February 3, 1990, Seattle Times - Los Angeles Times, South American Democracies On Shaky Footing, by James F. Smith,

February 3, 1990, Seattle Times - Los Angeles Times, South American Democracies On Shaky Footing, by James F. Smith,

SANTIAGO, Chile - One by one, dictators grudgingly gave way to politicians across South America during the last decade. Finally, only Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the prototype of the anti-Communist ruler-general, was left - in the country with one of the strongest democratic traditions on the continent.

Then, in the last month of the 1980s, Chile joined South America's remarkable, peaceful evolution toward democracy, electing a civilian president for the first time in 19 years.

When veteran politician Patricio Aylwin takes the oath of office here in March, succeeding Pinochet, South America will have crossed an unprecedented threshold. Never before, since they began emerging in the early 1800s, have all of the continent's dozen independent countries been ruled by elected governments at the same time.

As that landmark approaches, however, some skeptics are wondering whether the pendulum is about to start swinging back and whether more coups lie ahead in the 1990s. Weak governments are being challenged by a relentless economic slide and the popular discontent it has engendered. Politicians themselves are distinctly out of favor. Candidates running as non-politicians and anti-politicians have triumphed in several elections.

The worst-case scenario in the region is that voters will turn to leftists and populists who will open the spending spigots, bring on chaos and prompt another swing back to authoritarian rule. Some are equally afraid of harsh right-wing ``shock adjustment plans'' that punish the poor to the breaking point, setting off violence with the same result.

Elite, a Venezuelan news magazine, commented recently that ``social tensions everywhere are on the rise.'' It said that the region's new economic austerity programs may ``arouse strong popular resistance and fail, leading to chaos - the situation that Bolivia faced from 1984-86. It is now faced by Argentina and Peru, and may not be far away for Colombia and Venezuela. Even Brazil, which had improved spectacularly after 1982, gives the impression of being adrift.

"There is no denying that what we see today is the end of a half-century of populism and the dashing of the old dream of combining economic growth with social justice," Elite said. "Social inequalities are increasing and, with them, the danger of social breakdown and violence."

Peru is South America's most troubled democracy, with a triple threat of hyper-inflation, guerrilla war and drug-trafficking, but others also are under siege, buried by more than $440 billion in foreign debt, declining real incomes and soaring prices.

Bolivia, for example, has imposed a state of siege to try to keep its model economic recovery program on track in the face of worker demands.

Argentina is groping to impose such a program, but resistance from vested interests has undermined President Carlos Saul Menem's authority less than six months after he took office in July from a predecessor who quit early because of rioting caused by economic woes.

Latin American citizens are bitter and frustrated with the absence of tangible benefits from civilian rule.

"We need a Pinochet," said Miguel Fernandez, 50, a truck driver in Lima, Peru, whose business had failed, forcing him to drive his car as a gypsy taxi. With words that find echoes in several countries, he added: "Democracy doesn't help the worker. The politicians have failed completely. Democracy exists here only in name. The abuse of the people always is the same here."

Disgust with politicians is widespread in Peru and elsewhere and troubling to those who want political institutions to flourish.

In municipal elections in November, a non-politician, television personality Ricardo Belmont, was elected mayor of Lima, and conservative novelist Mario Vargas Llosa is leading in the presidential campaign. Citizens heavily boycotted municipal elections last month in Venezuela, where an austerity program has hit hard.

Brazil, an unwieldy and poor nation, went through severe jitters in the weeks before its presidential election Dec. 17, with inflation surging and the currency plunging as left-wing candidate Luis Ignacio Lula Da Silva narrowed the gap with his foe, Fernando Collor de Melo.

Collor narrowly won the election on the strength of his campaign against the government bureaucrats known as "maharajas."

Observers cite evidence that the transition to democratic rule is taking root in one of the world's most tumultuous regions. Bolivia alone has endured more than 180 irregular turnovers of leadership. A little over a decade ago, nine of the 12 independent republics in South America were ruled by the military.

The Brazilian election, they note, was to choose the nation's first popularly elected president in 29 years, replacing a civilian chosen by Congress in 1985 in South America's largest country.

Even Paraguay, which has never known genuine democracy, was swept into the democratic tide. Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled for 35 years, fell in a coup staged by his No. 2 man, Gen. Andres Rodriguez, who stunned everyone by genuinely embracing democratic rule. Rodriguez then was elected president in May in what many called Paraguay's first free election ever.

In all, nine nations in South America will soon have made the transition to elected government since 1979: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay. Colombia and Venezuela have been ruled by democratic governments for decades, and Guyana, a former British colony, has stayed nominally democratic since independence in 1966.

With less certainty, the trend extends to Central America. El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua have returned to shaky elected government in the 1980s, but Fidel Castro is a fixture in Cuba. What develops in Panama remains to be seen, but for now the American invasion has broken the grip on power there of the Panama Defense Forces and their commander, Gen. Manuel Noriega. Costa Rica remains the region's exception, a historically stable democracy.

To those who accentuate the positive, Latin America finally is achieving the stability and accountability that will allow it to compete in the world economy, after years of protectionism that has universally brought decline. Governments that have proved spineless in the face of powerful lobbies are attempting to assert some authority over what are called social "corporations." Everywhere, the priority is on fighting the inflation that has pulverized the region.

The painful modernizing now under way in most South American countries is the only hope, economic experts say, to win public faith in the democratic system as a purveyor not only of freedom but also well-being.

Chile's Aylwin and that country's new legislators, a majority of them from the opposition alliance that defeated Pinochet, are well aware of the burden on their shoulders.

Pinochet will leave them a country that enjoyed economic growth of 7.4 percent in 1988, the fifth straight annual rise.

The uniformity of political systems on the continent, when Chile joins the club, could give a boost to regional integration as a counterbalance to the potential for neglect by the developed world.

Raul Carignano, secretary of Latin American affairs in the Argentine Foreign Ministry, said: "It is impossible to imagine a process of real integration if the countries involved do not follow stable and predictable political processes, and simultaneously."

"This does not mean a single political 'color' for all but rather that the institutional system, in the framework of law and justice, is inviolable. In this sense, democracy is the best system for integration."