Matías Capeluto: 2025 elections in Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile could define the political map of Latin America

Published at: 02/01/2025 08:12 PM

The 2025 calendar includes three elections that may be key to the political map of South America. Ecuador in February, Bolivia in August and Chile in November could modify or ratify the balance of forces between left and right in the region.

In an interview with the international agency Sputnik, the Argentine Political Science graduate and the coordinator of the Puebla Group Matías Capeluto said that “there have never been so many progressive and weighty governments in Latin America”.

For Capeluto, Latin America is going through an unprecedented situation in which three countries of great relevance to the region, such as Mexico, Brazil and Colombia , have progressive governments. However, he said, these are administrations that on a daily basis “are on the defensive”, as a result of the emergence of Javier Milei in Argentina, which although “makes a lot of noise and has few results”, is trying to “install a new right” in Latin America together with Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.

Capeluto believes that in the case of Ecuador “it would be very rare for the right-wing ruling party to be revalidated” in Ecuador, because it is a government that “leaves Ecuadorians 12 hours without electricity a day” and that has meant that in cities like Quito and Guayaquil “people are no longer encouraged to walk down the street at night”.

In Bolivia, meanwhile, the great challenge for the left is “to complete an agreement on the internal agreement between Evo Morales and Luis Arce so that the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is not only competitive, but that it continues to govern”.

Chile is, according to Capeluto, the most uncertain election the region will experience this year. The expert recalled that "no one expected Gabriel Boric to win the election" long before the 2021 elections and there was even speculation that Daniel Jadue —now serving house prison—would be the candidate of the left.

Political movements in Latin America will coincide, in 2025, with the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who threatened the region with tariffs against Mexico before taking office. The analyst stressed that “it is not quite clear what Trump's attitude will be with regard to Latin America”, something that was already seen, according to the analyst, during his first term in office.

Mazo News Team