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 MEXICO CITY (AP) - These aren't the hide-in-the-hills leftists of yesteryear, ready to take up arms against the oppressor. A new wave of Latin American leaders — variously labeled leftist, populist, nationalist or socialist — is redefining politics in a region where U.S.-backed, right-wing dictatorships spent decades crushing their mostly leftist opponents and supporting corporate interests amid fears of inroads by the Soviet Union and its Cuban proxy.
That struggle, fought everywhere from the mountains of Guatemala to the streets of Argentina, has given way to a new generation of politicians as the Cold War recedes into history — a more pragmatic left that embraces its own flavor of free-market policies while vowing to champion the poor and forgotten.
The wave has carried leftist leaders to power in South America's largest and richest nations, as well as impoverished Bolivia. And while once-dominant conservatives haven't vanished altogether — right-leaning candidates are popular in Peru and Colombia — the trend is likely to intensify with elections still to come this year in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
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