What Lies Ahead for Latin America After the 2024 Super Electoral Year?

January 29, 2025

The 2024 electoral super cycle in Latin America leaves the region with many question marks about the future of its democracy.  “Undoubtedly, 2025 will be a very interesting year to observe whether, in the context of global polarization, Latin America manages to become a set of democracies that resist or falls into a pit of authoritarianism and institutional debacle,” writes Hernán Alberro, an associate fellow of the Forum 2000 Foundation.


Hernán Alberro

Hernán Alberro is an associate fellow of the Forum 2000 Foundation

The 2024 electoral super cycle in Latin America leaves the region with many question marks about the future of its democracy. 

The year began with the irregular reelection of Nayib Bukele “the world's coolest dictator” in El Salvador under the promise of healing the economy and keeping a firm fist against gangs and urban violence. This served him well in a landslide victory beyond the unfulfilled promises of his first term. Among Bukele's promises has been to relax the emergency regime in place in the country and continue working on the rule of law. However, it remains to be seen if the Central American country will move towards a process of democratization and respect for human rights, or if it will opt for authoritarian radicalization.

Then came the victory of José Raúl Mulino (Save Panama) to replace candidate and former President Ricardo Martinelli, who was disqualified by the Electoral Tribunal due to a 10-year prison sentence for money laundering. Mulino, who campaigned on the legacy of Martinelli's presidency (2009-2014), is now confronting the former president, who is in exile at the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama. Mulino, whose popularity remains high, has promised to transform and modernize the Panamanian state, curb the proliferation of gangs linked to drug trafficking, and close the Darién Gap to the passage of migrants.

In the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader from Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) won reelection to a second term with a majority of votes in the first round. The PRM also won a large majority in the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives. It remains to be seen whether this majority will allow him to fulfill his electoral promises of social reform and economic growth, without neglecting the region's hot topic, security, which in the case of Hispaniola is exacerbated by the presence of Haiti, where chaos and violence reign.  

The victory of Morena, Mexico's ruling party, established the first Mexican woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum, as the legitimate winner in the shadow of her mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from whom it remains to be seen whether she will be able to break away to set her own course. A disarticulated opposition and her parliamentary majority will a priori allow her to govern without much resistance, but AMLO's legacy in terms of reforms (especially the judicial reform approved towards the end of his mandate) will be a major challenge. She will also have to demonstrate her ability to promote a social justice, environmental, and feminist agenda based on data and without falling into ideological positions.

The biggest electoral fraud of the year, and perhaps in the history of the region, took place in Venezuela. After an electoral campaign fraught with obstacles, the opposition managed to present the presidential candidacy of Edmundo Gonzalez (with the support of María Corina Machado, who had originally been elected in the opposition primaries). There were great expectations. However, the government of Nicolás Maduro, with its controlled electoral justice, decided to disregard the will of the people and unilaterally declared himself the winner of the contest without bothering to present any evidence (tallies or whatever). Maduro has been strongly criticized by the international democratic community (at least almost all of it), but he was inaugurated on 10 January  without major obstacles, aside from the fact that he had to send minors to prison to try to stop demonstrations and even close Venezuelan airspace.

Then, it was the turn of the most boring elections of the year, which did not lack a pinch of pepper. In Uruguay, the victory of Yamandú Orsi (from Frente Amplio and supported by former President José Mujica) in the second round against the pro-government candidate Álvaro Delgado was predictable. The focus, however, was not so much on the presidential election as on a plebiscite on pension reform, which included a constitutional amendment to lower the retirement age, nationalize the pension system, and align the minimum pension with the minimum wage. By a narrow margin, common sense prevailed

A similar case, in the sense that political centrism was maintained and there was no margin for the triumph of "outsiders," occurred in the municipal elections held in Chile and Brazil, which could set the tone for the next presidential elections in both countries of the Southern Cone.

The electoral cycle ended with the judicial elections in Bolivia, where for the third time the judges were to be elected to head the country's most important courts: the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, the Agri-Environmental Court, and the Council of Magistrates. However, a court ruling declared the call partially "deserted" in five departments while the process was underway, so seven judges will not be relieved, which has raised doubts about the legitimacy and independence of the process.  

The year 2024 leaves us with a Latin America that is very diverse, fragmented, and full of uncertainties, to which we must now add the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House. Undoubtedly, 2025 will be a very interesting year to observe whether, in the context of global polarization, Latin America manages to become a set of democracies that resist (with electoral processes and institutions that function at least weakly) or falls into a pit of authoritarianism and institutional debacle.


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