THE REVOLUTIONARY CONTINENT

The Latin American continent is bustling again. The recent developments in Brazil and Venezuela signal about worsening internal social contradictions as a result of yet another roll of political systems to the right. This implies changes in the geopolitical situation of the region, which can lead to strengthening the influence of the United States. The latter has traditionally followed the policy of holding the Latin America under its control.

She left but promised to return

The largest country of the Latin America, Brazil, suffers from a serious political crisis. Back in May of this year, the Parliament started the process of impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, president of the country elected for the second presidential term in 2014. The right opposition has accused the head of state, the representative of the leading leftwing Workers’ Party, in violation of tax laws, the use of budget funds during her election campaign, the waste of public funds intended for the regions. In late August, the Brazilian Senate voted for the resignation of President Dilma Rousseff. Vice-President Michel Temer, who will be the acting head of state until the presidential elections scheduled for 2018, replaced her.

Meanwhile, Dilma Rousseff called the impeachment “a coup” and “an attack on democracy”. She rejected all allegations of violations: “Perhaps I have made mistakes, but I have not committed any crimes”, said Rousseff. However, the sacked president is willing to continue the fight. “They think they have bitten us but they are wrong. I know that we will fight. We'll be back”, promised Rousseff, leaving the presidential post.

It is obvious that the left-wing will try to take revenge in the near future. This strong willingness to fight the organizers of impeachment is fraught with the aggravation of traditional, often uncompromising struggle between the right- and left-wing forces. The 75-year-old Michel Temer, who has recently assumed the presidency, does not enjoy a considerable popularity. However, his political background has a remarkable feature, which can come in handy in this difficult time: that is his ability to get along with both the left and the right. No wonder that in late 1990s-early 2000s, during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, he led the lower house of parliament and supported the liberal economic policy, but under the left presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, he supported the measures of state regulation of the economy, in particular the program of state investments.

In fact, Temer appears to follow the current right trend at the top of Brazilian politics. In his first inaugural speech at the Senate, he has pledged to reduce government spending, which involves cutting of pensions introduced by the socialists and the restriction of subsidies for the poor.

The task of overcoming serious economic crisis in Brazil (GDP per capita fell by 10% in comparison with 2013 while the unemployment rate exceeded 11%, which is 4% higher than at the beginning of 2015) may indeed require taking of unpopular measures. However, in such a socially controversial country, torn by acute confrontation of political elites, the vector of economic development is strongly linked to the priorities in foreign policy. This implies yet another area for rigid competition between the right- and left-wing forces, who have different views regarding the social future of the country and its place among global political centers.

The supporters of Dilma Rousseff strongly believe that the impeachment was part of the scenario managed by the US, which were not in favour of the independent foreign policy of the left-wing Brazilian government. In particular, Rousseff had tried to strengthen the country's role in the BRICS, an interstate group bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. These five states had never hidden their ambitions to become one of the major centers of the world politics and economy, i.e. an alternative to the West led by the United States. Therefore, Rousseff's efforts within BRICS, as well as her desire to increase the influence of the left-wing Brazil on the overall situation in Latin America and to expand cooperation with the presidents of socialist countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have well caused concerns in Washington.

It is noteworthy that immediately after the impeachment, the US State Department described the event as “an internal affair of Brazil”. The absence of any critical notes in Washington’s rhetoric regarding the Brazilian political crisis indirectly demonstrates the American interest in Rousseff’s departure from the highest office in the largest Latin American country.

Moreover, the new government of Brazil has already declared that the relations with the leftist neighboring states was not its foreign policy priority. It is not surprising since Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia had called Rousseff’s impeachment a coup. Three countries have called back their ambassadors from Brazil. Venezuela has also frozen political and economic relations with Brazil.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is also facing with a threat of impeachment. Similar to situation in Brazil, the situation in Venezuela is also developing in line with the most acute political struggle between the left and right. The socialists believe that the White House is supporting the latter.

