MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Populist wave” is not a threat to stability in Latinamerica

Cervantes 1999 Prize Jorge Edwards

The “populist wave” in Latinamerica represented by leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales in Bolivia are not an “excessive threat” to stability and territorial balance said Chilean writer Jorge Edwards.

“Even when Latinamerica lacks the political maturity of Europe”, currently there are very stable countries in the region such as Chile, Brazil and Peru said the distinguished scholar, 1999 Cervantes Literature Prize (equivalent to the Nobel in Spanish language) who is known for also writing solid pieces on regional politics.

He added that other countries in the region, according to his viewpoint, which could be facing political or social fragmentation, are Mexico and Paraguay which have many problems but will manage to move ahead.

Speaking in Spain after having been h0noured with the City of Valladolid Literature Prize for his paper on “The House of Dostoievsky”, Edwards tracked the “populist wave” to traditional burdens of the region such as economic difficulties, oppressed minorities and aborigine groups and majorities which can’t find ways to express themselves”.

“I believe these problems can be addressed “with common sense, practical wisdom and a clear sense of reality”, pointed out Edwards.

Finally he included the current political crisis in Honduras as part of that “wave of populism” and complained it was blown up out of all proportion by the media that prefer to insist “on the negative sides of Latinamerica or the latest ludic fabrications of Chavez, than the positive sides of governance and effective democracy in most of the continent