The year begins and we cannot fail to analyze and review the experience that 2024 left us.
THE RIGHT WING RECHARGED
There were elections in several Latin American countries. In February, Nayib Bukele was reelected in El Salvador, with 85 % of the electoral roll, in elections denounced as irregular by the opposition, among other things, because the Constitution does not allow the reelection of the president.
Beyond that, the wide margin of approval among the population shows the cultural advance of the right wing.
The "Bukele method", besides being ratified in his country, was promoted as an example to be followed by other right-wing governments in the region, especially those of Ecuador and Argentina.
There were also elections in May in two countries where the right wing won. In Panama, José Raúl Mulino, from Ricardo Martinelli's party, convicted for corruption and disqualified from holding public office. In the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader was reelected.
VENEZUELA UNDER ATTACK
On July 28 there were elections in Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro won reelection. But immediately, as it has done for 25 years, the right-wing opposition came out to denounce fraud, with the echo of the international right-wing media.
With demands that went beyond Venezuela's institutional mechanisms, the opposition attempted a destabilizing resistance, which gradually deflated, despite all the financing and media support from the United States and Europe.
Finally, on September 8, Gonzalez Urrutia left Venezuela and settled in Spain, and now on a tour of Latin America he threatens to return in the next few days, to take office as self-proclaimed president, next January 10.
MEXICO AND URUGUAY, TO THE LEFT
In Mexico, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador ended his term in office with high popularity ratings, which translated into massive support for his Morena party, which won the elections and anointed, for the first time in history, a woman as president: Claudia Sheinbaum.
This scientist, environmental specialist and gender equality activist was also the most voted candidate in Mexico's recent history. She began her six-year term with the challenge of maintaining all the good things done by AMLO, and making progress in pending issues such as renewable energies, the inclusion of native peoples, gender policies and the pacification of a country where organized crime continues to be a destabilizing factor.
Meanwhile, in Uruguay the Frente Amplio, a coalition of political forces ranging from the Communist Party to social democratic expressions, won again. After five years of neoliberal government, Yamandú Orsi won in the ballotage against the so-called Pink Party, which would be the sum of the White Party and the Colorado Party, the two main representatives of the right wing.
Although Uruguay is a small country in terms of size and population, this victory is politically important for the region, because it strengthens the position of Lula and Brazil as the locomotive of Mercosur, and increasingly isolates Milei.
CONFRONTING ISRAEL'S GENOCIDE AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
It is necessary to use this headline, because it is indeed not a war, as the Western hegemonic media say. During 2024, the State of Israel has exterminated more than 50,000 people, human beings, mostly children, the elderly and women.
The Gaza Strip is totally destroyed, and the aggressor power does not hesitate to attack schools and hospitals, often in the presence of the UN. In fact, the accusation of genocide against Benjamin Netanyahu and his government comes from both the UN and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In this context, several Latin American countries denounced the genocide in all its letters.
Chile, Honduras and Bolivia summoned their ambassadors to Tel Aviv, and Colombia and Nicaragua went further and broke off relations with the Zionist entity. Colombia also suspended the sale of coal and the purchase of weapons from Israel.
In contrast, Brazil ratified a free trade agreement with the Palestinian National Authority, and Bolivia sent 90 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Cuba, Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico and Chile jointly presented a request for intervention in the lawsuit filed by South Africa before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, denouncing Benjamin Netanyahu for the crime of genocide.
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty (alba-tcp) defined the status of Palestine as a "brother country" and included it as a permanent guest at its summits.
VIOLENCE AND MIGRATION
This year was one of the most violent for the region, with one third of the world's homicides, when we have only 8% of the world's population. It was also a region with permanent migratory flows, mainly from Central America to Mexico and the United States.
It is estimated that, in the drama of migration, a quarter of the people are children. This issue was so important that it began to occupy an increasingly significant place in U.S. domestic politics. With Donald Trump's candidacy for president confirmed, it was one of his campaign banners, promising "the largest deportation of immigrants in history." This caused the outgoing administration of Democrat Joe Biden to also toughen its immigration policy.
DONALD TRUMP AGAIN
Finally, the elections in the United States directly affect our region, a little more than 200 years after the Monroe Doctrine, which since December 1823 has been marking the imperialist intention to make Latin America Washington's "backyard".
These elections were surprising, not so much because Trump could not win, but because he was much more convincing than any poll could have predicted. He won in the seven so-called swing states, which define an election and the popular vote by a wide margin. His triumph was so clear that he will have control of both houses of Congress.
He is the first president in over a hundred years to be re-elected, leaving one term in the middle, and he will be the first president in history to be convicted as a convicted felon, although the final sentence will surely be eternally postponed.
WHAT'S IN STORE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN 2025?
January will be a hot month, with the resumption of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, on Friday the 10th, and the destabilizing attempts that the right wing will surely make. Meanwhile, on the 20th it will be the turn of the handover in the United States, when Biden will leave the mandate to Trump, who has promised to stop supporting Ukraine and to achieve peace with Russia, almost immediately.
Then there will be elections in Ecuador, where the candidate of the Citizen Revolution, Luisa González, is leading in several polls, but the neoliberal president Daniel Noboa has all the apparatus of the State and the support of the hegemonic media.
In August it will be the turn of Bolivia, and in October there will be mid-term legislative elections in Argentina, key to see how much power Milei has to continue or not with the destruction of the State.
And finally, in November there will be presidential elections in Chile and Honduras, as should happen in Haiti, although without date and in a context of a new political occupation by the so-called "international community".
*Argentine journalist
