MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Latinamerican voters dissatisfied with their economies

Latin America's current drift to the political left suggests voters are uncertain, and in some cases dissatisfied, with their economies, said on Friday the head of the International Monetary Fund Rodrigo de Rato addressing a business conference in New York.

"The dissatisfaction of voters has its roots in real economic problems, especially in growth which remains too low and in poverty levels which remain too high in many countries" insisted the IMF Managing Director. Rato said economic growth in Latin America was at its strongest since the 1970's and likely to remain above 4% this year. Inflation is falling, fiscal and external positions strong, and economies more resilient to shocks. Still, election results in some of the region's biggest economies reveal "genuine economic discontent" among voters, especially with poverty levels and widening inequalities between the haves and have-nots, he said. Latin America has seen about a dozen presidential elections since November 2005 in some of its largest countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela. Rato said democratic elections gave leaders the legitimacy and political strength to implement reforms. He said the IMF has supported reforms that led to higher growth and lowered poverty, but he cautioned that reforms often had not gone far enough. "Where progress has not been made, the problem is often that reforms have not gone far enough and that many reforms are incomplete," he added. "Voters are right to ask searching questions about whether the policy mix is correct" he said, adding: "Both their government and international institutions like the IMF must continue looking for better answers." The answers, he said, may require closer scrutiny of institutional frameworks and greater efforts to pinpoint constraints in individual countries, while also sticking to policies that have shown successes.