◼ POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek November 25, 201936
Abe’s Record-
Breaking Run
THEBOTTOMLINE LatinAmericais strugglingtoreconciletwo
competingpoliticalideologies,leftistpopulismandmarket-oriented
liberalism,andthefrictionhasexplodedin manydirections.whoruledfrom 2003 to2011,is anearlyfront-
runner for the opposition in 2022, despite having
been convicted on multiple charges of corruption.
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has been in power
almost seven years, heading the Socialist move-
ment founded by Hugo Chávez that has led the oil-
rich country since 1999.
Technology is also playing a role. As smart-
phones and internet access spread, more people
are tuning in to real-time developments across the
world and organizing quickly, often without lead-
ership. In Chile, for example, it wasn’t clear with
whom the government could sit down to negoti-
ate. On Nov. 15 lawmakers in Santiago announced
they’d reached an agreement to rewrite the con-
stitution, meeting one of the protesters’ demands.
The authoritarian regimes in Cuba and
Venezuela should be feeling nervous, Corrales
says.“Allofa sudden,Boliviacollapsedinthisway,
andit involvedtwogroupsthatwereloyaltothe
government—a certain union and the military,” he
says. Venezuela’s Maduro has relied on his military
in the face of numerous rallies protesting the rig-
ging of last year’s election.
Centrists, such as recently defeated Argentine
President Mauricio Macri, have little support in
Latin America at the moment, just as in the rest of
the world. One of the reasons investors expected
Macri to be reelected was his advantage as the
incumbent, with the power of the state and pub-
lic coffers on his side. But he lost in the first round
of voting—a referendum on his failure to control
inflation, protect purchasing power, lower pov-
erty, and maintain jobs.
Eventually the tide of anti-incumbency may hit
even outsiders, such as Brazil’s rightist President
Jair Bolsonaro. If seeing Macri lose wasn’t enough to
spook him, the raging protests and unrest in Chile
should be. His government is doubling down on a
reform agenda after already pushing through a pen-
sion overhaul and is counting on growth next year
to cement support as he faces a challenge from Lula.
Ecuador’s Lenín Moreno, a would-be reformer,
is treading lightly after violent protests that forced
him to move the government out of the capital tem-
porarily. After winning election as the successor to
leftist Rafael Correa, he pivoted 180 degrees to rule
from the center-right and investigate his former
allies for graft. But popular pressure is forcing him
to recalculate as he struggles to meet terms under
an International Monetary Fund aid program, which
required the elimination of popular fuel subsidies.
Recognizing social inequality and attempting
to fix it, however belatedly, is no guarantee that
protests will die down. Venezuela’s oppositionJustoversevenyearsago,ShinzoAbewasapolitical
has-beenpurveyingeccentricmonetarypolicy.
Now—asofthismonth—he’sJapan’slongest-serving
prime minister, breaking a record that stood for
more than a century.
Abe’s abortive first term in office, which ended
with his 2007 resignation, kicked off a whirlwind
of prime ministers—six came and went in as many
years—and helped pave the way for his Liberal
Democratic Party’s humiliating defeat in 2009,
after 54 almost uninterrupted years in power. Abe
used his years in the wilderness to develop a new
focus, training his political messaging on the kinds
of kitchen table issues that have today won him six
straight national elections. Through a combination
of skill and luck, he’s become an unlikely beacon
of stability in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Abe’s longevity has surprised even his top
aides. “I never imagined he would go on this
long,” says Hiroshige Seko, an LDP executive who
served in the prime minister’s office for almost
four years beginning in 2012. “I wondered whether
it would last a year.”
And yet questions are emerging over how much
longer Abe—or stable leadership—can remain. The
65-year-old is heading into what may become a“You can’t be
prime minister
of Japan
unless you
can maintain
good ties
with the U.S.”● He’s now Japan’s longest-serving prime minister,
but his tenure may be nearing its endleader, Juan Guaidó, organized the largest street
demonstration in months on Nov. 16 in what he’s
dubbed a “permanent protest” against Maduro. In
Colombia, unions and students called for a nation-
wide strike on Nov. 21. Some in Chile maintain that
they’ll be satisfied only if Piñera resigns.
“Anger at the political systems isn’t going away,
and in many ways governments are trapped,” says
Bosworth, the Risk Report author. “There will be
more protests, and they’ll be more violent in
2020.” �Daniel Cancel