The street challenges Latin America’s politicians

ANOTHER WEEK, and another Latin American country is out on the street. Now it is Colombia, where large protests have been taking place since November 21st. In other places, demonstrations have been triggered by specific things, even if the protesters’ demands went beyond them—increases in metro fares in Chile and fuel prices in Haiti and Ecuador, and electoral fraud in Bolivia. But in Colombia there is just a pervasive feeling of discontent with an unpopular government. It has brought disparate groups onto the streets, from students, trade unionists and indigenous and gay activists to archaeologists against mining. A similar mood prevails in much of the region. The longer this goes on, the more it may paralyse governments.

The protests are not without precedent, nor are they confined to Latin America. In the early 2000s, elected governments were toppled in Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia (twice, in disorders led by Evo Morales, who has just suffered the same fate). Huge protests erupted out of almost nothing in Brazil in 2013.

As in 1968, this is a time of global discontent, but it is particularly intense in Latin America. The protests are not its only manifestation. Popular anger showed up last year in electoral victories for contrasting populists, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico. The...