“Rational voters” punish governments, says Leonel

According to a note by Fuerza del Pueblo, during a conference at the Harvard Kennedy School, Boston (USA), the president of the People’s Force (FP), Leonel Fernández, stated that there is a direct relationship between global economic trends and electoral cycles in Latin America. He explained that rational voters hold governments accountable for their economic performance, and a government presiding over a period of prosperity can expect to win votes.

Conversely, a government facing economic decline tends to lose favor with the voters. The former president cited that from 2017 to 2022, with the exception of Venezuela and Nicaragua, all government party candidates lost the elections in Latin America. While in theory, the economic vote is more common, other factors may intervene in electoral behavior, such as partisan, ideological identification, political scandals, or breach of electoral promises. He reiterated that Latin America is the region of the world where the economic factor is the most important in determining the electoral behavior of voters, leading to a political pendulum.

Fernández also mentioned that research on electoral behavior is relatively recent in Latin America, given that modern democracy is a phenomenon for the last four decades.