Alvaro Vargas Llosa of the Independent Institute asks whether Latin America is moving right and what that could mean:

“Chile’s runoff election this month will probably mean the end of the center-left coalition’s two-decade hold on power and the emergence of businessman Sebastian Pinera as a political tour de force. In May, Colombians will either vote for Alvaro Uribe’s third term—if he wins approval for an ill-advised constitutional reform—or for someone who will carry on with his policies. And, according to every poll, Brazilians are expected to pick Jose Serra, the governor of Sao Paulo state, over President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s heir apparent in October.

If these turn out to be the results indeed, the ideological shift that was first hinted last year with Ricardo Martinelli’s victory in Panama and Porfirio Lobo’s election in Honduras will be powerfully reinforced. But there is more. Peru’s left-wing nationalist candidate is fading after almost winning in 2006; a long list of center-right candidates (a couple of whom coquettishly call themselves center-left but are not perceived as such) dominate the polls. And by all indications most Argentines now support various opponents of the socialist policies of Cristina Kirchner’s government. This will make it difficult for her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, should he run next year.”