy in early April, managing director Christine Lagarde boasted that the government policies linked to the country’s record $56bn bailout from the fund were “bearing fruit”.
Less than a month later, amid darkening political prospects for incumbent president Mauricio Macri, the country’s currency crisis reignited and bond yields spiked, threatening not only the IMF’s Argentina programme but its reputation and that of its leader.
Argentine assets have stabilised somewhat in recent weeks, with the country’s central bank now allowed to use IMF resources to intervene in the peso. But many analysts and investors are concerned that the programme is fraying and could collapse if the populist opposition, led by former leftist president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, wins the presidential election in October. A victory would be devastating for the IMF given its strong backing of Mr Macri.
“This is the biggest single programme that they’ve ever put up, and their reputation is on the line,” said Bill Rhodes, a former top Citi executive with wide experience handling past Latin American debt crises.
Even former senior fund officials are concerned by the organisation’s exposure to Argentina, and the potential fallout should its biggest ever programme implode.
“Lagarde has really gone out on a limb for this programme and has been supporting it wholeheartedly,” said Claudio Loser, former head of the IMF’s western hemisphere department during Argentina’s historic debt default in 2001. A failed programme would lead to a “loss of credibility” for the fund, he adds.
Plans have already veered off course significantly, with Mr Macri forced to return to the IMF to revamp the deal scarcely three months after the original agreement was unveiled in May last year. In September, the IMF announced it would lend an additional $7.1bn to Argentina and allow the country to receive more cash upfront in exchange for a harsher austerity programme.
The deal required Argentina to run a balanced budget by 2019 and to shrink its external deficit. On both counts, the country has seen success.
By the end of last year, the primary fiscal deficit sat at 2.6 per cent of GDP — lower than the IMF’s target and a far cry from the 3.8 per cent level posted in 2017. Argentina has also made strides on the trade balance, which has swung from a large deficit to a surplus of $1.18bn as of March, amid a deepening recession.
“There have been significant changes in the Argentine economy — from reliable official data to important fiscal and external sector improvements — and we want to help Argentina continue this process of transformation,” said one IMF official involved in the programme. “It is challenging and we feel a sense of responsibility in trying to help the country in this effort.”
Yet on other metrics, Argentina has struggled. Inflation remains elevated at nearly 55 per cent, despite the central bank tightening the monetary screws. Poverty levels have also skyrocketed to more than 30 per cent of the population, dredging up haunting memories of past crises and IMF programmes.
For many locals, the IMF has become a comic-book villain given its long and chequered history with the country. Since it first sought the fund’s help in 1958, Argentina has signed 22 agreements with it, most of which ended with bitterness on both sides.
Few forget the disastrous finale of the IMF’s last Argentina programme, when, just two months before the country defaulted in 2001, it borrowed another $8bn from the fund — most of which was used to buy pesos from institutional investors wanting to get out of Argentina.
“Obviously, the IMF does not want to make the same mistake again,” said one former IMF staffer. “But it is a very different organisation from when it last got burnt in Argentina.”
For one, the IMF has placed an inordinate emphasis on “protecting society’s most vulnerable” when discussing its austerity package. In fact, the IMF’s current programme is the first to allow the country to exceed its fiscal deficit target if the additional spending is to be used for social assistance.
In light of recent market ructions, the IMF has also shown flexibility in the government’s economic policies, with both the IMF and Donald Trump, US president, expressing their support as recently as last week of the course of action taken by Mr Macri.
In mid-April, Argentina relaunched a controversial programme of price controls in the hope of providing some reprieve for locals. Weeks later, the central bank announced it had full discretion to intervene in the currency market whenever it saw fit, a sharp diver.
gence from the free-floating currency principle once espoused by the fund. “We are working with the authorities to overcome the current difficulties and this implies a degree of flexibility to adapt when circumstances change to maintain the core objectives of the programme,” said the IMF official.
Mr Macri’s approval ratings have tanked with the economy. But according to Mark Sobel, a former senior US Treasury official and executive director at the IMF, staying the course with the fund’s programme is his best bet to beat Ms Fernández should she choose to run.
“If this programme is carried out, Argentina will turn around,” he said. “But if Kirchner wins and we see a return to the woefully errant policies of her and her husband, many will blame the fund and its reputation will suffer.”
