Colombia Joins the Shift Toward the Far Right
Also in this edition: Fante’s Hell. Toward a new energy sovereignty. Thousands of bodies remain unidentified. The noise on social media makes journalism essential.
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With the far-right victory in Colombia, the list of countries now under far-right governments in the hemisphere includes Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and El Salvador, with Venezuela subordinated to Washington’s agenda. Only Mexico, Brazil, Cuba and Uruguay remain under progressive governments.
After the devastation caused by neoliberalism, nearly all of these countries shifted to the left and formed an alliance independent of Washington. The inevitable question now is: Why are the peoples of these countries voting for the right, and in some cases for the return of dark chapters in their history (Pinochetism in Chile, Fujimorism in Peru, neoliberal extremism in Argentina, etc.)?
The preliminary result in Colombia reflects a process tainted by both external and internal interference, according to La Jornada. On the international front, the efforts of Donald Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to influence the election in favor of De la Espriella cannot be minimized in any democratic system. Domestically, pressure and coercion from business interests, evangelical churches, and armed groups linked to large rural landowners constitute forms of fraud that cannot be detected in the vote count but nonetheless distort the popular will. According to some other analysts, the return of “fascist” right-wing governments across Latin America is due in large part to the mistakes made by progressive left-wing administrations.
This week, right-wing Latin American leaders congratulated Abelardo De la Espriella following his victory in Colombia. Before the final vote, President Donald Trump bluntly declared: "Get out and vote for “El Tigre” Abelardo De la Espriella— He will not let the wonderful people of Colombia down. It will rise to a new height of greatness!” He added that “the results of this Election are very important to the future of Colombia and its relationship to the United States,” and that Abelardo “will have the total support and strength of the United States behind him.”
“Trump’s team appears to have gone to great lengths in seeking violent conflict in this hemisphere since the beginning of his term,” writes Mark Weisbrot in the pages of La Jornada. “Trump seems determined to be a wartime president, and this hemisphere has been the stage chosen by Rubio. De la Espriella has proposed bringing U.S. military bases back to Colombia to create ‘Plan Colombia 2.0,’ in his own words.”
Hours after celebrating his victory at the polls, the far-right De la Espriella threatened the left. In addition to the concerns raised by his opponent in the election, Iván Cepeda, many political sectors and analysts reacted with alarm and recalled the genocide against the Patriotic Union (UP), a left-wing party that was effectively exterminated through paramilitary violence, with the complicity of members of the military, during the 1980s and 1990s, writes Jairo Gómez in La Jornada.
But the threat posed by Trump and the right is not limited to Colombia. “At the beginning of 2026, far-right and authoritarian governments were either in power or about to take office in Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru, Paraguay, Panama, Costa Rica, and Chile,” writes William I. Robinson. “Since I wrote this article, Honduras and Colombia have chosen the path of the right.”
“Authoritarian, fascist-leaning, and racist far-right movements have always existed,” argued former Vice President of Bolivia Álvaro García Linera in the pages of La Jornada last year. “But their message spreads as a result of the deterioration in the living conditions of working people, the collective frustration left behind by timid progressive governments, and the loss of status experienced by sectors of the middle class.”
The far right “today seeks to impose itself in many Latin American places,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum. But she added that “there will always be resistance from the people” and when the people “organize, there is no force that can stop them.” Regarding the far right in Latin America, she insisted that people’s gains remain in collective memory, and that “peoples resist for their freedom — which is not the freedom of the market — for their rights, and for democracy.”
The Quote:
Was it really out of disappointment that people in Colombia voted for the far right, as in almost all Latin American countries?
—Rayuela
In Case You Missed It
◻️ Fante’s Hell by Hernández. The new book by the cartoonist from La Jornada, José Hernández, recreates the life of writer John Fante and is not a superhero comic, but rather a story about failure and the ability to overcome it. The work portrays, through Fante’s writing, “a very racist United States that represses Mexican and Italian migrants in a very brutal way,” from the perspective of a cartoonist considered a precursor of “dirty realism.”
◻️ CNTE ends encampment, rejects claims of defeat. After 20 days of protests in the nation’s capital, leaders of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) said that ending the strike “is not a defeat, but the beginning of a new stage in which we will reorganize and return with greater strength, because we have not backed down from our central demands: the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE Law and the education reform.” Teachers from various parts of the country who had traveled to Mexico City dismantled their camps and returned to their home regions. Magdalena Gómez emphasizes that “defeat should not be declared,” and argues that despite efforts by authorities to “demonize” the CNTE, its nearly 50-year struggle to “democratize union life, defend the rights of teachers, and uphold the quality of education” continues.
◻️ Thousands of bodies remain unidentified. The President acknowledged the nationwide backlog in forensic records and explained that work is underway to modernize databases so information can be cross-referenced more efficiently. For example, 135 of the 386 bodies found at the Crematorio Plenitud in Ciudad Juárez have still not been identified.
◻️ Toward a new energy sovereignty. The latest issue of La Jornada del Campo is devoted to the debate over the energy transition. It includes articles on reducing dependence on natural gas, an analysis of the potential of environmentally responsible fracking and shale gas, and the challenges facing rural communities in different parts of the country.
◻️ The noise on social media makes journalism indispensable. “A journalist cannot view social media as something alien, minor, or superficial. A fundamental part of the public conversation is taking place there, whether we like it or not,” explained Rosa Miriam Elizalde, who has just received the National Social Communication Award in her native Cuba. “That does not mean social media replaces journalism. On the contrary: the more noise there is, the greater the need for professional rigor and journalistic ethics.” Meanwhile, Elena Poniatowska criticizes influencers who, she argues, “dehumanize” journalism.
◻️ Iran won the war: Mearsheimer. The conflict will trigger a fundamental restructuring of the Middle East that will weaken not only Washington’s position in the region but could also damage its relationship with Israel, predicts geopoltiical analyst John Mearsheimer. The renowned professor at University of Chicago emphasizes that the catastrophe of the war against Iran could, for the first time, lead to a fundamental shift in the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv and a reduction in the influence of the Israeli lobby in the United States.
◻️ Posada: Cartography of a Chronicler. An exhibition of works by printmaker José Guadalupe Posada focuses on his early creations, as well as his experimentation with color, religious and supernatural influences, and even his interest in the crimes of his era. “He seems like an anonymous hero who, over time, left us nothing but his prints, and for various reasons what has endured most are his skeletons. There is still a substantial body of work about which almost nothing is said. We believe he produced around 20,000 engravings,” says David García.
🎥 What We Are Watching
The children of the Riopaila strikers, Colombia, 1976
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Edited by David Brooks and Jim Cason in the United States, Tania Molina Ramírez in Mexico City, of La Jornada, and Elizabeth Coll in Tokyo, under the direction of Carmen Lira Saade and Guillermina Alvarez. More information.