The 25 events that marked Latin America in the first quarter of this century, from Peru’s Alberto Fujimori fleeing to Japan to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro’s fraudulent re-election.
HISTORY
The 25 events that marked Latin America’s last 25 years
The year is coming to an end, and political currents are shifting once again in Latin America. In a century that started with the so-called “pink tide” of left-leaning governments, the continent is swinging back to the right in many ways, as The Brazilian Report long anticipated.
To help readers understand these changing eras, we compiled a list of the most important events in the region each year since the dawn of the millennium, which illustrate how the progressive sentiment of the 2000s turned into right-wing discontent in recent years — albeit with many nuances and exceptions.
The 2000s started with Peru’s right-wing president-turned-dictator Alberto Fujimori fleeing to Japan, amid massive discredit for electoral fraud, espionage and violence against the opposition.
One year later, Argentina saw the end of its neoliberal era with its worst-ever economic crisis, including a bank run where 1 million people saw their life savings frozen and then confiscated — the infamous 2001 Corralito.
In 2002, a military coup briefly ousted Venezuela’s left-winger Hugo Chávez, in what many saw as a return of the brutal US-backed anti-communist abuses of the 1970s. Chávez returned as a result of popular protest, securing an era-defining victory for the left that would resonate for years.
In Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva finally reached the presidency in 2003, balancing his progressive economic promises with relatively prudent macroeconomic management to assuage market fears. Programs like Bolsa Família would become emblematic in the region, and Lula’s figure would be propelled to global fame as the moderate alternative to Chávez’s radicalism.
Although many Latin American countries were making progress, Haiti continued to be the exception, as an armed movement removed left-wing president Jean-Bertrnand Aristide in 2004, leading to the creation of a United Nations peacekeeping mission led by Brazil, MINUSTAH. But the mission failed to stabilize Haiti, which has continued to suffer from coups, presidential assassinations, epidemics and a nationwide gang takeover in recent years.
Momentum for the left continued in 2005, as George W. Bush’s historic visit to Argentina, pushing for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas — which extended the NAFTA agreement to most of the continent — was met with mass-scale street protests and combative speeches from critics including Chávez and Lula before ultimately falling through.
One year later, Evo Morales became the first indigenous person to reach Bolivia’s presidency. He nationalized the gas industry and went on to rule for three consecutive periods of relative economic success and political stability by the country’s standards, even if it all ultimately came crashing down many years later.
In Ecuador, left-wing economist Rafael Correa started a constitutional reform process in 2007, with some vanguard inclusions in terms of environmental protections, while increasing presidential power and giving the state a larger role in the economy.
The 2008 financial crisis was a challenge, but after years of economic boom thanks to rising commodity prices — which favored oil and agricultural exporters and allowed for the accumulation of foreign currency reserves — Latin America was well equipped to survive through a classic Keynesian framework, upping government spending to keep the economy afloat.
When Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was arrested in his pajamas and deported to Costa Rica amid a controversial constitutional reform attempt in 2009, US President Barack Obama joined Latin American leaders in denouncing it as a coup, a major shift compared to the Cold War era.
Despite this shifting consensus, not every country in the region was moving left: after eight years in office, Colombia’s right-wing President Álvaro Uribe was able to handpick his successor in 2010. He was credited with restoring order to a country marred by decades of drug conflicts and political violence, even if his reputation dwindled later amid revelations of paramilitary crimes.
In Mexico, a similarly tough-handed approach went much worse: Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs, launched as he took office in late 2006, was a disastrous failure five years later, as cartels resorted to extreme violence to fight the military and each other. Homicides had tripled by 2011, and his right-wing PAN party was on its way out of office.
The era-defining figure of Hugo Chávez would make his last public appearance in December 2012, announcing a trip to Havana to operate on his cancer and declaring Nicolás Maduro as his successor. Many believe he died just a few days later, although his passing would not be announced until March 2013.
Latin America would once again make global headlines with 2013’s election of Argentina’s Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the first non-European Pope in more than 1,300 years, adopting the name of Francis I. His papacy marked Church worries about competing evangelical influence in the continent with the largest number of Catholics, and would be followed by another American papacy in 2025, Leo XIV.
In 2014, a money laundering probe in Brazil would kick off one of the largest corruption scandals in continental history, Operation Car Wash. Top politicians were accused of taking bribes from the region’s largest public contractors (most notably Odebrecht), leading to arrests and presidential oustings. The most controversial case concerned Lula, jailed for a comparatively minor allegation around a vacation home in 2018, but ultimately freed on a technicality.
The 2015 Republican presidential primaries in the US were in many ways a turning point for the region, as Donald Trump’s controversial takes on immigration catapulted him to an unlikely nomination and ultimately to the presidency. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. (…) They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said, leading to uproar across the border.
Amid a severe recession and a worsening political climate due to the Car Wash scandal, the popularity of Dilma Rousseff dropped to nearly 10% in 2016. Although she was not directly involved, Congress took the opportunity to oust Rousseff over a budgetary complaint, a legal but extremely disputed move that Lula’s Workers’ Party described as a “coup.”
The continent was facing economic struggles, but none as bad as Venezuela’s, where a years-long economic recession combined with hyperinflation and food scarcity, putting 90% of its population below the country’s poverty line. Reports said 64% of Venezuelans lost an average of 11 kg in 2017 alone, one of the worst crises in continental history.
As Brazil’s political class was taking a beating, a marginal right-wing figure with a history of dictatorship apologetics rose to the presidency in 2018 with a tough-on-crime, anti-corruption message. While Jair Bolsonaro copied Trump in many ways, the rest of the continent showed that the left still had strength, as Andrés Manuel “AMLO” López Obrador finally reached the presidency in Mexico after decades of conservative governments.
In Chile, the much-praised economic model of market-friendly policies, trade deals and social programmes came under question in 2019, as millions of protesters took to the streets demanding much stronger state intervention in the economy, in what became known as the “Estallido Social” (Social Outburst) protests.
The world was turned upside down by Covid in 2020, but Cuba was among its worst victims. Relying almost exclusively on tourism as a source of US dollars, Cuba was left with no resources for basic food and energy imports, leading to the end of its dual-currency system and the largest protests that the island had seen since the 1959 Communist revolution.
Just like Cuba’s revolution inspired many Latin American left-wingers for decades, Nayib Bukele’s radical transformation of El Salvador made him a beacon of the right. His iron-fist policies against crime made him an enemy of human rights groups across the region, but also the most popular leader in the continent, helping him reach a congressional supermajority and total control over the country from 2021.
Lula’s return to the presidency in 2022 after a stint in jail, building a broad coalition from far-left to center-right to oust Jair Bolsonaro, was remarkable enough. But Bolsonaro’s refusal to acknowledge victory and even attempting a coup to stay in power was a shock to the world, with images of far-right activists ransacking government buildings that echoed the events in Washington DC two years earlier.
Right-wing momentum would resume in 2023 with the victory of eccentric libertarian economist Javier Milei. After two decades of growing inflation and increased disbelief in Argentina’s politicians, Milei’s message about “burning down the Central Bank” and attacking the country’s “political caste” resonated strongly at home and made him a star among international audiences.
Maduro’s 2018 re-election had already faced questions due to the number of opposition candidates banned from the ballot, but 2024 took things to a new level: while a parallel count showed opposition leader Edmundo González beating him 67% to 30%, Maduro simply claimed victory without showing proof, alleging that the country’s electoral authorities had been “hacked,” in one of the most blatantly stolen elections in recent memory.
While 2025 isn’t over, the Trump campaign in Venezuela is a candidate to take this year’s prize for top story, although surprises are always around the corner in Latin America.