O presidente da CREDN-CD é COMPLETAMENTE MALUCO! Vejam o que ele disse: "— Paquistão e Índia, como é a relação dos dois? Se só um tivesse bomba nuclear, a relação não seria a mesma. Sou entusiasta dessa visão. Vão dizer que eu sou agressivo ou que quero tocar fogo no mundo, mas enfim. De fato. Por que o mundo inteiro respeita os Estados Unidos? — questionou. — Explodiram o World Trade Center, o que eles fizeram? Passaram por cima de tudo quanto é veto e invadiram o Iraque." Esse cara não é só perigoso para o Brasil, para a América Latina e para o mundo, mas ele afunda mais um pouco a imagem do Brasil na comunidade internacional. O que fizemos para merecer MALUCOS nos círculos governantes? Aposto como alguém vai vir em apoio a essas ideias completamente estapafurdias... Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Eduardo Bolsonaro diz que bombas nucleares garantem paz
Deputado e filho do presidente defende armamento para Brasil ser 'levado mais a sério'; segundo ele, o 'politicamente correto' o impede de falar sobre possibilidade de guerra com Venezuela
Natália Portinari
14/05/2019 - 18:01 / Atualizado em 14/05/2019 - 18:41
BRASÍLIA — Em evento da Comissão de Relações Exteriores da Câmara dos Deputados, da qual é presidente, Eduardo Bolsonaro (PSL-SP) defendeu a posse de armas nucleares e disse que o "politicamente correto" o impede de falar abertamente sobre a possibilidade de guerra com a Venezuela.
A reunião, na tarde desta terça-feira, foi um encontro do parlamentar com alunos da Escola Superior de Guerra, entidade em que se formam militares do Exército, Marinha e Aeronáutica.
— São bombas nucleares que garantem a paz. Se nós já tivéssemos os submarinos nucleares já finalizados, que têm uma economia muito maior dentro d'água; se nós tivéssemos um efetivo maior, talvez fôssemos levados mais a sério pelo (Nicolás) Maduro, ou temidos pela China ou pela Rússia.
Ele frisou, porém, que não há debate no Congresso sobre o assunto no momento. O Tratado de Não Proliferação de Armas Nucleares, assinado por 189 países, foi endossado pelo Brasil no governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso, em 1998. Além dele, o Brasil também faz parte do Tratado de Tlatelolco, assinado por todos os países da América Latina e Caribe em 1968, com exceção de Cuba, que o ratificou apenas em 2002.
— Esse assunto não é pauta nesse momento, eu sequer vejo debate nesse sentido. A gente sabe que, se o Brasil quiser atropelar essa convenção, tem uma série de sanções, é um tema muito complicado. Mas acredito que possa voltar ao debate aqui.
O deputado citou ainda Índia e Paquistão, dos poucos países que não assinaram o tratado, como um exemplo positivo.
— Paquistão e Índia, como é a relação dos dois? Se só um tivesse bomba nuclear, a relação não seria a mesma. Sou entusiasta dessa visão. Vão dizer que eu sou agressivo ou que quero tocar fogo no mundo, mas enfim. De fato. Por que o mundo inteiro respeita os Estados Unidos? — questionou. — Explodiram o World Trade Center, o que eles fizeram? Passaram por cima de tudo quanto é veto e invadiram o Iraque.
'Maduro é maluco associado a terroristas'
Dirigindo-se aos militares presentes no evento, Eduardo ressaltou que, em um eventual conflito com a Venezuela, eles teriam um papel importante e que as pessoas só dão valor às Forças Armadas "quando precisam", já que há uma crença generalizada de que o Brasil é um país pacifista, que não entra em guerra. O deputado federal ainda chamou o presidente venezuelano, Nicolás Maduro, de um "maluco associado a terroristas".
— Pois bem. Estamos tendo um problema com a Venezuela, e o politicamente correto me impede de falar algumas coisas, então tenho que falar que está tudo muito bem, que nós nunca entraremos em guerra e podem ficar tranquilos. É claro, é uma ironia, o que eu estou falando — disse. — Do lado de lá da fronteira tem um maluco associado a terroristas e ao narcotráfico. A gente sabe que, a qualquer momento, se isso daí evoluir para um quadro pior, que é o que ninguém deseja, quem vai entrar em ação são principalmente os senhores.
