Unwrapping populism: the Milei victory in Argentina

Images: Página/12

Jim Hodgson

There’s that word again: populism. This month, it’s used to describe Javier Milei, the right-wing politician who won the presidential election in Argentina. Saying that he’ll take a chainsaw to chop down government spending, Milei is compared to politicians of the right, including Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Marine Le Pen in France.

In other moments, the term populist is used to describe politicians of the left, like Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), or the Podemos movement in Spain or Syriza in Greece. 

At times I think populism is a term devoid of meaning. A Venezuelan colleague says that it’s used by élites and mainstream journalists when they don’t understand what is going on. Rather than using it, I look instead at the content of a political program. 

But sometimes, the meaning is clear. Populism as a “people” that must be protected from some external or internal “other”—has an obvious fascist stink, but that doesn’t hold back Trump or a crop of other leaders from using its methods to rally the people against refugees.

But none of that is what left leaders like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1999-2013) or Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico (1934-40) were about. If they talked about the “people,” it was to build solidarity across regions and identities (workers, farmers, Indigenous)—class  consciousness, if you will—so as to turn the attention of the state towards resolving their problems, but not at the cost of other disadvantaged or racialized people. 

When journalists and politicians use the term populism to denounce leaders of the left, beware: they are pretending that the ruling class is equivalent to some disadvantaged group—immigrants in the U.S. or European contexts—and promoting another big lie.

A mural in the Boca neighbourhood of Buenos Aires created 10 years after the December 2001 rebellion that ended a series of presidencies. New elections in 2003 were won by Néstor Kirchner, who was succeeded in 2007 by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She is shown in the bottom panel driving the train forward. (Photos: Jim Hodgson, 2013)

What happened in Argentina?

“People chose change, without considering its cost,” wrote Washington Uranga in the Buenos Aires daily Página/12. “Change was put above any other value. Voters chose to launch themselves into the unknown so as to reject continuity of the critical situation in which they live now: inflation.”

Almost 25 years ago, on Dec. 6, 1998, another so-called populist, Hugo Chávez Frías, won the presidential election in Venezuela. “The people, weary of corruption and ever more sceptical of the traditional way of carrying out politics, bet on a new type of candidate,” wrote Marta Harnecker, a close co-worker and one of his biographers.

“Into the unknown.” “A new type of candidate.” But any similarity ends right there. The program of Chávez (like that of AMLO or Lula in Brazil) was to turn the capacity of the state and the wealth of the nation in favour of the majority of the people so as to ease or end their poverty. 

Milei faces enormous challenges. The state has no money, and there is a $44 billion debt that ballooned during the 2015-19 neo-liberal government of Mauricio Macri. Inflation is running at 150%. He wants to dollarize Argentina (as El Salvador and Ecuador have done), removing any capacity to shape the country’s economic future.

Milei will weaken the state through what he calls a program of “anarcho-capitalism.” Don’t be fooled: Milei is an extreme neo-liberal, holding more in common with the 1970s “Chicago School” of liberal economic theory and 1980s politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He also calls himself a libertarian. He says he will remove legal protections for workers and eliminate the ministries of health and education. But he would also use the power of the state to restrict the rights of women. His vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, is a daughter of soldiers and already, lobbying has begun to free military people found guilty during the past two decades for crimes against humanity they committed during the military dictatorship.

A mural in Buenos Aires shows Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández with several of their “pink tide” colleagues. In the background are leaders who offer inspiration, including Emiliano Zapata, Evita Duarte, Salvador Allende, Che Guevara and José Martí. The mural is based on a photo of Kirchner and other leaders in 2007 when they formed the Banco del Sur as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund.

After the victories by Chávez in 1998 and Luiz Inácio (Lula) da Silva in Brazil in 2002, some of us starting talking about a “pink tide” sweeping across Latin America (forgetting perhaps that tides also recede). Since then, the tide has indeed ebbed and flowed, with electoral victories and defeats, along with coups or attempted coups in several countries and the phenomenon of “lawfare” – the “deployment of judicial power to persecute political opponents: candidates, parties, even entire organizations and social movements.” A current example is the Guatemalan attorney-general’s harassment of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo and of his Semilla (Seed) party.

In Argentina, after the collapse of a series of governments at the end of 2001 in the wake of a banking crises brought on by foreign debt acquired during the time of the military dictators, Néstor Kirchner and his spouse, Cristina Fernández, emerged from the left side of the Peronist party to lead the country from 2003 to 2015. Success they had in managing the debt, provoking economic growth and reducing poverty was undone by Macri, their successor, who resorted to new borrowing and a toxic relationship with the and the International Monetary Fund. 

