Every land has its tragedy. Europe has both class and nation, the United States has race and Latin America has its politics ~ the politics of anti-politics. Some tragedies are, of course, alluring. But tragedies are also what Aristotle calls “an imitation of an action that is admirable.”

For a long time, pessimism defined Latin America’s sense of hopelessness prompting celebrated Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea to say, “we are the people who never win.” Latin America is no longer a “land of tomorrow”, nor does it wrestle with a “forever postponed future.” In a sense, the future has already arrived here.

Advertisement

What fascinates the world about the region is that it communicates before it is understood. Latin America is an unfolding rather than a representation. It navigates in doubleness of dreams and realities. As Gabriel Garcia Marquez would say, Latin America is a world “where politics and prose are entwined, where tragedy and comedy coexist, and where truth can be stranger ~ and more compelling than fiction.”

Latin America, Argentina in particular, has taken a huge sigh of relief after the voters have rejected the distorted form of politics of no-politics by thwarting the laissez-faire libertarian and “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei’s attempt to achieve a firstround victory in Argentina’s presidential elections.

“The more things a man is ashamed of,” George Bernard Shaw wrote, “the more respectable he is.” Milei seems to have taken to heart Bernard Shaw’s dictum and sought to fudge, feint, deny and fake his views and beliefs. During his election campaign, Milei, who calls himself “Adam Smith’s heir” and the “Mozart of economics”, played out political passions with lurid exaggeration. Voters have rejected Milei’s shock and awe style of politics.

But it is too early to celebrate. The Peronist economy minister Sergio Massa, who was trailing in the primaries, has put up an impressive show by receiving 36 per cent of votes as against Milei’s 29.9 percent. Perhaps the voters have got scared by Milei’s bluster and unrealistic promises.

His footloose style has been his own undoing. How can doing away with the central bank solve the country’s $44 billion debt to IMF? Among all the world’s hard-right leaders, no one has promised to allow people to sell their organs and making the selling of one’s children a legitimate personal choice as Milei has.

The voters saw the spectre of the 2001 crisis haunting Argentina again if Milei won the presidency. That year the economy collapsed. People’s bank accounts were frozen and the state offered nothing by way of solution. The people went out into the streets, banging pots and pans, singing que se vayan todos (they all must go) and nadie nos representa (no one represents us).

The popular power forced out four consecutive governments. Mr Massa has the greater likelihood of getting the support of the voters who opted for the conservative candidate Patricia Bullrich. But his victory in the run-off poll on 19 November could be pyrrhic like Lula’s in Brazil who barely defeated Bolsonaro.

While the third placed conservatives are fiercely opposed to Peronists and Kitchnerists, rallying behind Milei would be suicidal. Argentina’s conservatives are not like Trumpist republicans. Massa’s party machines have prevailed over Milei’s social network platforms.

While Milei described his performance as a “historic achievement” as his party reached the run-off only two years after it was founded, his supporters have claimed without evidence that the vote had been rigged. Massa has already reached out to the opposing forces by stating that the country is “heading towards a government of national unity.”

As Brian Winter, seasoned Latin American analyst, says, Milei’s “brand of conservatism will get you 30 per cent in Argentina but it’s not going to get you to 50 per cent… Argentina is not a country where a pro-gun agenda is going to carry the day.” Milei is completely out of step with mainstream politics in Argentina.

Kirchnerists are less ideological and more mercurial. Kirchnerism is a contemporary centre-left iteration of Peronism that has dominated Argentina’s national politics since 1945. Even when Peronists are not in power, Peronism continues to define Argentina’s political culture.

Argentine political theorist Ernesto Laclau calls Peronism a “popular democratic ideology”, appealing to broad categories such as the workers and the people and is central to populist’ identities across ideological orientations.

The politics of anti-politics has acquired a new salience in Latin America. There are movements and advocates of a new system of governance who want to change the world without taking power. They want a radical politics that is autonomous from the party as the party is linked inexorably to the state. Populism of Milei and the technocracy that he advocates is a distorted form of politics of anti-politics.

Such populist leaders believe the established political parties are the same and that the system is unfixable. Autocracy has gained currency across Latin America. If there is a poll across the region to choose the most popular leader, it won’t be Brazil’s Lula or Mexico’s ‘AMLO but President Nayib Bukele of tiny El Salvador. Bukele enjoys 90 per cent of approval rating, perhaps next only to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Bukele has built the world’s largest prison where he has kept thousands of tattooed prisoners under sub-human conditions.

“Punitive populism” is the governance model that President Bukele represents and many other leaders in the region promise to follow. Milei had sent one of his allies to El Salvador to examine how Bukelism works. Anti-politics refers to political alienation, political disaffection, post-politics and depoliticisation. Bukele, Daniel Ortega, Milei and leaders of their ilk see politics as a selfish, predatory and divisive force and establish themselves as doers.

Bukele has sought the second term which violates El Salvador’s constitution. In Colombia, a candidate for mayor of Bogotá said Colombia needs similar prisons. With autocracy gaining a new momentum and streets becoming new theatres of politics, democracy is both alive and dead in Latin America.

In some countries, democracy is deepening, in others, democratic revolution is sputtering to a halt. While leaders like Lula (Brazil) and Gabriel Boric (Chile) are dreaming big, others are experiencing a poverty of dreams. As Carl Jung would say, “who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

(The writer is director, Institute of Social Sciences, Delhi)