Wealth, Dynasty, and the Limits of Latin American Democracy

Wealth and lineage are two unmistakable sources feeding the core of political life. They may clash against the more or less successful attempts of popular and social movements, but they are always present. This is as crudely evident as it is inevitable — it is coded in. And when something that does not appear to come directly from wealth and tradition—materialized as power—manages to prevail, it must contend with that power when it runs against its interests, or it ends up absorbed and conditioned by it. In the latter case, one often discovers that there was a hidden genetic relationship all along.

What remains deeply troubling, nonetheless, is the mass social inertia in the face of this historic state of affairs. The absence of resolve to stand firm and say: this far, no further. No more. I am not interested in this electoral ballot. Because we ought to agree, once and for all, that what matters has never been the act of voting itself, but how the offer is constructed — and who holds the power to construct it. Why am I voting for these two candidates, and not for others? Is this really the best available across an entire country? Is this what we deserve?

Look at the candidates and winners of recent electoral cycles just in Latin America, and the pattern becomes unmistakable. Consider what happened in Honduras, Chile, and Bolivia not long ago. Asfura, Nasralla, Kast, Rodrigo Paz—inserted into a severe social crisis—, Samuel Doria Medina, Tuto Quiroga. Much of the political landscape bears the imprint of economic and political dynasties. And that says nothing yet of Peru, with the ongoing case of Keiko Fujimori, or the case of Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia, both pointing strongly toward the continued consolidation of right-wing power across the region.

De la Espriella is a particularly instructive example. He is the son of a former magistrate of the Administrative Tribunal of Córdoba, who is also a close associate of Álvaro Uribe Vélez. His mother is no minor factor in his political trajectory: she comes from a family of cattle ranchers deeply interwoven with local politics.

One must ask where Milei fits into this picture. At minimum, we are speaking of someone who has ended up deeply entangled with the political caste he claimed, during his campaign, to have come to bury. The so-called standard-bearers of the "left" fare no better. Lula has been forced into so many alliances that his government has become a political rainbow barely visible from the favelas or the encampments where the landless movement is rooted. Petro, as we can see, is close to leaving office with little consolidated. But this is not an ideological problem at all. The real question is who comes from the blue corner and who comes from the red corner. Thinking of Peru, the question is: why is it Fujimori again?