No seu editorial que precede este artigo de fundo (ver aqui), a Economist mostra desconfiança em relação ao um regime de direita (Bolsonaro) e um outro de esquerda (AMLO, no México), e sobre o Brasil escreve o editorialista o seguinte:
Mr Bolsonaro, who has spoken of his nostalgia for military rule, has eight generals in his cabinet of 22;AMLOis weakening competing centres of power, such as elected state governors.
O editorialista se engana quanto às ameaças à democracia no Brasil. Elas não veem dos militares e sim dos aloprados – olavistas fanáticas e bolsonaristas aloprados – que conformam uma das bandas podres do governo (existem outras).
Mas, concordo em que populismo e polarização são duas ameaças à democracia na região.
Vão continuar sendo, por muito tempo ainda, seja de esquerda, seja de direita.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Populism and polarisation threaten Latin America
After dictatorships gave way to democracy trouble is brewing again
IT WAS ONEof the greatest waves of democratisation ever. In 1977 all but three of the 20 countries in Latin America were dictatorships of one kind or another. By 1990 only Mexico’s civilian one-party state and communist Cuba survived. Several things lay behind the rise of democracy in the region. One was the waning of the cold war. Another was the economic failure of most of the dictators. And democracy was contagious. One country after another in Latin America put down democratic roots as power changed hands between right and left through free elections.
The outlook is suddenly much darker. Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, is an originally elected autocrat ruling as a dictator. He clings to power with the support of Cuba at the cost of wrecking his country and destabilising its neighbours. At least 3.7m Venezuelans have fled economic collapse and repression; organised crime and Colombian guerrillas flourish there. The repressive family despotism into which Nicaragua has degenerated under Mr Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, is almost as nasty.
These autocratic extremes would be less worrying were not elections across the region showing that there are clear signs of disenchantment with democracy elsewhere. Election rules are sometimes flouted and independent institutions undermined. Many voters are turning to populists with little commitment to restraints on power. Parties of the moderate centre are weakening or collapsing.
Immoderate urges
An election marked by fraud in Honduras saw Juan Orlando Hernández, the conservative president, win a constitutionally dubious second term in 2017. In Guatemala, which will hold elections in June, the president recently ordered out aUNinvestigative body into organised crime and corruption which had helped to jail two of his predecessors. Evo Morales, a leftist who has been Bolivia’s president since 2006, will seek a fourth term in October—also on dodgy constitutional grounds. In the same month, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a populist former president of Argentina who abused institutions in partisan fashion and faces corruption charges, stands a chance of being returned to office.
And then there are Latin America’s two giants, Brazil and Mexico. Both have elected presidents who share a populist disregard for the norms, checks and balances, and toleration of critics that are necessary for lasting democracy.
The threat is more obvious in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro, an army captain turned far-right politician, took over on January 1st. A seven-term congressman, Mr Bolsonaro is a political insider in Brazil but one nostalgic for military rule. Eight generals sit in his 22-strong cabinet and scores more officers occupy second- and third-tier posts. “Democracy and freedom only exist when the armed forces want them to,” he said in a speech in March at a military ceremony. This will be news to Costa Rica. Its decision to abolish its army in 1948 is widely regarded as having helped it stay free. He even ordered the armed forces to commemorate a military coup in 1964, which he calls a revolution. Evidence is emerging that appears to show ties between Mr Bolsonaro’s family and paramilitary militias that operate in thefavelasof Rio de Janeiro.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a veteran populist of the left known asAMLO, has struck a more moderate tone in his first five months in office. Mexicans overwhelmingly approve of his promises to sweep away corruption and crime, as well as his modest way of life (he sits in economy on commercial flights around the country). But there are warning signs.
AMLOis not a fan of independent centres of power. He has named his own “co-ordinators” to supervise elected state governors, cut the salaries of judges and civil servants, named ill-qualified allies to regulatory bodies, and stopped giving public funds toNGOs. He has also shown deference to the armed forces, placing them in charge of a new National Guard, a paramilitary police force, despite the objection of the Senate. A proposed bill to pack the Supreme Court would end its independence. In March the tax agency threatened the owner ofReforma, a critical newspaper, with a tax investigation over the seemingly trivial matter of owing 12,000 pesos (around $630) from 2015.
