BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Right-wing populists have been making headway in some of Latin America’s biggest economies, promising a strong-arm approach to combatting crime and illegal immigration as an answer to the left-wing populism that took hold in the region just a few years ago.
Although homicide rates have broadly declined across Latin America compared to a decade ago, spikes in some countries and a regionwide rise in other crimes have made conditions ripe for conservative populists to blame migrants and pitch heavy-handed strategies popularized by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.
