As crime surges in some Latin American countries, a far-right backlash is brewing

As crime surges in some Latin American countries, a far-right backlash is brewing, with conservative populists winning votes by promising strong-arm tactics against crime and immigration, echoing El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele. The trend has gained support from Donald Trump's MAGA movement, despite concerns over human rights abuses and threats to democracy.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready... By REGINA GARCIA CANO and ISABEL DEBRE BOGOTA, Colombia AP — At the start of this decade, Latin America was hurtling to the left https://apnews.com/article/elections-colombia-caribbean-presidential-56620b5368ae476b30252d7230b56608 . Progressives, seizing on public outrage https://apnews.com/article/business-elections-caribbean-chile-santiago-a34155914d0051720a23faf3de661e48 over entrenched inequities https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandemic-caribbean-gross-domestic-product-poverty-fecf4f63bc453975b403d22e582f69e4 exacerbated by the pandemic, swept to power in many of the region’s biggest economies, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. A political backlash is brewing, though. Although homicide rates have broadly declined across Latin America compared to a decade ago, spikes in some countries and a regionwide rise in other crimes, particularly extortion, have created the conditions https://apnews.com/article/latin-america-politics-bukele-organized-crime-5d76ddc581eda87584372a84d505b602 for conservative populists to score votes https://apnews.com/article/election-chile-kast-jara-boric-trump-05f915fd5eda909c13fd283f90f8d8e5 by promising strong-arm tactics against crime and immigration. Stump speeches casting migrants as criminals and pitching heavy-handed security strategies popularized by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, have won conservative candidates President Donald Trump’s https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump backing and fired up their disaffected electorates despite concerns that such tactics could encourage human rights abuses or threaten democracy. “You have an emergent right wing that is very much in collaboration across the region and with the U.S. through the MAGA movement https://apnews.com/article/trump-rnc-republicans-maga-outsider-9991ff86641868e4434129fa491502c3 , which has also used crime as a rallying cry for political mobilization,” said Enrique Roig, vice president of the nonprofit Human Rights First and a former State Department official. “It’s easier to sell locking people up than it is to deal with the reasons why mainly young men join gangs in countries like El Salvador.” Tough-on-crime platforms swing votes Although populist politics across the political spectrum have done well, only the right has offered short-term security solutions that will make voters “feel safer in six months” even if they have to “sacrifice democracy and human rights,” said Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization. Proposals offered by the left, such as community violence prevention programs, better police training, and judicial and prison reforms, take more time to bear fruit, he said. “It’s absolutely what you’re supposed to be doing, but people’s patience runs out,” Isacson said of long-term proposals. “So, there come the Bukeles of the world saying, ‘You want to feel better? We got this.’” In Colombia, where swaths of the countryside have fallen into renewed conflict https://apnews.com/article/colombia-violence-humanitarian-crisis-red-cross-9997ef10d538a5e93cff74ebfe6ed339 , pro-Trump businessman Abelardo de la Espriella https://apnews.com/article/abelardo-de-la-espriella-trump-colombia-petro-cepeda-election-crime-bukele-643a808af732c35e240949d69171d65f has topped polls ahead of Sunday’s runoff election as he takes his cues from Bukele. In Peru, where extortion has increased fivefold https://apnews.com/article/peru-election-crime-extortion-fujimori-sanchez-cc2f51c4eb021e491caedc9638e717b1 in the past five years, Keiko Fujimori rocketed to a June 7 presidential runoff https://apnews.com/article/peru-elections-results-second-round-288f3772df67d8fea900efc2cab0f1ac on a law-and-order platform, vowing to deploy the military in prisons and along borders as she leans on the authoritarian legacy of her disgraced late father https://apnews.com/article/fujimori-peru-lima-died-777fdfcb09eafd731a7412c8bf1a2f64 , former President Alberto Fujimori https://apnews.com/article/peru-election-fujimori-sanchez-runoff-34fd4442c382c64381b50e971966c5cd . Costa Ricans, rattled by record levels of drug-related killings, elected conservative populist Laura Fernández https://apnews.com/article/costa-rica-election-results-fernandez-chaves-f072f4e01cde74a2f037072cc03293d5 in February for her tough-on-crime platform. Honduran businessman Nasry Asfura https://apnews.com/article/nasry-asfura-honduras-trump-election-interference-a52838ab94b1d79efe3ba0f12e8af329 swept December’s election after Trump endorsed him https://apnews.com/article/honduras-trump-election-hernandez-pardon-9cd64d1055c3a60bca9390f4474efdd2 as a partner in the fight against “narco-communists.” Organized crime expands, fueling more violence Latin America and the Caribbean last year saw their combined average homicide rate drop by more than 5% compared to 2024, with the median rate reaching about 17.6 per 100,000 people, according to InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in the Americas. But there are a few key exceptions. Drug-fueled killings have increased in Peru and Colombia, the world’s top cocaine producers https://apnews.com/hub/drug-trafficking , as well as in neighboring Ecuador, whose major ports traffickers see as a gateway to European markets. Last year, authorities tallied 2,400 homicides in Peru and 14,780 in Colombia, which were the most in each country since at least 2020. Killings rose a remarkable 31% in Ecuador year-on-year, to 9,216. Gangs are blamed for much of the violence that began soaring in Ecuador during the COVID-19 pandemic, as cartels from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans expanded their operations and hired locals, who set off a deadly fight over drug-trafficking routes. Their territorial disputes include prisons