In LatAm, the Opposition Has Won 73% of Elections Since 2013

But Milei is far from alone in channeling Latin Americans’ anger into a successful bid for the presidency. In the last decade, the political opposition – whether left-wing or right-wing – has won nearly three-quarters of all free and fair elections. In the words of more than one political analyst, “It’s a really hard time to be an incumbent government nowadays.”

In fact, the only free and fair election in which the incumbent government maintained power in the last five years has been in Paraguay earlier this year. By this metric, we of course ignore sham elections held in dictatorships such as Nicaragua or Venezuela, though for transparency we have included the controversial 2019 Bolivian election which saw Evo Morales reelected with numerous irregularities.

So what’s the takeaway here? Why is the average shelf-life of a typical Latin American political project just one term nowadays? How can both Brazil and Colombia elect a conservative government in 2018 just to elect left-wing challengers four years later? Is there any escape to this political pendulum?

These are difficult questions with no easy answers, but perhaps Milei’s victory on Sunday can help explain it somewhat. Many voters may have been turned off by his ultraconservative social and economic policy proposals, but their other option was the sitting Minister of Economy of a broke country with 140% inflation and nearly $50B in debt. The skepticism is understandable.

Fear may have motivated many to vote against Milei, but anger at the system – as what he has termed the “political caste” which includes the last four administrations of the country – propelled his supporters to put him over the edge.

And perhaps this anger is the best explanation for the anti-incumbent wave which has washed over the region over the last decade. As memories of the commodities boom fade and citizens watch their standards of living decrease practically in real time, many will turn to increasingly extreme and contrarian options out of desperation.

So while we don’t know if Milei will succeed where his enemies failed, we do know that voters will be waiting to punish him at the ballot box in 2027 if he does not.