From the pages of the most important Spanish newspaper comes an in-depth and interesting analysis of the future of a large part of South America. The former Uruguayan president – in office with the center-right for two terms, from 1985 to 1990 and from 1994 to 2000 – has ventured into a comparative study of three South American political and economic realities because, by the end of October, there will be Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, and in all three cases the result, which seemed obvious until a few weeks ago, instead appears more in the balance than one might have imagined.
In Argentina, the sunset of the Kirchner era is approaching, but he can continue to govern on the wave of a renewed Peronism that never seems to exhaust the chameleon-like force that made him survive Hurricanes e civil wars. Further north, in Brazil, the right has no conceivable options, while a moderate center or even the left could gain consensus. Finally, in Uruguay the traditional parties – albeit with some progressive brushing up – well reflect the different currents divided between liberalism, Anglophone conservatism and timid social democrats.
What South America is experiencing is certainly a period of transition, which therefore lends itself to changes in the political elites, even radical ones. Why transitional period? All three countries, says Sanguinetti, have lived the last ten years in continuous economic growth, sometimes exponential. This was ensured by an abundance of exports of commodities, minerals and agricultural products, paid dearly by the importing countries, of which Asian demand was the largest shareholder. Now the push has necessarily stopped, and the population is well aware of the consequences to be paid for the last decade of living in a wealth in which, according to Sanguinetti, wages have certainly increased, but certainly not risen as South American citizens hoped.
First of all, if on the one hand Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina have been major exporters, on the other hand they must still guarantee the population the ultimate goods, the finished products. And these only come from overseas - or from above Mexico - due precisely to policies that are all oriented towards hic and nunc underestimating, in the opinion of the former Uruguayan president, wide-ranging choices that could have guaranteed greater autonomy to the countries' economies. Therefore, even if the shadow of an imminent crisis seems extremely remote, the future for Uruguayans, Brazilians and Argentines will be conditioned more by rigor than by the distribution of wealth.