https://apnews.com/article/ecuador-prison-clashes-inmates-killed-d68975c31a4b291f91dc795ff814633b , where hundreds of inmates have been killed since 2021. Ecuadorian authorities also recorded more than 16,100 cases of extortion last year, which was down from 23,000 in 2024, though experts say it’s an underreported crime. Populists seize an opportunity Four years ago, Chilean voters rejected ultra-conservative lawmaker José Antonio Kast in favor of ex-President Gabriel Boric, a young, tattooed former student protest leader seeking to address Chile’s endemic social inequities. Last year, though, fears over rising crime — and its frequent association in media with the country’s growing population of Venezuelan immigrants — played into Kast’s hands https://apnews.com/article/chile-elections-kast-jara-boric-trump-immigration-57d95c1471ebbd828da4f82e57e9acf6 , returning him to power. As Venezuelan crime syndicates like the Tren de Aragua https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-strike-caribbean-rubio-trump-tren-de-aragua-9e0dac7dee5a3fb14a16370508fc460d gang seized on their country’s mass migration wave https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-elections-migration-maduro-poverty-chile-colombia-darien-4f922c50fae4bd0c1ca97e0735194c2f to infiltrate human trafficking networks following the pandemic, Chile, long one of Latin America’s safest countries, witnessed an unprecedented explosion https://apnews.com/article/chile-tren-de-aragua-crime-trump-latin-america-boric-4259ecc560c25e3f524d6accd5b156f0 of carjackings, kidnappings and shoot-outs. Chile’s homicide rate rose by 30%, to a peak of 6.7 per 100,000 people from 2021 to 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. It has since dropped but has stayed above pre-2021 levels. Other types of violent crime are still rising, including kidnappings, which have increased by nearly 180% over the past four years. Drawing inspiration from Bukele, whose mega-prisons in El Salvador he toured while campaigning, Kast handily beat https://apnews.com/article/chile-elections-kast-jara-president-boric-trump-e9ef32b53359f3152ee80d62c106c5f6 his Communist opponent in December with pledges to build a massive border wall https://apnews.com/article/chile-border-barrier-jose-antonio-kast-trump-immigration-crackdown-fbd8b92131fa05c8b3b5cbeddbc4816b , toughen prison conditions for gang members and deport hundreds of thousands of migrants without legal status. For his promises of safety, voters shrugged off Kast’s opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-south-america-chile-santiago-augusto-pinochet-16d89098be9580cda5595c036a1ebc66 rights and his defense of Augusto Pinochet’s https://apnews.com/article/chile-pinochet-dictatorship-5d500715f016804990d0898ff6d89907 bloody dictatorship. In Peru, despite the contentious legacy of the convicted Alberto Fujimori, his daughter’s candidacy has taken advantage of a surge in violent crime four years after she lost the election to schoolteacher Pedro Castillo. Campaigning under the slogan “Peru with Order,” Keiko Fujimori won the largest vote share in April’s first round of voting. Results of the June 7 runoff still show her in a technical tie with the political heir of the imprisoned Castillo https://apnews.com/article/peru-former-president-pedro-castillo-conspiracy-af153bb322fab6329cd65e1c32a2c881 , nationalist Roberto Sánchez. Experts say the public’s appetite for tough tactics — historically associated with the region’s right-wing 20th-century dictatorships — has grown alongside its shrinking confidence in state institutions and its deepening ambivalence about democracy. “The thinking is often, ‘democracy hasn’t been able to keep me and my family safe, so maybe democracy is part of the problem,’” said Eduardo Moncada, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University. That poses a major challenge to the Latin American left, which in many countries has presided over sluggish economies, grappled with corruption scandals and failed to fulfill promises of social reform in recent years. Even progressives such as Jeannette Jara in Chile and Sánchez in Peru have shifted with the political tide. Uruguay’s president, Yamandú Orsi, called Bukele’s model an example worthy of further study. The center-left Guatemalan government declared a state of emergency to crack down on gang violence this year and welcomed the Trump administration’s help targeting drug traffickers. Campaign promises meet reality Recently elected politicians’ hard-line ambitions, though, have collided with the practicalities of governing complex and cash-strapped democracies like Ecuador and Chile. They are nothing like tiny El Salvador, where Bukele’s party holds a legislative supermajority https://apnews.com/article/nayib-bukele-el-salvador-constitution-reforms-2b4ca5206bd892f01a2a406cbaadccb8 . Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s promises in his 2023 campaign included locking up gang leaders on barges and building mega-prisons. He abandoned the floating prisons proposal after taking office, and it took his government until November to open the first mega-prison. “Building mega-prisons hasn’t been that easy or that straightforward because the country is in a very bad state financially and because President Daniel Noboa still sees himself as a democrat,” said Beatriz García Nice, policy analyst for the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank. Nearly three months into Kast’s tenure, pollsters say a skeptical public can’t tell the difference between his security crackdown and that of his left-wing predecessor. His government has organized only two deportation flights after promising to immediately round up and expel Chile’s more than 300,000 immigrants without legal status. A different, more sheepish tone has crept into his speeches. Last month, he came under fire for calling the mass deportation promise “a metaphor.” Even as he pitched new security measures in a June 1 address, including banning those convicted of attacking police from receiving social benefits, he tried to whittle down his supporters’ outsize expectations. “Governing, as many of you know, means taking responsibility for reality, especially when it’s difficult,” he said. “I’m proceeding step by step because this isn’t something that happens overnight.” DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.