Leonel Fernández Gives Lecture in Mexico on the Current State of the Latin American Left

On an invitation to discuss “The Left in Latin American in Times of Global Crisis,” the president of Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) and Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (Funglode), former President of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Leonel Fernández, gave a lecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for students, professors, and staff of the university’s Center for Latin American Studies.

In his speech Fernández stated that in recent years the Latin American left has seen its power dwindle, suffering several electoral losses and the removal from office of certain progressive governments.

In that regard, the former head of state referred to recent events in Brazil with the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, the electoral loss
of the governing party in Argentina, the referendum defeat of current Bolivian president Evo Morales, and the ground lost by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

He noted that the situation facing the Latin American left involves not just political but also economic and social factors, in particular the global financial crisis bascially prompted, in turn, by the financialization of the economy.

“I think that unless the world agrees on a
global regulatory mechanism, things will get worse,” said Fernández, after affirming that the crisis is entering a new incubation phase, with the additional risk that if a new crisis occurs, the planet will not have enough resources to tackle it.

In this vein, Fernández argued that the defensive political situation in which the Latin American left finds itself is due to being in power when the global financial crisis worsened. “Whoever is in power
today, at the epicenter of that crisis, whether of the right or the left, will be defeated,” he said.

He stressed that despite the reversals suffered in recent years, the progressive movement in Latin America has much future ahead of it due to the legacy it has built in terms of social policy and infrastructure development, which guarantees the future recovery of the space it has lost.

Nonetheless, the former head of state emphasized the need
to build new alternatives, and while those are arriving, a new civilizational system must be created based on intelligence and the knowledge revolution.

“I think there are reasons to hope, and there are reasons to put stock in new alternatives for a better future for the people of Latin America,” Fernández concluded, which was met by a prolonged applause from the lecture attendees.

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