Nobody votes to go back. Let’s start there. No one wakes up wanting to repeat the worst of their past.
The recent triumph of Chilean conservatism – rather than being explained as an abstract ideological defeat – is presented as the sum of concrete frustrations. Unmet expectations that have paved the way for an emergency government that promises a hard line against migrants, against crime and against an economy perceived as dysfunctional.
Kast, on his third attempt to reach La Moneda, arrived less through novelty than through stubborn insistence. It was the channel of accumulated disappointment and the confirmation of an unspoken rule in the region: in Latin America, the scales generally tip in favor of those who do not govern.
Since 2019, with the exception of Paraguay, El Salvador and Mexico, Latin American countries have practiced the transfer of power: one country after another has replaced the ruling party. Chile was not an anomaly. Since 2006, each government has ceded power to its opponent.
I repeat: Kast did not win because he was on the right, but because he embodied the reaction.
From this pendulum swing that punishes those who govern, emerges a lesson that the Mexican left would do well to heed if it aspires to maintain in power a left project benefiting from broad support and proven effectiveness.
I don’t say it. More than 60% of people believe that the country is moving forward.
Claudia Sheinbaum – at the head of a progressive project committed to redistribution, greater state management and regulation of the productive process in favor of workers – must take particular care in a period of apparent immunity. Every bonfire goes out if you don’t monitor the fuel it burns with.
Although today the government does not face a migration crisis, crime is beginning to be confronted by functional criteria and, after decades a substantial part of the population has escaped poverty, loopholes remain through which the opposition can infiltrate.
It is therefore crucial to examine without complacency the fissures of the 4T and the emergencies of its electoral base. Naming them is the only way to avoid separating the project from its electorate.
Because Morena’s achievements – being real and important – will not live forever in the collective imagination. No voter decides indefinitely out of gratitude: political memory is brief and the rights won are quickly naturalized. What happened yesterday will be the starting point for tomorrow.
During elections, citizens will decide less about what has been achieved than about immediacy: the state of their wallets, the expectation of the next improvement, recent emotions. This will be where the orphan demands of the electorate will shine: security, the fight against corruption and the economy.
Security is not Sheinbaum’s most vulnerable flank today. This has been a priority for your government. This will be the case if it fails or if – even if it complies – it does not affect the daily lives of those who vote. Perception kills data. Experience beats statistics.
Economically, the president has weathered Trump’s attacks, preserving stability and attracting foreign investment in record numbers. Yet warnings about the fragile balance and insistence on calming down the business world reveal an unacknowledged concern.
Contrary to the certainty he demonstrates on other fronts, in economics, the bull still does not obey him. The argument continues with Sheinbaum who takes who by the horns.
Finally, the most uncertain measuring factor appears: corruption. Sheinbaum will have to fight it inside and outside his party without knowing how voters will react, but with one inescapable certainty: the cherry will be punished if its color and name serve as a refuge for criminals or thieves.
There, in accordance with the regional trend, an implacable moral arithmetic will take place. Especially when the party carries in its name the promise of national regeneration.
Unless the ballot presents an obscene disproportion – one Salinas Pliego, one Jorge Romero among many – it will be difficult to vote for Morena if it means endorsing names like Blanco, López Hernández, Gutiérrez Luna or Monreal.
By 2027, the electoral calculation is simplified: it will be less expensive to try with a stranger than to try again with someone who has already disappointed. The advance of the right is therefore not a distant hypothesis.
The formula is so simple that it’s easy to overlook. The pendulum that favors the transformative project today will not be based on permanent gratitude. He will lean in favor of the opposition if Morena stops listening to the needs – and emotions – of his electoral base.
Neither in Mexico nor in Chile will it be an ideological question.
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