When, In the end, those who did not reach power, lost the battle of ideas, said Perry Anderson.
Every political victory is preceded by a victory in the field of ideas
written by Álvaro García Linera.
Those quotes, which I included in the opening of my book Lula and the left in the 21st centuryfundamentals to understand political processes and to determine the political strategies of the left.
These are the quotes that reiterate the priority of the struggle of ideas and that are fundamental to understanding what are possible events today, especially in the two electoral processes this year: in Ecuador and in Argentina.
At first, the perceived favoritism on the part of the candidate of Rafael Correa’s party, Luisa González, suddenly suffered the shock of the assassination of one of the candidates, Fernando Villavicencio. According to polls, he is two points short of winning the first round. It was learned that he lost by nine points under the immediate impact of the events.
Villavicencio is a journalist who stands out, in particular, for his criticism of Rafael Correa, which contributes to the level of rejection that the former president of Ecuador has.
Fernando Villavicencio did not have a remarkable performance in the campaign – he was in sixth place in the polls – until he was killed by militias involved in drug trafficking. This is another event in the process of introducing violence in Ecuadorian society and politics, a process linked to drug trafficking, which establishes a corridor that goes from the production of drugs in South America to their consumption in the United States , the largest. consumer of all types of medicine in the world.
It remains to be seen how all this will be reflected in the Ecuadorian elections, which will take place this week. The right is looking for its candidate, the left is looking to keep its candidate. Let’s see how public opinion reacts to all the events and decide who will go to the second round.
This certainly increases the importance of the opinion given to the issue of public safety, the maintenance of order. An issue where the left has no alternative. There is no democratic policy of public security, even because it must rely on the police, with respect that there is still no democratic policy.
Javier Milei has managed, until now, to arouse in the face of public opinion in Argentina the anger that people have, either because the governments do not bring solutions for the problems of the country, or because people live which is not a good consequence of this. Let’s see if that mechanism will work until the election.
A president like Lula is Brazil’s defense against these risks. Lula’s speech was about democracy and the improvement of the living conditions of the population, which found correspondence with economic development, employment and the political climate.
The most complicated thing is to analyze leadership more correctly from that perspective. To what extent the result of last Sunday in Argentina expresses the feeling, the expectations, the hopes of the people. As in other countries, where this type of leadership emerges or the left wing leadership weakens.
In any case, the axis of the entire struggle is ideas, the struggle for values, the struggle at the cultural level.