Cristina Fernández returned in 2019, this time as running mate to Alberto Fernández (no relation), who won the election. But their government (weakened somewhat by disagreements between the two and among their followers) was unable to undo the damage done by Macri. After the Milei victory, Nora Cortiñas of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo human rights group said that the business sector had driven prices of food and medicine higher so as to weaken the Fernández government.

From Palenque, Chiapas, Latin American leaders call for migration solutions

In recent weeks, my partner and I took a long drive from British Columbia through the western United States and then almost the length of Mexico to arrive in Chiapas.

While people who migrate northwards either for seasonal work or for more permanent refuge from poverty, violence and impacts of climate change were on our minds and in the news, at least some of the people we met alongside us in gas stations and cafés were seasonal workers heading home for the winter. 

Migration, my friends, is normal. In southern Texas and northern Mexico, we encountered thousands of monarch butterflies as they headed for Michoacán. And here in Chiapas, the migratory birds are arriving daily.

At around the time of our trip, leaders of ten nations of Latin America and the Caribbean – frustrated by slow progress with the United States (and other northern countries) in advancing meaningful human development and managing the flow of people – gathered in the historic Maya city of Palenque, Chiapas, and proposed some ways forward.

Photo from the Office of the President of Mexico

Led by Mexico, the governments of Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Panama and Venezuela signed the Palenque Declaration on Oct. 22 and called for solutions. (A representative of the newly-elected government in Guatemala also joined the talks.)

In the declaration, presented by the Mexican Foreign Minister, Alicia Bárcena, the leaders described several structural causes of migration: internally political, economic, social factors and the effects of climate change. But they also pointed to “external factors such as unilateral coercive measures of an indiscriminate nature – dictated from the United States – that negatively affect entire populations and, to a greater extent, the most vulnerable people and communities.”

They urged the United States to lift the sanctions imposed on Cuba and Venezuela that help drive the exodus. Such sanctions are against international law and, as the migration flow shows, they have impacts beyond the countries to which they are applied.

The document also proposed undertaking efforts to modify the financial architecture of debt; to close social gaps to as to reduce the impulse to migrate; push for measures aimed at increasing agricultural activity to promote food self-sufficiency in the region; and to promote intraregional trade and investment for socioeconomic development.

The signatory nations stressed that measures must be taken to confront transnational organized crime, human trafficking and corruption, as well as promote joint cooperation in security matters.

They called for destination countries to “adopt immigration policies and practices in line with the current reality of our region and abandon those that are inconsistent and selective, to avoid arbitrarily producing both ‘call effects’ and ‘deterrent effects’ – advantages given to certain countries for political reasons while nationals of other countries are blocked.

They encouraged destination countries to widen their regular migration pathways, with emphasis on labour mobility and promotion of re-integration and safe return of temporary workers to their homes.

The declaration makes special mention of Haiti, and called on nations to support efforts by the United Nations and others to re-establish conditions for human security so that the political, economic and social situation may be normalized, and to focus on sustainable development. (The presence of the Haitian president at the gathering angered some of the Haitian migrants camped out in the centre of Palenque, reported La Jornada.)

Undated photo from Prensa Latina.

The declaration’s emphasis on economic drivers of migration did not satisfy everyone. Eunice Rendón of the Mexican advocacy group Agenda Migrante told Courthouse News Service that while insecurity was mentioned as a factor driving migration, “it’s not one of the causes, it’s the principal cause,” Rendón said.

“People go because the gang members threaten to kill them, because they try to forcibly recruit them,” she said. (Some might argue that the lack of education and employment opportunities are drivers as well in recruitment for organized crime.)

Meanwhile, migration dramas continue. On Nov. 9, authorities reported that they found found 123 Central and South American migrants trapped in a trailer in Matehuala, San Luís Potosí (less than a week after we passed through there). And than 400,000 migrants have crossed the Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama in 2023, according to the Panamanian government, up from 250,000 in 2022.

Haiti will get support for its police. What it needs is a new government.

by Jim Hodgson

Now that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has approved deployment of a multinational force to Haiti, Haitian politicians and civil society organisations (CSOs) and their allies abroad respond with an array of positions.

UN Security Council (Alterpresse)

A new transitional government is urgently needed, says Pierre Espérance of Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH). Writing in the New York Times, Espérance called for renewed negotiations among CSOs and politicians (none of whom are elected) towards change.

“The talks should specify what qualifications are required for an individual to join the transitional government — and, critically, what would be disqualifying, to avert yet another criminal takeover.

“It wouldn’t be an easy task. But a new government formed along these lines would begin to bring long-awaited accountability to the police, as well as branches of government like the judiciary. Gangs would not disappear, but they would eventually exert less power and lose some of the vast territory they now control.”