These steps, though some are small-scale, all come from the populist handbook of disqualifying and intimidating opponents, building a political clientele and what Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University have called “capturing the referees” of democracy. The measures also hint at a return to what Enrique Krauze, a historian, calls Mexico’s “imperial presidency” of past one-party rule.
Not all of the region is under threat. Chile and Uruguay, among others, still enjoy stable democracy, and most governments remain committed to that goal. The region’s people are not so sure. In 2018 Latinobarómetro, a multi-country poll, found that only 48% of respondents saw themselves as convinced democrats, down from 61% in 2010. Just 24% pronounced themselves satisfied with democracy in their country, down from 44% in 2010 (see chart 1). How did democracy fall into such disrepute? How great is the threat to it? And how can democrats fight back?
The warning signs were clear. Take Eldorado, a sprawling suburb of São Paulo. In Brazil’s boom of 2005-13 it had hopes of becoming solidly middle class. A year ago, as the country’s election campaign got under way, people in Eldorado were fed up with rising crime, unemployment and a sense of official neglect. “When we go out we don’t know whether we will return alive,” lamented Cleber Souza, the president of Sítio Joaninha, a formerfavela. In what had been a stronghold of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT), several people said they would consider voting for Mr Bolsonaro. “He’s a cry for justice from the society,” said Anderson Carignano, the owner of a largeDIYshop. “People want a return to order.”
Behind the discontent lies a toxic cocktail of crime, corruption, poor public services and economic stagnation. With only 8% of the world’s population, Latin America suffers a third of its murders. In many countries, the rule of law remains weak.
In the 1980s, many of the new democratic governments inherited economies bankrupted by debt-financed statist protectionism. The adoption of market reforms known as the “Washington consensus” provided a modest boost to growth. The democratic governments gradually expanded social provision. After the turn of the century many economies benefited from a surge in exports of minerals, oil and foodstuffs thanks to the vast demand from China. Poverty fell dramatically, while income inequality declined steadily.
Carnival’s over
The end of the commodity boom has brought a sharp correction. Taken as a whole, the region’s economies expanded at an average annual rate of 4.1% between 2003 and 2012; since 2013 that figure has shrunk to only 1%, taking income per head with it (see chart 2). Some countries, mainly on the Pacific seaboard, have done better. Others have done much worse. Brazil is barely recovering from a deep recession in 2015-16; Argentina is stuck in a long-term pattern of economic stop-go. Mexico has grown by only 2% annually for decades.
The underlying causes include low productivity, rigid regulation, a lack of incentives for small companies to expand or become more efficient, and corrupt political structures benefiting from the status quo. For a time an expanding labour force saw the region grow despite the problems. That demographic bonus is now mostly spent. In many countries the working-age population will start shrinking in the 2020s. As economies have faltered poverty has edged up and the decline in income inequality has slowed. This has exacerbated an existing crisis of political representation.
Against this bleak landscape, the worldwide ills of democracy have taken an acute form in Latin America. “There’s a kind of repudiation of the whole political class,” says Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a sociologist and former Brazilian president. Political structures “don’t correspond any more to the moment societies are living in,” he adds. That is partly a result of the digital-communications revolution in which social media have bypassed intermediaries. Political traditions also play a role.
Latin America has a long history ofcaudillosand populists, sometimes embodied in the same person, such as Argentina’s Juan Perón. The strongman tradition stemmed from long and bloody wars of independence two centuries ago, and from the difficulties of governing large territories, often with challenging terrains and ethnically diverse populations. Many countries were rich in natural resources. Latin American societies, partly because of the legacies of colonialism and slavery, were long scarred by extreme income inequality. That combination of natural wealth and inequality bred resentments that populists exploited.
But there is another political tradition in the region, one of middle-class democratic reformism, honed in the long struggle to turn the constitutionalism present at the birth of Latin American republics into a lasting reality. In various guises, this political current was in the ascendant in many countries for much of the past 40 years. Now the integrity and competence of the politicians that embodied it have been called into question.
Voters abandoned such dominant parties as Brazil’sPTand Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party because “they were hypocritical in talking of the public interest while being inward-looking, self-serving and corrupt,” says Laurence Whitehead of Oxford University.
