ABSTRACT
After the transition from military dictatorship to electoral democratic rule in Latin America during the 1980 and 1990s, most of the newly elected governments were right-wing supporting elite democracy1 and the hegemony of neo-liberal economic policies (Middlebrook 2000). But in the late 1990s, the left began to win or were re-elected in presidential, parliamentary, and local elections, or became the major challenger against right-wing governmentssetting off a massive and relatively long-term wave of democratically elected left leaders in Latin America (see also Cleary 2006, 36). This wave of victories began with Venezuela in 1998, when the former military officer Hugo Chávez was elected as president with a populist leftist agenda, and continued with successes in Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Peru; most significant was the success of the former revolutionary Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua in late 2006. Also during this period, the left gained electoral ground and became a major challenger against the right in other Latin American countries, including El Salvador and Mexico.
