U.S. political analysts are having a tough time figuring out the new breed of president that has emerged recently in Latin America. But not to worry. Their Latin American counterparts are not doing any better.
Not really understanding what the new presidents in Brazil and Ecuador are all about, "gringo" pundits, coming from the right, and the "criollo" variety, moored at the left, are each serving its own interests. They have stuffed Brazil's Luiz In‡cio da Silva, universally known by his nickname of Lula, and Ecuador's Lucio GutiŽrrez into the same leftist bag that has been holding Cuba's Fidel Castro for four decades and in which he had to make room more recently for Venezuela's Hugo Ch‡vez. The right, in the U.S., thus wants to show that Latin America is going to the dogs; the left, in Latin America, that its politics are gaining ground.
In a general way it can be said that not even Castro and Ch‡vez belong to the same species. Elected four years ago in fairly clean elections when Venezuelans were fed up with traditional politicians that were robbing the country blind, and reelected since, Ch‡vez turned into a non-ideological, clumsy authoritarian that is managing to ruin an oil-rich country. Never elected, Castro just took over as a dictator some 42 years ago a country that was doing well economically but was dependant on sugar exports Ñ internationally a failing business Ñ and has since driven it into poverty with the help of Marxism.
Venezuela still retains powerful and independent labor and business sectors, as shown by the long-drawn public protests against Ch‡vez. In Cuba there's Castro and the omnipresent state and some courageous, but small and mostly powerless opposition. Change may come about in Venezuela through the political process; change in Cuba can only be expected when Castro dies.
Now to Brazil's Lula and Ecuador's GutiŽrrez, both installed this year and both billed as leftists Ñ rightly so, based on what they were saying when they started to run for the presidency.
A retired colonel, GutiŽrrez burst upon Ecuador's political scene when he joined a January 2000 Indian uprising that, in the midst of one of the biggest economic crisis Ecuador had ever known, toppled unpopular president Jamil Mahuad. GutiŽrrez then transferred power to his army chiefs, who installed then-Vice President Gustavo Noboa as president.
GutiŽrrez, then defined himself as center-left, acknowledged he admired Venezuela's left-wing populist President Ch‡vez, a former paratrooper who had also led a coup Ñ failed in his case Ñ in 1992 against an unpopular president.
As Ch‡vez, GutiŽrrez campaigned dressed in military fatigues and combat boots and got the support of the indigenous movement, left-wing unions and the Communists, as well as of some members of the Socialist Party.
Now Lula. The "working-class" tag hung on him is meant to denote his humble origins as a tapioca salesman and lathe operator, the equivalent of an American politician's log cabin. But 56-six-year-old Lula has not punched a factory's time clock in the last three decades. Since 1975 he was a full-time, salaried union president. He has been a member of the federal Chamber of Deputies and has run, unsuccessfully, for the governorship of S‹o Paulo (once) and for the presidency (three times). As a top labor union official and regular player in state and national elections, Lula has been recognized for the last quarter-century as a full member of Brazil's political establishment, representing the views of his Workers' Party, which are certainly of the left.
But a funny thing happened to both Lula and GutiŽrrez on their way to their respective presidential palaces: they moved considerably to the center so that they could get elected. Funnier still, now that they are presidents, both Lula and GutiŽrrez are giving clear signs by word and deed that they will be governing from the more centrist position they assumed during the campaign, to the great distress and even anger of the extreme-left groups that supported them.
In the case of Ch‡vez there is indeed good reason to see him looking at Castro as an ideological ally, but both Lula and GutiŽrrez have maintained their distance from the views of the Cuba dictator. However, in a weird symbiosis of each group's agenda, the right in the U.S and the left in Latin America are fantasizing that both Lula and GutiŽrrez are governing from the left, disregarding the fact there is not one major decision taken by either president that might suggest anything other than a desire to govern from the centerÑ which is somewhat more to the left in underdeveloped countries than it is today in the U.S. Taking a look at the policies and institutions developed in America under Franklin Delano Roosevelt to deal with the social issues of the day should help in understanding why this is so.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com
