The politics of quarantines and reopenings - August 2020

Latin America's politicians have not been punished for poor coronavirus responses (so far).

The approval rating for almost every leader in Latin America is at or above where it was six months ago. No president has seen a major drop in their approval rating from pre-pandemic levels.

That is a stunning statement for a region that has over a quarter million people dead, almost a third of the global total in spite of being only 8% of the world’s population.

The leaders who have done poorly, either in terms of response or in terms of the numbers of cases and deaths, have not been punished. The approval rating for President Lopez Obrador in Mexico is about where it was in February. President Bolsonaro in Brazil has gained a few points. In Peru, where the number of reported deaths per capita is highest, President Vizcarra remains popular.

The leaders who responded decisively in terms of locking down their countries saw a surge in their approval ratings, but then a drop as the crisis lingered on. Duque, Fernandez and Piñera, for example, all have approval ratings above their February numbers in spite of a recession and thousands of deaths in each country.

Not everything about presidential approval rating can be explained by coronavirus response. Every country has its own narrative and local issues such as judicial reform in Argentina, the delayed election in Bolivia, Uribe’s arrest in Colombia, and Bolsonaro catching coronavirus and being bitten by emus in Brazil. 

Still, the pandemic response and associated economic collapse remains the biggest issue in many countries. Presidents can look at their neighbors and see that countries with significantly higher mortality rates and leaders who failed to take the crisis seriously have not yet faced political consequences.

The size of the bubble is the reported number of deaths per capita from coronavirus (European CDC via Our World in Data). The x-axis is quarantine strictness between 1 April and 15 August (based on data from Oxford’s Coronavirus Response Tracker). The y-axis is the current approval rating for the president based on an aggregate of recent polls. A dynamic version of the map is here.

Leaders will be less willing to lock down moving forward

The region is going through extreme quarantine fatigue (read this El Pais article for some great data journalism on the subject) and there is growing pressure in many countries to drop restrictions on businesses, tourism and the movement of people. Even if polling shows support for some restrictions remaining, protests by citizens who want to go back to work and complaints from business owners are forcing national and local governments to offer concessions and halt restrictions.

No credible politician would openly make the declaration “I’m just going to let an additional 20,000 people die because it won’t impact my poll numbers.” Many of these leaders do care about the health and safety of their populations. But if populations aren’t going to punish presidents over higher death rates, then the incentives are there to keep economic activity moving no matter the health risk.

Over the coming months, as each country reopens various sectors, governments are going to be far less willing to lock down again or reimpose restrictions. If countries reopen early and face a wave 1.5 of coronavirus (see scenario C from this report), governments will be slower to react and it could overwhelm health systems that thought they had gotten past the worst point of the health crisis.

Approval ratings are up; Incumbents are losing

In spite of what I wrote above regarding approval ratings, Latin America remains in an anti-incumbent moment. The last five elections (Argentina, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and the Dominican Republic) have gone against the incumbent party and Bolivia will do it again next month. 

Although presidents haven’t seen their approval ratings take a dive yet due to poor coronavirus responses, that doesn’t mean they won’t be punished in the near future with protests or in mid-term legislative or general elections. This crisis is less than six months in and still has a year to go before a vaccine is widely available in the region. The political narratives from August 2020 about the coronavirus response may not hold true a year from today.

Thanks for reading

I’ll run an open thread tomorrow. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about any of this week’s reports. 

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