As Latin America turns to the left, leaders face a grim reality.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — In Chile, a tattooed former student activist has won the presidency by pledging to oversee the deepest transformation of Chilean society in decades, expanding the social safety net and shifting the tax burden to the wealthy .

In Peru, the son of poor farmers was propelled to victory on a promise to put struggling families first, feed the hungry and fix longstanding disparities in access to health care and education. education.

In Colombia, a former rebel and lifelong lawmaker has been elected the country’s first leftist president, promising to defend the rights of indigenous, black and poor Colombians while building an economy that works for everyone.

“A new story for Colombia, for Latin America, for the world,” he said in his victory speech, to thunderous applause.

After years of swinging to the right, Latin America is rushing to the left, a defining moment that began in 2018 with the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico and could culminate with a victory later this year by a leftist candidate in Brazil, leaving the region six largest economies run by elected leaders on leftist platforms.

A combination of forces propelled this new group to power, including anti-incumbent fervor driven by anger over chronic poverty and inequality, which have only been exacerbated by the pandemic and deepened the frustration of voters who took out their outrage on the establishment candidates.

But just as the new leaders are settling into power, their campaign promises are colliding with grim reality, including a European war that has sent the cost of everyday goods, from fuel to food, skyrocketing. , making life more painful for already ailing voters and evaporating much of the goodwill that presidents once enjoyed.

Chilean Gabriel Boric, Peruvian Pedro Castillo and Colombian Gustavo Petro are among the leaders who have achieved victory by promising to help the poor and excluded, but who face enormous challenges in trying to live up to expectations. raised by voters.

Unlike today, the last significant left shift in Latin America, in the first decade of the millennium, was propelled by a commodity boom that allowed leaders to expand social programs and bring in a extraordinary number of people in the middle class, raising expectations for millions of people. families.

Now that the middle class is shrinking, and instead of a boom, governments are facing pandemic-battered budgets, runaway inflation fueled by war in Ukraine, growing migration, and the economic and social consequences of more more disastrous climate change.

In Argentina, where leftist Alberto Fernández took the reins of a right-wing president in late 2019, protesters took to the streets amid rising prices. Even larger protests erupted recently in Ecuador, threatening the government of one of the region’s few newly elected right-wing presidents, Guillermo Lasso.

“I don’t want to be apocalyptic about this,” said Cynthia Arnson, a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “But there are times when you look at it as the perfect storm, the number of things hitting the area at once.”

The rise of social media, with the potential to fuel discontent and spark large protest movements, especially in Chile and Colombia, has shown people the power of the streets.

From August, when Mr Petro takes over from his Conservative predecessor, five of the region’s six biggest economies will be led by leaders who campaigned from the left.

The sixth, Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, could swing in this direction in a national election in October. Polls show former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a feisty leftist, with a wide lead over right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro.

The new leaders in Colombia and Chile are far more socially progressive than the leftists of the past, calling for a move away from fossil fuels and arguing for abortion rights at a time when the US Supreme Court pushes the country in the opposite direction.

But taken together, this group is extremely mixed, differing on everything from economic policy to their commitment to democratic principles.

Mr. Petro and Mr. Boric have pledged to dramatically expand social programs for the poor, for example, while Mr. López Obrador, who is focused on austerity, is cutting spending.

What connects these leaders, however, are promises of sweeping change that in many cases are colliding headlong with difficult and growing challenges.

In Chile late last year, Mr. Boric defeated José Antonio Kast, a right-wing politician associated with Chile’s former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, by pledging to abandon the neoliberal economic policies of the past.

But just months into his term, with an inexperienced cabinet, a divided Congress, rising consumer prices and unrest in the south, Mr Boric’s approval ratings plummeted.

Ninety percent of survey respondents told polling firm Cadem this month that they believe the country’s economy is stalled or shrinking.

Like many neighbors in the region, Chile’s annual inflation rate is the highest in more than a generation, at 11.5%, causing a cost of living crisis.

In southern Chile, a land struggle between the Mapuche, the country’s largest indigenous group, and the state has entered its deadliest phase in 20 years, leading Mr Boric to backtrack on one of his campaign engagements and to redeploy troops to the region.

Catalina Becerra, 37, a human resources manager in Antofagasta, northern Chile, said that “like many people of my generation”, she voted for Mr. Boric because Mr. Kast, “did not represent me at all”.

“But I was not convinced by what he could do for the country,” added Ms. Becerra. “He didn’t realize what he said he would do.”

In September, Chileans will vote on a remarkably progressive constitution that enshrines gender equality, environmental protection and the rights of indigenous peoples and is meant to replace a Pinochet-era document.

The president has tied his success to the referendum, putting himself in a precarious position if the plan is rejected, which polls show is the most likely outcome so far.

In neighboring Peru, Mr Castillo emerged from near-anonymity last year to beat Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing politician whose father, former President Alberto Fujimori, ruled with an iron fist and introduced neoliberal policies similar to those rejected by Chilean voters.

While some Peruvians backed Mr. Castillo purely as a rejection of Ms. Fujimori, he also represented real hopes for many voters, especially the poor and rural.

As a candidate, Castillo promised to give farmers more subsidies, access to credit and technical assistance.

But today, he barely manages to survive politically. He governed erratically, torn between his far-left party and the far-right opposition, reflecting the turbulent politics that helped him win the presidency.

Mr Castillo – whose approval rating has dropped to 19%, according to the Institute for Peruvian Studies – is now the subject of five criminal investigations, has already faced two impeachment attempts and has been through seven ministers of Interior.

The land reform he promised has yet to translate into concrete policies. Instead, spikes in food, fuel and fertilizer prices are hitting its base the hardest.

Farmers are enduring one of the worst crises in decades, facing the biggest planting season of the year without widespread access to synthetic fertilizers, which they normally get from Russia but are hard to come by due to the disruptions of war-related global supply.

Eduardo Zegarra, a researcher at GRADE, a research institute, called the situation “unprecedented”.

“I think it’s going to unfold in a very dramatic way and usher in a lot of instability,” he said.

In a poor hillside neighborhood of Lima, the capital, many parents are skipping meals so their children have more to eat.

“We voted for Castillo because we hoped his government would be different,” said Ruth Canchari, 29, a stay-at-home mother of three. “But he doesn’t act.”

In Colombia, Mr. Petro will take office against many of the same headwinds.

Poverty has increased – 40% of households now live on less than $100 a month, less than half the monthly minimum wage – while inflation has reached nearly 10%.

Yet despite widespread financial anxiety, Mr Petro’s actions as he prepares to take office appear to have won him some support.

He made repeated calls for national consensus, met with his greatest political enemy, right-wing former President Álvaro Uribe, and appointed a widely respected, relatively conservative, and Yale-educated finance minister.

The moves could allow Mr. Petro to govern more successfully than Mr. Boric, said political scientist Daniel García-Peña, and have allayed some fears about how he will try to revive the economy.

But given how quickly the honeymoon period ended for the others, Mr. Petro will have little time to start providing relief.

“Petro must succeed for his constituents,” said Hernan Morantes, 30, a Petro supporter and environmental activist. “Social movements must be ready, so that when the government does not pass or does not want to pass, we are ready.”

Julie Turkewitz reported from Bogotá, Colombia, Mitra Taj from Lima, Peru and John Bartlett from Santiago, Chile. Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá.