#Power to the people fallout 4 tv#
In a recent interview, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva insisted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was as responsible for the war as Putin and accused Zelenskyy of appearing too much on TV rather than negotiating a peace deal. In Brazil, the top two candidates in the upcoming presidential election in October have carefully avoided depicting Russia as the sole aggressor. Fueled by the unabashedly pro-Russia Venezuelan state media and embraced by even more moderate sectors of Latin American societies, the narrative that the West's sanctions-rather than the invasion itself-are disrupting the global economy is more entrenched in Latin America than many Western observers believe. Though reliable polling data isn’t available, anecdotal evidence suggests many Latin American voters believe NATO is as much responsible for the war as Russia. In the same way, few Latin American leaders were particularly vocal about criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although most Latin American governments voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both Mexico and Brazil abstained from another resolution suspending Moscow from the UN Human Rights Council. One key element of the rationale behind this strategy is economic: the region is eager to protect its trade ties with the West, China, and Russia, which explains why several governments have criticized Western sanctions against Russia.īut the region’s concerns about the new geopolitical scenario also involve broader strategic considerations: the vast majority of Latin American leaders, irrespective of their ideological convictions, eagerly embraced ties to a rising China-and a geopolitically more active Russia-as a means to increase their autonomy and enhance their bargaining power with the United States. Third, the deterioration of relations between the West and Russia creates a dilemma for Latin American governments, most of which have sought to avoid taking sides. This reduction could occur even though countries like Brazil, a large fertilizer importer, have continue d to buy the product from Russia. Furthermore, the war has led to an increase of already expensive fertilizers, which-paired with Latin America’s dependence on importing the product from Russia-may actually reduce the size of the upcoming harvest in several Latin American countries. Brazil, for example, is planning to increase wheat output by up to 11 percent this year, yet it still must import wheat to meet domestic demand. South America’s agricultural powerhouses could in theory partially make up for the global shortage of wheat, but numerous hurdles make that prospect unlikely. Some sectors of Latin America’s economy may benefit from rising commodity prices, but these advantages are likely to be offset by the challenging overall scenario.įor example, higher oil prices have traditionally been a boon to Venezuela’s economy, but the decay of the country’s energy infrastructure means that it would take years for it to return to the export levels it maintained in the early 2000s and to make up for the removal of Russian oil from Western markets. The International Monetary Fund reports an expected growth rate of 2.5 percent, compared with 4 to 5 percent or higher for other regions. Second, the war will almost certainly dampen the region’s economic growth, further aggravating discontent. Both Petro and Hernández understood that, in the context of the current anti-incumbency sentiment across Latin America, the best electoral strategy was to promise complete ruptures with past governments, allowing them to use voters’ profound rejection of political elites in their favor.
For example, in Colombia’s presidential runoff on Sunday, leftist former guerilla Gustavo Petro defeated fellow anti-establishment candidate Rodolfo Hernández, a formerly little-known businessman who surprised observers with a second-place finish in the first-round vote. The war in Ukraine is likely to contribute to lower approval ratings of governments in a region whose economy has for years performed worse than almost any other part of the world, which could push voters toward anti-establishment candidates. Many governments increased public spending during the pandemic and now have very limited fiscal space to expand food and energy subsidies, a worrying prospect in countries like Brazil, where more than one-third of people currently do not have enough food to eat at least one meal a day. First, rising food and energy prices have a long history of fueling public discontent and political protest in Latin America, and increasing inflation across the continent is putting leaders into a bind.
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