Why a ‘pink tide’ won’t surge even if Lula clinches Brazil race

If Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins Brazil’s presidential runoff Sunday, his victory would mark the 11th leftist elected in the region in less than five years – a wave harking back to the so-called pink tide, when Latin America’s brand of left-wing politics upended the political status quo.

It’s been a turbulent period for politics around the globe: A party with fascist roots won the Italian elections in September, election deniers are poised to win seats in the U.S. November midterms, and Europe’s brand of far-right populism has continued to inch toward the mainstream for the past several years.

Here in Latin America, deep-seated polarization and swings toward the authoritarian have started to define the political landscape, too. So this weekend all eyes are on Brazil, where Lula, as the two-time former leftist president is popularly known, faces incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who has strained Latin America’s largest democracy by spreading fake news about the media and governmental institutions and deepening polarization. 

If Lula wins the runoff, Latin America’s largest economies, including Chile, Colombia, and Argentina, will be led by the left, countering right-wing populism and buoying hopes among supporters that the region can usher in the liberal agendas reminiscent of Latin America’s initial “left turn” – and on social issues go even further.

But experts caution that, if victorious, Lula could soon discover what leftists already in office have learned: There’s no re-creating the pink tide of the early 2000s. The economic and political context has changed dramatically in the region, leaving few leftist governments the funds for programs aimed at closing inequality gaps. Growing political polarization means shorter grace periods for presidents. That can in turn lead to anti-incumbent sentiment that undermines hope for a true alternative.

“Nobody who is president right now in Latin America, or aims to be president, can expect to be popular or to implement huge reforms,” says Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian school and think tank. “That shapes the entire political environment.” 

Lula, who is projected to win in the Oct. 30 vote, polling with around 52%, has pledged to reduce inequality and improve education and health services. When challenged on the execution of his promises, he often points to the past.

“I can do it because I’ve done it before,” he told one Brazilian interviewer recently.

Lula brought about vast change as president of Brazil between 2003 and 2010, creating scores of universities and technical schools, slowing the deforestation of the Amazon, establishing Brazil as a diplomatic presence on the world stage, and perhaps most importantly, lifting an estimated 30 million people out of poverty.

The pink tide is often associated with populist or charismatic leftists who signaled a distinct change from neoliberal agendas. They were “pink” leftists – not communist red – and took advantage of China’s hunger for commodities like iron ore, soy, copper, and oil to fund generous social welfare programs. Income inequality fell in practically every Latin American country during the first 10 years of the 2000s, and the results were even greater in countries led by the left, according to a recent Tulane University study.  

But that accomplishment was marred by widespread corruption scandals that implicated many of these leftist governments themselves, including Lula, who briefly served time in prison before charges against him were annulled.

“I’m not sure people want to go back to the 2000s, because that period of time in a lot of people’s minds is associated very deeply with corruption,” says Nicolás Saldías, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Washington. “They don’t trust the people in power at that time to do anything good.”

A new era

Many gains in poverty reduction were eroded as conservatives started winning office and stopped spending on social programs – and with the arrival of COVID-19. Now amid high rates of inflation and lower prices – and demand – for Latin American commodities from China, governments in the region simply don’t have the cash they once had.

The pink tide became a movement of like-minded leaders – many of them allies – across the region. But the leftists in office today are a “much more heterogeneous group of leaders and parties,” says Christina Ewig, professor of public affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Peru’s current president won on a Marxist ticket, while a former student organizer is at the helm in Chile, and an ex-guerrilla with years of mainstream politicking won the presidency in Colombia. What they share is an increased commitment to social inclusion – and that could ripple out across the region.

Many governments are now more socially progressive than their ideological predecessors, those that lasted roughly from 1999 to 2012. What they may be curbed from spending on welfare programs, they could make up for by putting more focus on legislation around inclusivity and protections, from Indigenous rights to access to abortion or environmental protection.

“While the left remains anachronistic in several ways ... it has changed quite significantly over the last 20 years,” Dr. Stuenkel says. “Growing concern about racism, women’s and LGBT rights, and the environment are proof of that.”  

President Alberto Fernández legalized abortion in Argentina in 2021. Colombia’s new administration introduced a bill for a ministry of equality and equity this month. If Lula wins, he’s expected to put a premium on protecting the Brazilian Amazon.

Cycle of polarization

Although moves like these are often in response to citizen demands and a modern ethos on human rights, they also fuel polarization and culture wars.

President Bolsonaro shocked many with his positive performance in Brazil’s first-round vote earlier this month. His 2018 victory was interpreted broadly as a rejection of Lula’s Workers’ Party and the corruption that scarred its nearly four terms in power, not a vote of confidence for right-wing populism.

Over the past four years, President Bolsonaro downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy has sputtered, and large swaths of the middle class have fallen back into poverty. Since the runoff campaign got underway three weeks ago, Brazil’s electoral court has sanctioned Mr. Bolsonaro’s camp several times for spreading fake news. 

If he wins over the weekend, that suggests more support for right-wing leadership in Brazil. If he loses, though, some question whether we’re seeing another leftist shift in the region at all, or whether the growing map of leftist presidents is also anti-incumbentism.

Mr. Saldías says he’s skeptical about any narrative of the left returning to power in the region as a symbol of hope or faith in its promises. “The initial pink tide was real,” he says. “There was actual hope. But those hopes were dashed.”

The swinging pendulum of politics has left many voters disillusioned. At a newspaper kiosk on Avenida Faria Lima in São Paulo, Jefferson Lemos isn’t optimistic about the next four years – regardless of who wins.

Mr. Lemos is one of the roughly 4% of Brazilians who say they’re still undecided before this weekend’s election. He chose Mr. Bolsonaro in 2018 and cast a protest ballot in the first-round election earlier this month, voting for no one. “One lies as much as the other. You don’t know what’s true and what’s not true,” he says.

Others are convinced their candidate is the only hope for the country. “We’re an underdeveloped country that has everything to be a great country,” says chef Altamiro Junior, who supports Mr. Bolsonaro. “But it all depends on who’s in charge.”