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Latin America’s Political Pendulum: Is the Right on the Rise?

The political orientation of Latin America is often compared to a pendulum that alternates between swinging to the left and to the right. For several years, left-leaning governments dominated the subcontinent; however, in recent months, this pendulum has begun to swing back to the right.

In Argentina, a libertarian conservative, Javier Milei, came to power in December 2023. Ecuador had already shifted toward the centre-right in 2021, and this trend was reaffirmed in 2023 and 2025 with the victories of Daniel Noboa. Most recently, the conservative José Antonio Kast prevailed in Chile’s presidential election.

Attention is now focused on the upcoming elections in Colombia and Brazil this year.

We spoke with Claudio Alvarado about the background to this “shift to the right.” He is Executive Director of the Instituto de Estudios de la Sociedad (IES) and Professor of Constitutional Law at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, as well as professor in the Master’s in Political Studies at the Universidad de Los Andes.