Latin lessons: two contrasting elections

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Jason Palmer.

And I'm Ora Ogumbi. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

As much as epidemiology has progressed, only one human disease, smallpox, has been completely eradicated. Many others that seem like distant history continue to spread and flare up. We investigate the return of leprosy to Florida.

And worries about the burden of animal produce on the climate. And our health is driving a wave of creative innovation in alternative proteins. We're not just talking nut milks and pea based cheeses. We visit a company making ice cream out of thin air.

Air.

But first, In two Latin American countries this weekend, pivotal elections took place. Two countries that face many of the same challenges. In Guatemala, after a runoff election, thousands took to the streets to celebrate the victory of Bernardo Arevolo. The 64 year old won the presidency with a platform squarely centered on stamping out corruption and quelling rampant violence. In Ecuador, those same concerns were on the minds of voters too. Just 12 days ago, the anti corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio was brutally gunned down, leaving a campaign event. The assassination didn't stop the voting, but no contender got a majority this weekend. So Ecuador is set for a runoff of its own. Like many citizens of south and Central America, these two nations seem keen for meaningful change, but the questions of which problems to tackle and how to tackle them are inspiring, divergent political moments.

Both Ecuador and Guatemala have had deep seated problems with recently, with corruption, political violence.

Emma Hogan is the Economist's America's editor.

In Ecuador in particular, violence has overshadowed the campaign. But the two elections have produced very different results.

Well, let's talk about them one by one. To begin with, what happened in Guatemala.

In Guatemala, it was a clear cut result. Bernardo Arevalo won with 58% of the vote. So although Arevalo is the son of Guatemala's first democratically elected president and a former diplomat diplomat, he's very much seen as the outsider candidate in that country. He campaigned on promises to tackle corruption and was a surprise winner in the runoff earlier this year. Many people feared that the elite known as the Pact of the Corrupt would try and scupper his campaign. But that didn't come to pass. And when he won, there were huge scenes of celebration in Guatemala.

How about Ecuador? Who's come out on top there?

Well, so it seemed that the election Ecuador was going to be dominated by questions about crime and corruption, in that Ecuador's murder rate has increased massively in recent years. It has a big problem with crime, particularly in its prisons and gang violence. And then just 12 days ago, one of the candidates who was leading our anti corruption platform, Ferrando Villavicencio, was assassinated. So it seemed that this election was just going to be about those who were calling for rule of law and who had clamped down on crime, as many other presidents across Latin America have done in recent years. But instead, those that came through and we'll go to the runoff, they're more about two different things. One candidate is looking backwards, is a nostalgic candidate. So Louisa Gonzalez is of the Citizen Revolution movement. She's been a frontrunner throughout and she garnered the mace fates. She's a protege of Rafael Correa, who was a former president who's currently in exile in Belgium following corruption charges, which he denies. The second candidate was a surprise. He's Daniel Noboer. He's a son of one of Latin America's richest families who made their millions exporting bananas. A few weeks ago he was polling at just single digits and he presents more of an investment friendly approach and wants to boost the economy.

So we're talking about these two elections simply because they happen close together in time. Is it fair to compare them? Are they separate similar countries in terms of where they're headed?

Well, both countries face similar issues at the moment, particularly regarding corruption and crime. The organized drugs trade, which spreads across Latin America, has in particular increased violence in Ecuador in recent years, which is a route out of the region for cocaine in particular. But what's more striking, I think, is that the results in both countries suggest that people are fed up with the status quo, are perhaps looking at different ways of dealing with, with the issues their countries face. Arevalo in particular could breathe a new life into Guatemala's politics. It's more complicated in Ecuador. If Gonzalez wins, then Rafael Correa, the former president who's exiled in Belgium, might be the real power behind the throne. And if Nomboa wins, you might end up getting gridlock in Congress, as we've seen over the last few years.

So as you say, very different outcomes for both of these countries. But going into these elections, big questions on both sides were about violence and corruption. Where do you see those problems being tackled?

I mean, there's incredibly difficult problems to tackle in both countries. To take Guatemala first, the winning candidate, Arevalo, is probably going to have legal challenges before he can come to power. And in Ecuador, it's really difficult to know. Noboa is an untested candidate and Gonzalez may end up simply being the pawn of Rafael Correa, the former president. So in both countries, in order to tackle these increasing murder rates and sort of spiraling violence will involve spending on arming the police forces, reducing poverty and so on. And it's going to be tough and difficult to do economically, regardless of whether or not they have support of those currently in power.

And drawing the lens back a little bit further, what do these results, even if they're unfinished stories, tell you about the region more widely?

What's really striking in Latin America at the moment is just how much outsider or anti incumbent candidates are benefiting in elections. So last year there was a wave of left wing politicians who won elections, including Lula in Brazil. And that seemed to recall the earlier Pink Tide in which a series of left wing governments were in power in Latin America. And yet actually what seems to be the case is that people want change in Latin America and that they're going for the candidate who best seems to offer that. Now, in some cases, this can seem rather worrying. In the Latin Americans, in polls show themselves to be the least fond of democracy. And so they're going for candidates who perhaps in the cases of someone like Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, want to crack down on crime and take a more authoritarian approach to governing. But in some cases it just Seems that they're fed up with the status quo.

How do you mean? What's giving you that impression?

So another example of this is last week, Javier Melaye, a former economist and political outsider, was won Argentina's primaries and will go ahead to the election in October. So although these countries differ in many respects, what you're seeing both in Ecuador and Guatemala is part of a regional trend where those who are seen to be against the status quo or against the current government in power are those who are benefiting.

