And opposing Castillo is Keiko Fujimori and a whole cast of right-wing forces that are themselves symptomatic of a larger crisis: whereas institutional coups in countries like Bolivia have invoked the authority of the OAS to pretend to defend democracy, Fujimori, the Right, and the media basically tried to annul election results on the grounds that ‘communists’ and ‘Indians’ are not supposed to win elections. Peru in a way is the case in point: we’ve seen the victory of an avowed leftist like Pedro Castillo, but the recent attempt to overturn elections is just a taste of what’s to come. It has proven politically devastating for the ruling elite in the most market-friendly countries of Latin America-Chile, Peru, and Colombia-but that still doesn’t necessarily spell a left-wing victory. However, the political fallout of the current neoliberal crisis in the region-which really came to a head during the pandemic-seems to me to be more volatile.

One of the outcomes of that stalemate was a certain stability and predictability, albeit a tense one. The first Pink Tide came on the heels of a neoliberal crisis that was ultimately settled in an uneasy stalemate, a ‘hegemonic draw’ between insurgent left-wing governments and a capitalist restoration. I think we might need to reach for a different metaphor at this point though - something less predictable than what a ‘tide’ might imply. With left-wing or centre-left governments in Bolivia, Argentina, and Mexico, and encouraging signs of political change in Colombia, Chile, and, perhaps most unexpectedly in Peru, the Left in Latin America is definitely threatening a comeback of some sort. There may be something like a new Pink Tide underway.

Veronika mendoza nuevo peru