Politics and Polls - 5 January 2022
Latin America's 2022 elections outlook.
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Today’s newsletter covers the region’s elections outlook for 2022.
2022 marks another busy election year. A month from tomorrow, Costa Rica will hold the first round of its presidential election, followed by a second round in April between the top two candidates. Colombia will conduct the first round of its presidential election in late May, with a runoff scheduled for mid-June. Finally, Brazil’s presidential election will take place in early October, and a runoff is slated for late October.
Peru and Nicaragua will hold local and regional elections this year. No date has been announced for Haiti’s delayed constitutional referendum and municipal, legislative, and presidential elections, and governance challenges loom.
Latin America 2022 Elections Calendar
February 6, 2022 - Costa Rica (Presidential and Legislative)
March 13, 2022 - Colombia (Legislative)
April 3, 2022 - Costa Rica (Presidential Second Round)
May 29, 2022 - Colombia (General)
June 19, 2022 - Colombia (Presidential Second Round)
October 2, 2022 - Brazil (Presidential)
October 7, 2022 - Peru (Regional and Municipal)
October 31, 2022 - Brazil (Presidential Second Round)
December 10, 2022 - Peru (Regional and Municipal Second Round)
Dates Unannounced: Haiti (Referendum, Municipal, Presidential and Legislative), Nicaragua (Municipal)
Latin America’s recent and upcoming elections point to a continued anti-incumbency push. Several presidential elections conducted during the pandemic delivered victories to the challengers of incumbent or establishment candidates or parties, including Chile, Honduras, Peru, and Bolivia..
The current polls for the three upcoming elections in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Brazil show early promise for leftwing candidates. Though not polling in first place, José María Villalta has gained traction in Costa Rica’s presidential polls and is a progressive environmentalist. Gustavo Petro has held a moderate but consistent lead in the early months of Colombia’s race, and Lula has polled consistently above Bolsonaro in Brazil.
There is an argument that this is yet another “shift to the left,” but there are few signs in public opinion polls that the region has ideologically shifted significantly towards the left of the political-economic spectrum. Instead, this may be better seen as an accident of fortunate timing. Out of power leftwing candidates are taking advantage of an anti-incumbent moment after a decade of centrist or rightwing presidents governing poorly in the 2010s and then hitting the economic headwinds of the pandemic in 2020.
The polling for upcoming elections and results from recent elections underscore that Latin American voters are voting against the status quo more so than for staunch leftism. Outsider candidates on the right have made significant strides too. See for example, José Antonio Kast in Chile, an emergent libertarian wing in Argentina, or Rodolfo Hernández who jumped in Colombia’s presidential polls in late 2021. Establishment left figures and parties have also been dealt significant defeats. Guillermo Lasso defeated Correa’s heir apparent, Andrés Arauz, last February in Ecuador’s Presidential election. Argentina’s Peronists and AMLO’s Morena party lost seats in both countries’ 2021 midterm elections.
We’re going to see this debate throughout 2022: Is it a shift to the left or vote against the establishment? It matters because if it’s an anti-incumbent vote, it creates space for other rightwing, centrist or even new leftwing candidates (or populist outsiders who don’t fall neatly on the political ideology spectrum; see Parisi in Chile) to emerge, compete and shake up the race. If this is about anti-establishment sentiment, then voters are looking for new faces and the current leading candidates in this year’s elections - Figueres, Petro and Lula - are all long-time establishment figures, two of them former presidents, who could be more easily disrupted than the current political narrative suggests.
Incoming presidents will struggle to deliver on their promises due to widespread economic constraints. But if the end result is leftwing candidates winning the presidencies, does it still matter what the reason for their victory is? Absolutely. The reason for voters' decisions shapes the new presidents’ support in their respective Congresses, their political capital and their ability to pass their agenda.
Many presidents will overreach, feeling their win comes with a full mandate for their agenda rather than simply a rejection of their predecessor. Adding to this challenge is the fact that whoever is elected, no matter which country or the candidate’s ideological leaning, will face significant economic constraints on any spending initiatives they hope to implement as well as political constraints on efforts to increase taxes or change spending in a way to ease the economic and debt challenges.
Continued high unemployment, inflation, debates over debt and unsteady economic conditions may shorten new presidents’ honeymoon periods and prime the region for social unrest in 2023.