The first new president of a country to be sworn in this year was Evo Morales in January in Bolivia, who, apart from undertaking a difficult task, bears enormous popular expectations owing to his political background and the successful electoral campaign that led him to victory in the first round.

The first new president of a country to be sworn in this year was Evo Morales in January in Bolivia, who, apart from undertaking a difficult task, bears enormous popular expectations owing to his political background and the successful electoral campaign that led him to victory in the first round.

Evo has just sewn a complex negotiation in Congress to define the criteria whereby a National Constitutional Assembly is to be called, and despite the majority his Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) political party obtained in Congress, altering the Constitution requires a broader majority, which forced him to cut a deal with the right. (Read more).

Socialist Michelle Bachelet became president of Chile on March 12 at a ceremony attended by 120 government representatives and colleagues such as Hugo Chavéz, Néstor Kirchner, Tabaré Vasquez, and president Lula. She is the fourth representative of the “Concertación”, a governmental coalition formed by the Christian Democratic, Socialist, and Radical parties to be elected since direct elections were reintroduced in the country after the defeat of the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1988 Plebiscite that sought to approve a new constitution and extend the general’s term a few more years.

Chile’s transition from a dictatorial regime to a democracy was much swifter than Brazil’s. Yet it was negotiated in such a manner as to preserve many of the right-wing’s interests, including several aspects of the economic policy, impunity for those involved in the political repression, high budgets for the military, among other items. General Augusto Pinochet himself was appointed senator for life with the objective of securing his backstage political maneuvers and granting him immunity against likely lawsuits. These agreements ensured a 15-year majority in Congress for the right, economic policy stayed its course, and today Chile is a highly open economy, having signed scores of bilateral free trade agreements. While its GDP has had significant growth, income concentration is one of the highest in the continent.

The two first “Concertación” presidents were Christian Democrats. The third was Socialist Ricardo Lagos, and it was during his tenure that the Pinochet regime’s most corrupt side was revealed, adding to the previously exposed human rights violations. Bachelet’s swearing in is paradigmatic in that it involves a woman identified with the Chilean Socialist Party program and elected president in an extremely conservative society. She has already announced her cabinet’s composition: 10 women and 10 men.

Also in March is to be sworn in Haiti’s president-elect, René Preval, who ruled the country from 1996 to 2001. He also belongs to former president Bertrand Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party, who resigned or was forced to step down in 2003, the distance between both concepts being too narrow in face of the circumstances. Since then the country has been occupied by UN troops (MINUSTAH) led by Brazil, an occupation which the UN plans to extend until August 2007 at least.

If the UN troops’ tutelage renders it difficult for the new president to govern with full autonomy, the scarcity of means and the international community’s feeble assistance pose even greater obstacles. In the case of countries that went through fierce internal conflicts, as Haiti and East Timor, promises of development aid take very long to become a reality, whereas traditional IMF and World Bank loans are readily made available for those rulers willing to accept their conditionalities, which usually only contribute to worsen crises.

Besides, so far Haiti has no new parliament and the election scheduled to be held in the second half of March was adjourned sine die, which is most likely going to cause trouble to the new president’s inauguration.

The challenge posed to progressive and left-wing parties and administrations is what they can do to help Haiti solve its social blights, seek a path towards development, and reduce American and French interventionism in its domestic affairs. It’s worth recalling that the population mobilized massively during the elections to guarantee the result, since there were signs of fraud in the balloting process. Still, the mobilization also demonstrated Haitians’ great expectations in that the results bring about changes for the better in the continent’s poorest country. Disappointment will inevitably be accompanied by the masses taking to the streets particularly if foreign forces are involved.

In Costa Rica, in February, Oscar Sanches Árias was the winner of the presidential elections. He had already been president from 1986 to 1990 and in 1987 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the peace negotiations in Central America. Nevertheless, he defeated his opponent, Ottón Sollis, by a slight margin of 1.1% of the votes.

