[News] How 2022 showed the importance of the political center in the countries of America (although there is more talk about polarization)

[Kyro]

 

Forget the much talked about polarization for a moment: the year 2022 showed the importance of the political center throughout America.

The message came from the polls in countries where conflict had grown in recent times.

In the elections held this year in two of the three largest Latin American democracies, Brazil and Colombia, centrist voters were decisive.

Although left-wing candidates such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro triumphed in both countries, they did so after appealing for restraint against rivals considered more extremist.

In Chile, they voted widely against a change to the constitution that experts say was seen as too radical and unrepresentative of the country's full range of political opinion.
 

Even in the US midterm elections in November, political moderates beat out controversial and extreme candidates supported by former President Donald Trump in battleground states.

"There is disenchantment with traditional politics, but at the same time people are not willing to go to extremes," says Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based hemispheric analysis center, in dialogue with BBC Mundo.

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-64073594