Corruption usually diminishes as countries get richer. Yet Latin American politics seem, for a mainly middle-income region, unusually grubby. The region’s states are marked by heavy-handed regulatory overkill mixed, in practice, with wide discretionary power for officials. The commodity boom meant more resources flowing into state coffers, and thus more money for politicians to steal.
The investigation known as Lava Jato (car wash), originating in Brazil into bribery by Odebrecht and other construction companies across Latin America, has exposed the scale of the corruption to the public, leading to a widespread perception that the region’s entire political class is corrupt. In fact the investigations are a sign of overdue change. The traditional impunity of the powerful in Latin America has been challenged by independent judiciaries and investigative journalism, both a product of democracy. Brazil has seen scores of politicians convicted on charges of corruption. In Peru four former presidents have been under investigation. One of them, Alan García, committed suicide last month as police arrived at his house in Lima to jail him for alleged corruption.
Off-centre
Ironically, populists have been relatively untouched by scandal, either because they control the judiciary and the media or because a halo of the saviour of the people surrounds them. It is often centrist parties that pay the political price. That is partly because they have struggled to practise good government. The reformist zeal of the early years of the democratic wave has fallen victim to two recent tendencies in politics: fragmentation and polarisation.
Brazil’s new Congress contains 30 parties, up from five in 1982. The 130 seats in Peru’s single-chamber parliament are divided among 11 groupings. In Colombia’s parliament, once dominated by Liberals and Conservatives, there are now 16 parties. Even Chile’s stable system is starting to splinter. One reason is Latin America’s unique—and awkward—combination of directly elected presidencies and legislatures chosen by proportional representation. Party switching carries a low cost.
In some countries politics has become a way of making money, or a brazen means to promote private business interests. In Peru, for example, such interests often buy their way into parties, undermining party solidity and the representative character of the country’s democracy, according to Alberto Vergara, a political scientist at Lima’s Pacifico University.
Another factor is that the old left-right divide is no longer the only cleavage. Evangelical conservatives are pushing back against liberal secularism on issues such as abortion and gay rights. In Costa Rica, which had a two-party system until the turn of the century, an evangelical Christian gospel singer of little previous political experience made it to a run-off presidential election last year (though he lost). As a consequence of fragmentation, governments often lack the majorities required to push through unpopular but necessary reforms.
Recent elections have seen a swing to the right in South America and to the left in Mexico and Central America. In both cases that has involved the alternation of power that is normal in democracies. But the switch has been accompanied by extreme political polarisation. That has been both cause and consequence of the collapse of the moderate reformist centre. And it risks making politics more unstable.
Yet there are some grounds for optimism. Latin American democracy is more resilient than outward appearances might suggest. Opinion polls suggest that only around a fifth to a quarter of Latin Americans might welcome authoritarian government. In some countries checks and balances provide safeguards. In Brazil, for example, Mr Bolsonaro’s government is a ramshackle assortment of generals, economic liberals and social conservatives. “Bolsonaro isn’t a party, he isn’t anything, he’s a momentary mood,” thinks Mr Cardoso, who trusts in the countervailing strength of the legislature, a free media and social organisations. “You have to be forever vigilant but I don’t think the institutions here are going to embark on an authoritarian line.”
In Mexico, where opposition toAMLOis weak and checks and balances on executive power are only incipient, there may be greater cause for concern. But the president’s popularity may decline as the economy weakens. And the centre is not dead everywhere.
Amid the dust from the collapse of old party systems, there are glimpses of democratic renewal, led by a new generation of activists. There’s “an ecosystem of new politics in Brazil,” explains Eduardo Mufarej, an investment banker who has set up Renova, a privately funded foundation to train young democratic leaders in politics, ethics and policy. In the 2018 elections, 120 of Renova’s graduates ran (for 22 different parties). Ten were elected to the federal Congress and seven to state legislatures. They are trying to convince the public that not all politicians are self-serving.
One was Tabata Amaral, a 25-year-old activist for better public education elected as a federal deputy for São Paulo. She mobilised 5,000 volunteers through social media; her campaign cost 1.25m reais ($320,000), raised through individual donations. To cut costs, she has teamed up with two other Renova graduates (in different parties) to share congressional staff. Her first brush with the old order was to find that the apartment assigned to her in Brasília by the Congress was illegally occupied by the son of a long-standing legislator, who refused to move.
