Latin America's Security Crisis Is the Right’s Stuff
Crime and insecurity top voter concerns across the region, a trend that’s likely to benefit rightwing parties when Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Peru pick presidents.
The public sends up a balloon on violence.
Photographer: Isabella Bobadilla/Long Visual Press/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Almost two weeks after an assassination attempt, Colombian senator Miguel Uribe Turbay remains in critical condition in a Bogota hospital. The attack against a charismatic 39-year-old presidential hopeful shocked Colombia, with thousands taking to the streets in solidarity, demanding peace and an end to the country’s wave of violence.
The cruel episode rekindled memories of the tragic Pablo Escobar years, when drug cartels and guerrillas ruled over life and death in Colombia in the 1980s and early 1990s. There are resemblances: The damaging combo of billion-dollar illegal businesses, ever-growing drug demand, brutal fights for markets and territory and ineffectual government security policies is destabilizing the Andean nation. Yet the feeling of insecurity isn’t unique to Colombians: From Mexico to Ecuador and Peru, most of Latin America is going through a dark period where personal safety is uncertain and crime and corruption dominate public discussion. Worse, this is increasingly spilling into vicious political violence, as we saw with Uribe and the equally callous assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.