The High-Stakes Threats to Latin American Democracy
Latin America’s impressive progress on electoral democracy, perhaps its most important achievement of recent decades, could soon be rolled back.
To Daniel Ortega, democratic elections are overrated. Nicaragua’s self-styled co-president recently announced to the world that elections won’t take place in his country ever again, lest they become a Trojan Horse for imperialism. Some dismiss Ortega’s comments as the rants of a deluded autocrat, but in fact they are part of a global assault on the legitimacy of elections as a foundational component of democracy. A full fifth of humanity turned out to vote in the unprecedented 2024 global election cycle, yet this triumph of the ballot box looks increasingly hollow. International...
Read this article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.