Haiti has a “transition council” named by the interim government of the unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry. Head of the council is Mirlande Hyppolite Manigat, a constitutional law professor, presidential candidate in 2010, and widow of a man who was one of the 1988 coup-era presidents. 

At a news conference held in the presence of Henry and government ministers, Manigat expressed concern over Haiti’s “accelerated tumble” and said she saw the UNSC’s decision as an “expression of will to take charge of the deplorable situation” in which the country lives. 

“The country is going badly,” Manigat said. “It’s our fault that the UNSC has adopted this resolution.” “Velvet glove, iron hand,” responded Gotson Pierre, founding editor of Alterpresse, of Manigat’s comments. “Ariel Henry, serait-il sous pression?” [Is Henry under pressure?]

James Beltis, a member of the Montana Accord, the group made up of CSOs and opposition politicians that has its own transition proposal, called authorization of the mission a “setback.”

“We seem to be stuck with the same solution we’ve been using for the past 30 years” (referring to military interventions in 1994 and 2004), he told the Washington Post. “From a political perspective, this appears to be support for the current government.”

Beltis was also cited by the Haitian Times: “There is no possibility for Montana [political parties] to cohabit with Ariel Henry while he remains as prime minister.”

Past foreign interventions in Haiti and especially the one that followed the removal in February 2004 of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide are remembered for sexual abuse by UN soldiers and the introduction of a cholera epidemic that infected 800,000 people and took almost 10,000 lives.

This time, emphasis is placed on support to the Haitian National Police (PNH). The force will be led by Kenya (which has its own policing issues), with support from Bahamas, Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda. The mission would be reviewed after nine months and be funded by voluntary contributions, with the United States promising up to $200 million.

Global Affairs Canada (GAC) said this country is likely to deploy RCMP officers to Haiti to act as trainers in the multinational intervention, promising an added emphasis on preventing sexual violence. 

The RCMP will be “focused on technical training,” GAC’s Lisa Vandehei told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Oct. 5. She said they would probably train agents of the PNH in “very specialized” technical areas using a model where each trained agent would continue to teach other Haitian peers. Vandehei leads an inter-departmental task group on Haiti.

From Jan. 1 through Aug. 15 this year, at least 2,439 people had been killed and a further 902 injured. In addition, 951 people were  kidnapped. Meanwhile, ever-larger numbers of Haitians are choosing to leave any way they can. (UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) Headlines and photos about recent attacks from Alterpresse.

Will it work?

Kenyan police “don’t know the turf, don’t speak the language,” said Amy Wilentz, author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier and a professor at the University of California, Irvine. She told CBS News the mission was “unlikely to be a success.”

“First, it’s too small,” Wilentz said of the projected 10,000-person deployment. “There are an estimated 20,000 active gang members in Port-au-Prince, and they are heavily armed. So in combat, the Kenyans will be outmanned and perhaps outgunned.”

Other critics are even more severe. “It is not ‘solidarity’ with the people of Haiti to respond to the unconstitutional request formulated by a dictatorial government, put in place and maintained by the same ‘international community’ that now redoubles its support contrary to the legitimate demands of a huge range of Haitian social, political and humanitarian organisations,” says a new statement by Latin American CSOs in 17 countries, among them Jubileo Sur/Américas.

“We reject the new invasion of Haiti!” “For a Haiti that is dignified, sovereign and free of all occupation.” (Partial text of poster announcing the new Latin American civil society declaration.)

“It is to once again disregard the sovereignty and self-determination of the Haitian people with their demands and proposals to resolve this crisis generated by the same long-standing foreign intervention.

“It is not ‘support’, to continue to ignore the people of Haiti, ignoring their denunciations that link Ariel Henry, the current de facto government and its ‘international protectors’, led by the US, with the proliferation of the armed gangs that these same actors now intend to control through this new invasion.”

In comments made after the UNSC vote, several members of the council, including China and Brazil, reiterated the necessity of a strong Haitian government. 

“This force is being considered as just one instrument to help stabilize the security situation in the country,” said Brazil’s UN ambassador, Sérgio França Danese. “This is just a first step in what we hope will be the direction in terms of assuring those security considerations that will allow the political process to go forward.”

“It is a condition that is necessary but, of course, not enough.”

China’s U.N. ambassador Zhang Jun said that while Beijing “appreciates Kenya’s willingness” to lead the mission, “without a legitimate, effective, and responsible government in place, any external support can hardly have any lasting effects.”

The UNSC expanded a UN arms embargo to include all gangs, a measure China wanted. Haitian officials have said guns used by gangs are believed to be mostly imported from the United States. The embargo previously only applied to specific individuals.