Julio Guzmán tried to run for president in Peru in 2016. He was thwarted when the electoral authority barred his candidacy on a technicality. He has spent the time since travelling round the country building a new centrist party. He insists that he is engaged in “a different way of doing politics” in which all members are scrutinised and donations will be made public. His Morado party is aimed at “the new Peruvian, who looks to the future, is entrepreneurial and from the emerging middle classes”.
Poles apart
Polarisation in Colombia’s election last year led to a run-off between Iván Duque, the conservative victor, and Gustavo Petro, a leftist who until recently was a fan of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. But there, too, is a demand for a new politics, thinks Claudia López, the vice-presidential candidate of the centrist Green Party (which narrowly failed to make the run-off). The task, she says, is to restore the trust of citizens in politicians. That partly involves competing in the emotional terrain occupied by populists. But it also means a different approach. “Nobody is interested in being a member of a hierarchical political organisation anymore,” she says. “Those of us in parties have to adapt to citizen causes or we’re dead.”
These are green shoots in a forest of dead wood. But they are a sign of the dynamism of Latin American societies—democracy’s greatest asset. Latin America remains the third most-democratic region in the world according to the Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The past four decades have created a culture of citizen rights and political participation. But democracy’s defences in Latin America are relatively frail, as Venezuela shows. All the evidence is that citizens want a new political order, in which politicians are more concerned with public services, security and the rule of law rather than lining their pockets. And they want it now.
National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the U.S. is sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East.
Speaking during a campaign rally in Florida, President Donald Trump raised the prospect of holding talks with Iran over the nuclear deal he withdrew the U.S. from.
"I hope to be able at some point, maybe it won't happen, possibly won't, to sit down and work out a fair deal, we're not looking to hurt anybody ... we just don't want (Iran) to have nuclear weapons,"Trump said Wednesday in Panama City Beach.
Trump's remarks followed an announcement Wednesday from Iran's President Hassan Rouhani announced that the Middle East nation would stop complying withtwo provisions in the nuclear accord it signed with world powers.
Rouhani said Iran would reduce its compliance with the 2015 dealin response to new restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, part of a broader U.S. campaign to ratchet up economic and military pressure on Tehran.
Iran's declaration came on the one-year anniversary ofTrump's unilateral withdrawalfrom the agreement that limited Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Trump walked away from the deal he has described as the "worst ever negotiated" because he does not believe it does enough to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions or its ballistic missile programs and support for terrorism.
In his announcement, Rouhani said Iran will keep excess low-enriched uranium and "heavy water" from its nuclear program inside the country – as opposed to selling it internationally – in a move that effectively amounts to a partial breach of the deal.
The Trump administration said last week it would sanction any country or business that purchased those products from Iran.
Rouhani set a 60-day deadline for new terms to the nuclear accord, absent negotiations withthe United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the European Union. He said that if those terms aren't met, Iran will resume higher uranium enrichment, the process that creates nuclear fuel.
"We felt that the nuclear deal needs a surgery, and the painkiller pills of the last year have been ineffective," Rouhani said in a nationally televised address. "This surgery is for saving the deal, not destroying it."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in Moscow, tweeted, "After a year of patience, Iran stops measures that U.S. has made impossible to continue." Zarif warned that world powers have "a narrowing window to reverse this."
American officials on Wednesday slapped yet more economic penalties on Iran. The White House announced sanctions aimed at blocking Iran from exporting iron, steel, aluminum and copper, which it said were the regime’s largest non-petroleum-related sources of export revenue.
Brian Hook, the State Department's special representative for Iran and senior policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Iran intends to expand its nuclear weapons program. "That is in defiance of international norms and yet another attempt by the regime at nuclear blackmail," he said.
Experts said Iran's move is a relatively soft counterpunch to the Trump administration's intense campaign to isolate the regime politically and economically. Some suggested the Trump administration's policies seem designed to achieve this exact escalation.
"This was pretty predictable," said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the Crisis Group, a nonpartisan group focused on preventing conflict.