Nicolas Maduro fights back

The situation in Venezuela has begun to get worse since the end of last December, immediately after the parliamentary elections. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela led by President Nicolas Maduro, successor to the legendary Hugo Chavez, was defeated. For the first time in 17 years, the right-wing opposition won a majority of seats in the National Assembly. Taking control of the parliament, the opposition has immediately attacked the president by organizing mass protests and demanding a referendum calling for earlier termination of Maduro’s powers. The right opposition insists on holding a referendum later this year having submitted nearly two million signatures of supporters of the initiative to the National Electoral Council.

In early September, the Venezuelan capital witnessed a series of street protests called by the right-wing opposition “Taking of Caracas”. The government accused the opposition of a coup attempt during the anti-government rally. “Today we've defeated a coup attempt that sought to fill Venezuela and Caracas with violence and death”, said President Maduro.

In August, the Venezuelan leader has warned that he would take tough measures if the opposition tried to carry out a coup. “Did you see what happened in Turkey? Erdogan will seem like a nursing baby compared to what the Bolivarian revolution will do if the right wing steps over the line with a coup”, said Maduro during a meeting with his supporters.

However, the opposition does not seem to care about such threats. The opponents of the left government promise to organize mass protests not only in Caracas, but also in other major cities of the country. So, the situation in Venezuela is fraught with unpredictable consequences.

The Venezuelan law enforcement agencies have identified a camp with 92 Colombian mercenaries ready to participate in a coup. In addition, four right-wing activists have been detained as suspects plotting a coup.

Undoubtedly, the economic crisis, generating dissatisfaction of larger parts of the population by the government, plays a significant role in the aggravation of political situation in both Venezuela and Brazil. Low oil prices has seriously hit the Venezuelan economy. This resulted in declaring the state of economic emergency in the country. President Nicolas Maduro signed the corresponding decree in January 2016, broadening the authorities of executive power in order to protect the population during the “economic war”. A striking example of such a mobilization is the recent decree by President Maduro granting Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López the powers to command the National Command of the Great Mission for Safe Sovereign and Safe Supply to combat shortage of food and essential commodities.

Another similarity between Venezuela and Brazil is the obvious presence of external factors aggravating political contradictions and initiating impeachment of a left-wing president. Since the period of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has been the main drive ahead of anti-American movement in the continent, and its current leader, Nicolas Maduro, has to demonstrate a truly remarkable Olympic endurance and determination to prevent the plans of internal and external enemies trying to expel the socialist leadership. For Maduro, the recent developments in Latin America is nothing more than an US-backed plan to establish an absolute control over the region. He believes that the attack on the Brazilian President is an offensive against the entire “Latin America and the Caribbean. This is against us, against the popular and progressive movements of the left-wing”.

The Cuban leadership, the principal supporter of revolutionary socialism in Latin America, supports this opinion. The government of the Island of Freedom regards resignation of Rousseff as “part of the imperialist attack against the progressive governments of Latin America.”

However, not only the left-wing political circles of the region point out the role of external factors in the current processes ongoing in Latin America but some expert think-tanks in the West too. Thus, according to Global Research, the American administration under the President Obama “was actually much more ‘successful’ in subjugating the colonies than any other administration in modern history. Just look at the Middle East, but especially at Latin America! Just several years ago, almost the entire south of the Western Hemisphere seemed to be crossing the point of no return, marching proudly and confidently away from servitude and towards socialism. And look at it now… Honduras and Paraguay are in ashes, Brazil’s elites are raping their country’s democracy, Argentina had been manipulated into the anti-progressive camp, Bolivia has been struggling against violent coup attempts, and Venezuela is forced to fight (heroically) for its bare survival.”

Incidentally, the current configuration in Latin American is fraught with worsening of bilateral relations. The change of power in Brazil and unrests in Venezuela can result in even greater confrontation between left and right governments, which, apparently, is falling into a deeper pool of both social and geopolitical shocks.