Árias was the candidate of the social democratic National Liberation Party- PLN- without the support of some of the party’s most prominent figures, such as former president Luis Alberto Monge, who basically accused him of serving the interests of the private sector. In fact, the polls winner defends the ratification of CAFTA, the FTA signed by Central America and the Dominican Republic with the United States, and is also in favor of privatizing telecommunications. As president, during his first term, he promoted a very tough structural adjustment mandated by the IMF, implementing the first neo-liberal measures in the country.

Strictly speaking, the PLN has long abandoned its classic social democratic program. For instance, there are no trade unions inside Costa Rica’s private companies. Initiatives attempting to create them cost the jobs of those who dare so, at times of whole groups of workers, and there is no legislation to curb such arbitrary practices.

His opponent had been Árias’ Minister of Planning and at the time resigned over disagreements in relation to the structural adjustment plan. He ran for the PAC-the Citizen Action Party-, created in 2002, when it surprised many by electing 24 federal deputies. Sollis came quite close to victory in a campaign in which he opposed CAFTA and stressed the need for adopting participatory and corruption-combating measures. His rise to runner-up broke with the traditional bipartisan dispute waged by the PLN and social democratic PUSC, both weakened by a succession of corruption scandals (Read more).

The more conservative right won parliamentarian elections in Canada late last January but, as a minority government, it will lack the muscle to pass more radical measures, particularly those seeking an alignment with the US foreign policy. The new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, replaces liberal Paul Martin, whose party stood in office for 11 years.

Canada is characteristically more European than American with regard to its welfare state and its political-administrative system. It also has to deal with a strong separatist movement in the francophone province of Quebec. It is composed of ten provinces which hold considerable administrative autonomy, including in such matters as labor laws and social policies. Actually, its welfare state model is historically a tributary of provincial legislations set in place by social democratic governments at the local level, given that the NDP-New Democratic Party-has never ruled at the national level.

Its parliamentarian system has 4 major political parties: Tories, Liberals, the Bloc Québécois, and the NDP. Seats won in the latest election were, according to this same sequence of parties, 124, 103, 51, and 29, plus one elected independent candidate, thus completing Parliament’s 308 seats.

A minority government is not likely to pass much of its program and will tend to become weaker, which could lead to a call for elections in two years’ time.

On March 12, Colombia held legislative elections to elect 102 senators and 166 deputies, but as usual turnout was low, less than 50%. Everyday violence and fear make it difficult for Colombians to follow the progressive trend of the Latin-American electorate. Recently denounced ties between important candidates and paramilitary groups have cost some candidacies, but among suspects, almost 10 were elected, and president Uribe gained an absolute majority in Congress. Left-wing Pólo Democrático Alternativo rose slightly, obtaining almost 1 million votes and will run in next May’s presidential elections with candidate Carlos Gavíria.

For the upcoming Peruvian elections on April 9 (Andean Parliament, Congress and presidential) there is a statistic tie between the Partido Popular Cristiano’s candidate, Lourdes Flores, representing right-wing Alianza Unidad Nacional, and Ollanta Humala, from the Unión por el Peru party. Former president Alan Garcia, running for the Partido Aprista Peruano, comes in third, a scenario that points to a run-off election on a date either in May or June pending definition.

Humala is considered by the press to be the candidate more closely aligned with “the wave of political changes” under way in Latin America on account of his nationalist stance, despite his failed attempt to ally with the more traditional left, who, in turn, accuses him of being conservative. He is a retired lieutenant colonel and his party, the UPP, had among its founders, in 1994, former UN Secretary-General Javier de Pérez del Cuellar.

Now we have to wait and see, for in the case of ex-president Lucio Gutiérrez of Ecuador, who frustrated all expectations, there was great hope that his would be a progressive government since it was supported by many important social organizations. Anyhow, Alejandro Toledo, whose term is about to finish, will leave his successor a “bomb”: on April 7 he will be signing the Free Trade Agreement with the US (For more on this subject log on to http://www.telesurtv.net/10marlatin14.php and on opinion polls read: Ollanta Humala crece en encuestas para elecciones peruanas.).