“The U.S. has tried to bring Iran to its knees with its maximum pressure campaign in a minimum amount of time, and for about a year, the Iranians demonstrated restraint and remained committed to their obligations under the nuclear deal," he said.
"But they have increasingly less to lose because the U.S. sanctions have effectively deprived them of all the benefits that the nuclear deal promised," Vaez said.
Vaez said Iran's response was "cleverly devised" to shift the blame to the Trump administration "because the U.S. last week basically rendered it illegal or a sanctionable act for any country to buy the excess ... heavy water and low-enriched uranium."
Others echoed that assessment and said Iran’s announcement did not necessarily signal a desire by the regime to become a nuclear-armed nation.
"I think we should be very careful about assuming that Iran stepping away from the JCPOA means stepping closer to the bomb," said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, a dual American Iranian national who runs a news and research agency focused on Iran’s economy. He noted that Iran is still a party to an international nuclear nonproliferation treaty and has not seriously pursued a nuclear weapons program for over a decade.
"So far, Iran remains committed to the deal, and we should not trap ourselves in a deal/bomb binary," said London-based Batmanghelidj.
The Pentagon redirectedaircraft bombers and a carrier strike groupto the Middle East, citing intercepted intelligence indicating that Iran or its proxies in the region might be preparing attacks on American military troops and facilities.
Last month, Trump designatedIran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an elite wing of the nation's military that also plays a large economic role, a terrorist organization.
The economic sanctions the White House has imposed since withdrawing from the nuclear deal officially target Iran's government and industries but they have also hindered Iranians' access to essential medicines and consumer products.
Pompeo took anunscheduled trip to Iraqon Tuesday where he met with Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and briefed Iraqi officials on the "increased threat stream that we had seen" from Iranian forces.
"We talked to them about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it’s able to adequately protect Americans in their country," Pompeo said.
"I think everyone will look at the Iranian decision and have to make their own assessment about how much increased risk there is," he said.
There are about 5,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq.
America's top diplomat gave an address Wednesday in London where the topic of rising tensions between the United States and Iran came up again.
"They take hostages and repress their own people. I urge the U.K. to stand with us to rein in the regime’s bloodletting and lawlessness, not soothe the Ayatollahs angry at our decision to pull out of the nuclear deal," Pompeo said in Britain's capital.
President Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated the nuclear deal, sought to block Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons through diplomacy. The Trump administration, by contrast, has not been shy in its preference for a campaign of"maximum pressure" on Iranand has cut off all contact with the regime.
Vaez said Iran's announcement was a measured response and designed "mostly to serve as leverage in order to compel the remaining parties in the deal to throw Iran an economic lifeline in the face of U.S. sanctions."
European signatories to the nuclear accord have attempted to stay in the nuclear agreement by establishing a financial mechanism, known as INSTEX, intended to help them circumvent U.S. sanctions, but it has not been fully implemented.
Animosity between the United States and Iran stretches back decades to when the CIA helped install a dictator as Iran's leader in 1953. A hostage crisis in the U.S. Embassyin Tehran coincided with the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton say confronting Iran is key to achieving peace and security in the Middle East, and both men are among Iran's fiercest critics in Washington. Bolton was instrumental in advocating for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
They provided few details about the nature of the threat that led to the sending of a carrier strike group and bomber task force to the Persian Gulf. Iran-backed militias killed 608 U.S. soldiers in Iraq from 2003-2011, according to the Pentagon. Tehran is regularly accused of being the largest state sponsor of terrorism, but the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has repeatedly verified that the regime has adhered to the 2015 nuclear pact – even after the U.S. departure last May.
"The (nuclear deal) is doing what it was designed to do: preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. As such, the deal is too important to be allowed to die," the directors of 18 foreign affairs think tanks and research institutes wrote in a joint letter published Wednesday as Iran signaled that the accord could totally unravel.
"I’m deeply worried that the Trump administration is leading us toward an unnecessary war with Iran," said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a statement late Tuesday. "Let me make one thing clear: The Trump administration has no legal authority to start a war against Iran without the consent of Congress."
Batmanghelidj said, "Iranians perceive something deeply vindictive about the way the Trump administration is treating their country."
That doesn't mean that people are growing more supportive of the Islamic Republic.
"It is possible to be dismayed with both the U.S. government and their own government," he said.
