Rafael Correa and Evo Morales. Flickr/Cancillería del Ecuador. Some rights reserved.
Argentina’s close vote in the first round of its presidential election on October 25 unleashed yet another wave of frenzied headlines proclaiming the demise of Latin America's left governments. The "pink tide's" die hard detractors are impatiently awaiting events that they hope will prove that they were right all along.
The economic landscape, after a sudden shift in 2015 in the international terms of trade, has certainly transformed dramatically. Chinese demand has fallen, oil and mineral prices have collapsed with no sign of recovery in the short term, the dollar has appreciated and credit is hard to come by. In October, the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean downgraded growth figures for the region, concluding that the continent's economy would contract by -0.3% in 2015 and only grow 0.7% in 2016.
