After decades of countries voting for the left’s vision of human society in the belief it would ultimately prevail, there is now occurring a worldwide rejection of the policies of that vision in many nations where it was put into practice and has failed.
The past two weeks alone have seen the surprise victory of anti-Peronist Javier Milei in Argentina’s presidential election and the upset win of conservative reformist Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.
The new Argentinian president is a conservative libertarian who will attempt to reform the collapsed Peronist economy and has already begun a campaign to cut excessive government programs and agencies. Wilders, meanwhile, will now attempt to form a coalition of conservative and center-right parties to lead an overhaul of decades-long leftist policies that have ruled Dutch politics.
In Ecuador, youthful businessman Daniel Noboa has also just taken office after winning the recent presidential election and formed a coalition in the nation’s legislature with its new conservative leader, promising to reverse Ecuador’s sharp economic decline.
These dramatic political reversals over the past few weeks follow a series of similar election outcomes and apparent political sea changes in Europe, South America, North America, and Asia.
In recent years, Europe has seen many of its post-World War II leftist governments and social welfare economic policies voted out by conservative and center-right parties.
This past June, Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece’s center-right New Democratic Party became prime minister after years of debt crisis and three international bailouts.
Last October, Giorgia Meloni of the conservative Brothers of Italy Party became prime minister after decades of Italian economic and political crises.
In Lithuania, Ingrida Simonyte of the center-right Homeland Union Party is now prime minister.
Karl Nehammer of the conservative Austrian People’s Party has also held on to the chancellorship of Austria since 2021.
In Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is currently president and is running for prime minister as the candidate of the center-right Social Democratic Party.
In Hungary, Viktor Orban has continued his campaign of conservative reforms after more than a decade as that country’s prime minister.
After years of rule by leftist social welfare parties, Ulf Kristersson of the center-right Moderate Party is now Sweden’s prime minister.
In neighboring Finland, Petteri Orpo of the moderate-to-right National Coalition Party is prime minister.
Aleksandar Vucic of the center-right Serbian Progressive Party is the prime minister of the largest Balkan country.
Even before the new conservative leaders just elected in Ecuador and Argentina, Luis Lacalle Pou of the conservative Uruguayan National Party was elected president, as was Santiago Pena of the Colorado Party in Paraguay.
The world’s most populous nation, India, was run by socialists for decades after gaining its independence in 1948, but now Narendra Modi of the conservative nationalist Bharatiya Janata is the prime minister with the Indian Parliament controlled by his pro-free-enterprise party.
In Japan, conservative Fumio Kishida of the center-right Liberal Democratic Party is now prime minister.
Yoon Suk Yeol of the conservative People Power Party is the president of South Korea.
Although leftist Justin Trudeau has been Canadian prime minister since 2015, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre now leads in the polls, and is favored to replace Trudeau in the next election.
Conservative presidential candidates, most notably GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, are leading liberal incumbent Joe Biden in most recent polls in advance of next year’s U.S. presidential election, and Republican conservatives are favored to retake control of the U.S. Senate.
Leftists still run many democratic nations, including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, and several small nations across the globe. Authoritarian regimes in China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran do not let their citizens hold free elections. Some nations hold elections, but their politics are primarily tribal, and fit neither a left nor right model.
Great Britain saw a conservative landslide a few years ago, precipitating its break with the European Union. Today, however, and contrary to an otherwise global conservative trend (as outlined above), the British voters, frustrated by immigration and economic woes, seem ready to vote Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunak out of office in the next election.
Poland recently replaced its conservative government, as did Australia, by going to the left.
The unsettling pandemic period and the current conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have also upended some traditional lines of political ideology and behavior of voters across the globe.
Of course, each country’s idea of being “conservative” is a little bit different, and every nation has differing local issues. But the global trend to the right and the reaction against the left is clear.
Very recent elections and some important imminent ones are pointing to a conservative tide. The failure of leftist and neo-Marxist policies everywhere signal this tide will continue.
