Is Latin America's pink tide really ebbing?

Is the end nigh for the wave of left-leaning governments that swept Latin America this century and in some cases in the last one too?

Argentina has been governed by a market-friendly Mauricio Macri since late 2015 following the end of the Kirchner era; Brazil has been presided over by the conservative Michel Temer since the workers party's Dilma Rousseff was ousted in August 2016; and Ecuador's socialist leader Rafael Correa was replaced last year by Lenín Moreno, who despite his first name has turned out to be a pragmatic moderate. In Chile, center-right billionaire Sebastián Piñera comfortably won the presidential run-off last month and will begin his second stint in March, replacing center-left president Michelle Bachelet.

However, those wishing for a permanent swing to the right should not count their chickens, at least not just yet. Venezuela, the epicenter of the so-called Bolivarian revolution under the late Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro, shows no sign of budging despite the economic chaos in the country, and it's by no means certain that this year's scheduled presidential election will even go ahead. In Bolivia, thanks to the dearth of any effective opposition, the 'chavista' Evo Morales looks set to win a fourth consecutive term in office despite a constitution that in theory prevents him from doing so. And in Cuba, the old guard is certain to maintain a tight grip on power even after Raúl Castro steps down as president later this year (helped, of course, by Trump's hardline attitude to Havana, which inevitably provides fodder for the regime). In any case, Castro will remain head of the all-powerful communist party. 

What is more, in Brazil Luiz Ignácio Lula de Silva could well be back in the Planalto presidential palace in a year's time following the October elections, providing he manages to overturn a conviction for corruption. In Mexico, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador leads the polls for this July's election (again, thanks partly to Trump's rhetoric), and in Peru pro-business president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski runs the risk of not finishing his term following his pardon of disgraced former leader Alberto Fujimori in an apparent deal to avoid impeachment that left him bereft of any credibility.

But perhaps we shouldn't be looking at the political scenario in Latin America in terms of left and right at all. "Attempting to understand or interpret the elections [which also include votes this year in Colombia, Paraguay and Costa Rica] for what they mean in a left-right swing would be a mistake," Christopher Sabatini of Columbia University told the Guardian. "What we are more likely to see is more popular reaction against corruption."

The populist approach, characterized by utter disdain for the political elite, is likely to permeate the electoral scene from Mexico – where corruption allegations have tainted President Enrique Nieto and his wife Angélica Rivera, and where rampant graft at lower levels of government has contributed to the ongoing drug wars – to Brazil, where it's difficult to find a politician who's not mired in scandal, and elsewhere in the region.