Political Parties, Opposition Politics, and Democracy in Latin America

Abstract

The history of democratic party opposition in Latin America is much like the old saying, "always a bridesmaid, never a bride." Like the bridesmaid, political party opposition in Latin America has never achieved the recognition and acceptance that political parties out of power have attained in many advanced industrial democracies. Perhaps the most common situation of political party opposition in Latin America is that in which numerous barriers are established in order to limit the influence of the party out of power. In countries where such "controlled" and restricted opposition can be found, political parties gauge "success" in terms of their ability to acquire the qualities of resilience and determination, since there is often little opportunity to effectively challenge the dominance of the governing regime. In Mexico, the Party of the Institutional Revolution has a firm lock on national power and uses that hold to control opposition politics.