Support slips for Latin America's new right-wing leaders

Ahead of an election that could return the right to power in Brazil, polls show support slipping for recently elected conservative leaders across Latin America. 

New surveys in Peru, Colombia, Chile and Argentina suggest voters are losing patience with governments elected on promises to curb crime, revive weak economies and forge closer ties with US President Donald Trump.

Peru's conservative President Keiko Fujimori and her hardline, gun-toting Colombian counterpart, Abelardo de la Espriella, are the latest newcomers to see their ratings fall.

An Ipsos poll last week showed approval of Fujimori dropping to 40 percent from 57 percent when she took office in August, while De la Espriella's fell more than three points in his first month in office.

In Chile, where voters elected their most conservative president in three decades last year amid concerns over organised crime, one-quarter of President José Antonio Kast's supporters say they regret backing him, according to the left-wing Fundación Nodo XXI. 

Argentina's President Javier Milei, a hero to free-market conservatives across the region, has also seen his ratings hit record lows a year before seeking re-election.

"I think a lot of these governments raised expectations probably unrealistically. People want quick results, which are impossible to produce," Michael Shifter, senior fellow at The Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, told AFP.

But the backlash has little to do with ideology, he cautioned. 

"I'm not sure that if these were governments of the left that it would be any different," he said.

An AmericasBarometer survey of more than 25,000 people in 21 countries found weak support for the leaders of eight US allies that belong to Trump's "Shield of the Americas" alliance: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama and Paraguay.

'Concrete action'

Nowhere is impatience for better governance more visible than in Bolivia, where voters dumped the long-ruling socialists in the midst of the country's worst economic crisis in 40 years. 

President Rodrigo Paz was elected as a moderate, pro-business alternative, but was only six months into his mandate when demonstrators demanding his resignation blockaded major cities.

Many blame the 59-year-old for failing to end crippling fuel shortages.

"I thought it would be different, that things were going to change," Jamil Alanoca, a 19-year-old business student, told AFP. 

Across the border in Peru, voters went to the polls in April and June seeking relief from an extortion epidemic and are already showing frustration at the lack of results.

"A problem that has persisted for so many years [insecurity] isn't going to be solved overnight," Guillermo Loli, director of opinion polls at Ipsos Peru, told AFP. 

But "at least concrete actions should be seen," he said.

The Bukele exception 

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's iron-fisted approach to his country's gangs has earned him a cult-like following.

The self-described "world's coolest dictator" enjoys approval of 83 percent, according to the AmericasBarometer survey, after driving crime rates to historic lows through a sweeping anti-gang crackdown.

The gains were achieved by jailing more than 90,000 suspects under a four-year-old state of emergency that rights groups say has been marked by serious abuses. 

"Bukele's El Salvador remains a defining experiment – a state that traded liberties for safety and, by these measures, delivered greater safety," the 2026 Pulse of Democracy report produced by Vanderbilt University using AmericasBarometer polling said.

Shifter expressed doubt that Bukele's success against domestic gangs could be replicated against the transnational crime networks operating elsewhere in the region. 

"Bukele, I think, is really sui generis, he's the exception," he said. 

Chilean pensioner Leoncio Silva said he believed that, given more time, Kast would vanquish the foreign gangs blamed for a surge in violence in his country.

"Let's wait a year and see," he urged.