Jose Raul Mulino’s election victory in Panama confirms a shift in Latin America economic policies. Disenchanted with years of state intervention in the economy, voters now hope free markets will improve their lives.
Following the recent election victories of pro-business candidates in Argentina and Ecuador, voters in Panama also chose a staunch free-market advocate as their next president in a poll held earlier this month. Jose Raul Mulino, a 64-year-old former security minister in the government, stormed to victory on the campaign slogan “La Promesa de Chen Chen,” meaning “A promise of money in your pocket.”
In November last year, far-right libertarian Javier Milei won the presidency in Argentina, vowing to “exterminate” rampant inflation and “put a chainsaw to the state.” A month earlier, banana fortune heir Daniel Noboa became Ecuador’s youngest president at 35. The Harvard Kennedy School graduate focused his campaign on job creation, recommending tax exemptions and incentives for new businesses and pledging to attract more foreign investment.
What unites all three of these newly elected presidents is the conviction that free enterprise is key to spurring growth in their economically depressed countries. Previous experiments with more socialism-oriented economic policy, modeled on the authoritarian state interventionism of Cuba and Venezuela, only intensified years of economic crisis and led to a mass exodus to the United States.
Lol as an American, good luck with that. You’ll probably have some “good times” in early to mid-stage capitalism. Then, you’ll reach late stage and realize it’s all rigged.
Nah. The tracks are laid already. They’ll go straight to late stage. Turns out the problem was never free market versus heavily regulated. It was always rich people twisting the system.
That sounds like how Latin America already works…
Well yeah, and that’s the false promise being sold to these people. At least with the economy and national resources under government care there’s a hope to clear out corruption and a certain amount of welfare had to exist to get votes. Once it all goes private it’s going to be ten times worse because there’s no such check on a corporation. They’ll just sell your potatoes right out from under you and bring in foreign troops to enforce it.
This isn’t really a major shift for Panama, it was already a fairly right-wing country. People voted for Mulino because life was good and the economy was strong under Martinelli and they want those days back, not because they particularly like his policies.
That title is a stretch on so many sides. But it’s DW after all so it’s unsurprising
You could, maybe, try to make the argument that the use of the term “pro-business” is not meant in a laudatory sense. However, I find even this to be a stretch and, especially, if the article is written for an international audience.
They could have well framed the article around the the multiple controversies surrounding these characters. Heck, Mulino (who is standing in for Panama’s criminally condemned former President), is said to visit Cuba with certain frequency or, at the very least, uses a private jet that does.
Election results always seem to mean exactly what the person writing about them has been telling everyone for years. Funny that.
Latin America is big, populated and diverse. Argentina, Ecuador, Panamá, Salvador are still outliers
Edit: most of those countries were in deep institutional crisis for years (Idk about panama). I doubt this is a new wave.
Somebody has to tell them, there’s no such thing as free markets. All big players will just set up shell companies and own your country too.
Hhhhhhhhhh…
Nice, good for people finally releasing themselves of the leftist shackles.
Daniel Noboa sounds like a welfare queen. Tax incentives are welfare.
Sure? I don’t know what has got to do with anything?
