With most of the ballots counted in the first round of the Chilean Presidential election, the centre-right National Renewal Party’s Sebastián Piñera leads leftist former President Eduardo Frei by a 45/31 margin.
Piñera, who would become Chile’s first centre-right President in more than twenty years if he triumphs in the 17th January run-off, has put forward an ambitious - and dare I say, Thatcherite – manifesto.
A Harvard-educated billionaire, Piñera has pledged to privatise large parts of the state-owned Codelco mining firm and to pass significant tax cuts to encourage business growth and investment in the country. His tough approach to crime, disorder and corruption is such that his campaign posters read “Delinquents: the party’s over”.
A Piñera victory on January 17th could signal the start of a strong 2010 for the South American centre-right who have been plagued by years of galling losses to leftist candidates in Venezuela (Hugo Chávez), Brazil (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), Bolivia (Evo Morales), Ecuador (Rafael Correa) and Argentina (Cristina Fernández de Kirchner).
May 30th will see the almost certain election of Álvaro Uribe in Colombia to a third-term as President of Colombia.
Uribe has been arguably the only bright spot for the continent’s centre-right in the past few years, putting Colombia on a sure path to repaying its loans to the IMF and World Bank through the privatization of state-owned utilities and the extension of micro-credit facilities to small businessmen. Significantly, he has also made significant progress towards defeating the FARC paramilitary rebels who have controlled large parts of the country for decades.
The ultimate prize for the South American centre-right would, however, be victory in the second round of Brazilian Presidential election on October 24th.
After two ideologically-confused and painfully corrupt terms in office, the perplexingly yet perpetually popular President Lula is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office. Centrist former health minister and São Paulo state Governor José Serra, who enjoys cordial relations with the liberal conservative Democratas (formerly the Party of the Liberal Front) will likely face Presidential Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff in a second-round run-off.
Serra currently enjoys 20%+ opinion poll lead over Rousseff - although this will narrow significantly as election day approaches.
Brazil’s recent discovery of “black gold” – an enormous oil field stretching from just outside Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay to Angolan territorial waters – has elevated importance of defeating the President’s hand-picked candidate to a new level.
The Lula Presidency has charted a curious course in international relations, ensuring strong relations with both the Bush and Obama administrations while at the same time extending the diplomatic red carpet to Iran’s fascist dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezeula’s Hugo Chávez. On a trade level, Lula has sought to boost Brazilian manufacturing strength through tax incentives and has spoken up against US and EU protectionist trade measures.
Rousseff, however, is far to the left of her mentor. Her political skills were honed as an organizer for Marxist guerilla organisations during Brazil’s military dictatorship and she was a stalwart of Leonel Brizola's far-left Brazilian Labour Party. Her antipathy towards foreign owned businesses (in particular oil companies) is well known in Brazil, as is her ambition to sit atop of a alliance of South American leftist governments – something Brazil’s newly-found oil wealth would give her the economic and diplomatic power to do.
On the other hand, Serra offers a realistic - if imperfect - solutions to Brazil's many and varied problems.
An economist who was exiled during the military dictatorship, he has taken a centrist position as Governor of Sao Paulo, focussing upon bringing around structural improvements to the state's transportation and education systems to encourage investment and business growth.
He and his party - the Brazilian Social Democratic Party - have, however, closely aligned themselves with the popular President on expanding social welfare entitlements yet have to date espoused none of the forced equity redistribution and land reform advocated by elements of Lula's Workers' Party.
He is committed to the ongoing repayment of Brazil's international debts and has stated a preference for preference for keeping inflation at a minimum. He similarly favours eliminating the endless red tape which paralyses Brazilian businesses, including the particularly pernicious licença de funcionamento which pushes the time it takes to register and open a business to more than four months.
Serra has been vocally critical of Lula's repeated dalliances with foreign dictators and could reliably be expected to pursue a tougher line on human rights violations and corruption in the region. It is one thing, Serra argues, to have diplomatic relations with dictatorships but another "to welcome their leaders in your home".
Battered from years of electoral setbacks, the South American right face an uphill struggle but 2010 appears to offer hope of some green shoots of recovery.
