MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

How Socialist is Bachelet and Morales?

Associating the victory of Chilean elected president Michelle Bachelet with other political “events” in Latinamerican such as the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia and the popularity of nationalist Ollanta Humala in Peru is “absurd”, said Organization of American States, OAS, Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza.

"Ms Bachelet's victory can be attributed to the natural consequence of the successful Chilean ruling coalition rather than to a phenomenon of new regional leaderships", said Mr. Insulza during a television interview in Santiago.

"It's more reasonable to associate Ms Bachelet to the Concertacion's success and president Ricardo Lagos public opinion support than to the trend of leadership in other regional countries", added Mr. Insulza, a former Chilean Minister of Interior, who nevertheless underlined that "Ms Bachelet has her own strong profile".

Mr. Insulza also rejected the idea of "axis of evil" in Latinamerica, a growing description in the United States press when referring to the links between the leaders of Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia.

"OAS is more concerned with the quality of governance in democratically elected governments rather than discussing whether they are left or right leaning, or middle ground. OAS is interested in promoting positive performances and greater transparency".

The Washington Post also addressed the alleged "Socialist turn" in Latinamerican politics in one of its main Wednesday editorials.

The contrast between Chilean elected Socialist president Michelle Bachelet and Socialist Evo Morales in Bolivia "illustrates the way in which Latinamerican countries, contrary to developed countries, continue marred in the confusion over economic development models", writes the Washington Post.

"Although Evo Morales presidency symbolizes the expansion of Bolivian democracy to fully include the poor peoples of his country, mostly indigenous, Mr. Morales is a regression to the Latinamerican past".

The influential Washington daily argues that Mr. Morales proposed policies have their mentor in Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez, "have repeatedly driven to catastrophe and have long been discredited in other parts of the world".

In contrast, "Chile increasingly looks and conducts itself as a European country". As with European Social-democrat leaders Bachelet favors promoting economic equality which is still notoriously absent in Chile, "but she does not question the basics of the growing prosperity of Chile", which are free trade, foreign investment and free markets.

"One of the paradoxes of current Latinamerica is the slowness, including the elites, in absorbing the success lessons from Chile", adds the editorial pointing out that if Latinamericans could see further ahead of the demagoguery and caudillo practices of Chavez, "they would find out that the true XXI century socialism is promoted by a modern woman who has just been elected president of Chile".