Emma, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

The first documentary report on film ever taken in this leprous settlement. The 235 victims of leprosy, or Hansen's disease, at Kalaupapa live normal, comfortable lives. Leprosy is one of humanity's oldest diseases and among its most stigmatized. It's a bacterial infection that leaves lesions on the body, a signal of a once incurable disease that led people to isolate themselves in leper colonies. Until recently, the lepers at Kalaupapa merely lived out their lives with no hope of ever leaving the settlement on Molokai. Today, some countries laws still allow people to divorce a spouse. With leprosy, by now, a cure is as simple as a long round of antibiotics. And globally, cases have long been on the wane, which is why it's strange that the disease is evidently making a comeback in America.

In many ways, the last few years have seemed quite biblical. First we had a pandemic, then war, food shortages, floods, and even fires. And now, after all of that, we can add leprosy to the list.

Tamara Julks Bore is our US Policy correspondent.

Leprosy is spreading in the southeastern United States and specifically in Florida.

In Florida, in my home state, how worried do I need to be for my friends and family?

I actually wouldn't be too worried. Only 5% of people seem to actually be susceptible to infection. And if you do get infected, it's actually really curable. With antibiotics, the biggest risk is actually that medical professionals might not diagnose it properly because it's so rare. They've only really seen it in medical textbooks.

So it is really unusual then for it to get to this part of the world.

It is really unusual to see leprosy in the United States. Leprosy is a tropical disease, and in 2020, which is the last year that we have data for, there were only 159 cases. And usually people who get leprosy in the US have three risk factors. One is that they've traveled abroad to an area with a high prevalence of leprosy places like India, Brazil, or Indonesia. The second risk factor is that they've come into prolonged contact with someone who's traveled to those places. And the third one that's probably the most interesting is having prolonged contact with armadillos through something like wrangling, wrestling, or hunting armadillos.

Now, that starts to sound like my home state.

Yes, that gives you the images of Florida man. Right. But armadillos actually carry leprosy, which is why people who wrestle them are at risk for leprosy.

But the most common transmission route is person to person.

Now we're starting to see person to person transmission in the US which is quite unusual. So I spoke with a dermatologist named Charles Dunn, who's based in Florida, in Orlando, and he had a patient who was 54 years old and had none of the usual risk factors. So for years, many doctors had misdiagnosed him. They didn't realize that he had leprosy. This case study suggests that leprosy is endemic, meaning that it's regularly occurring in the southeastern United States and in Florida in particular. This year, there have already been 16 cases. And back in 2020, which is where we have the latest data from, 17% of leprosy cases were in Florida, and 80% of those were in central Florida.

So is there a way to avoid getting infected if it is indeed endemic like this?

So, interestingly, scientists are not entirely sure how leprosy spreads, but it does seem like it's quite difficult to. To actually get leprosy. So, Once again, only 5% of people seem to actually be susceptible to infection. And on top of that, a person has to have prolonged contact with someone or something, like an armadillo that has leprosy. And it seems that it spreads through coughing and sneezing when it spreads from human to human. It's an interesting disease in that it can remain dormant in humans for up to 20 years. So that makes contact tracing really difficult. I mean, who remembers what they were doing or who they were having dinner with over 20 years ago? But as I said, leprosy is now curable. And within a few weeks, infected people are actually no longer contagious. The lesions go away, and though they may leave scars, they are in fact cured. And the treatment is even free nowadays, thanks to the World Health Organization.

So we're unlikely then, to return to your biblical comparison, to return to the times of leper colonies and the like?

Thankfully, no, we are not likely to return to that. In the past, people have been buried alive and burned alive for having leprosy. And that's often because leprosy was associated with sin, so they were cast out of society. And there was a major stigma associated with leprosy. And also back then, there wasn't a cure. But today we know much better, and we know that the average person won't come into contact with it, and if they do, they probably won't get it. So I do not think we'll return to that kind of situation in the future. In the past, leprosy was a marker of sin, but today it's simply a sign that you probably should go see your dermatologist.

Thanks very much for your time, Tamara.

Thanks for having me.

Okay, so. It tastes great. So a few weeks ago, I went to Fico, a beautiful Italian restaurant on the east coast of Singapore. And while I was there, I tried the restaurant's chocolate gelato, which, unlike most chocolate gelatos, is made out of a pretty unusual ingredient.

Sue Lin Wong is the Southeast Asia correspondent for the Economist.

Thank you.

No problem.

So that's, that's, that's solene, which, I mean, I believe, you know, it's proteins coming from out of thin air.

Thin air?

Yeah, in Finland.

So solene is an alternative protein made by a Finnish firm called Solar Foods, and they use gas fermentation to feed microbes with hydrogen and carbon dioxide and then turn the resultant liquid into a powder. It looks like turmeric, but it's a bit like, clumpier, like the. It's like little kind of pebble sized.

Yeah, but it's just, it's.

It's smooth.

They're like. They're not like rocks.

Okay, so just put it in my mouth.

Correct.

Mmm.

It's very flavoursome. It's like nutty and buttery, and I want to eat more of it. Fico's chef, Miyako Fabrile, jumped on the opportunity to experiment with new protein.

I can change the game. And, you know, I can actually serve an ice cream which is usually made from milk and eggs, but instead I'm giving you water, chocolate and solene. And it just tastes the same. Like it's not less creamy because of that. It's not less. There's no less chocolate flavor because of that. The texture is not compromised.

Mirko's ice cream is becoming popular in Singapore, and I can vouch for it being delicious, but you won't be able to try it anywhere else for now.

Oh, I was kind of looking forward to it. Why is that?

So Solar Foods had Its world debut in Singapore in June of this year. But the company isn't yet allowed to sell its soline protein anywhere else in the world. And the reason for this is that Singapore is the first country in the world to allow the sale of alternative proteins. So cultivated animal cells or meat, dairy, and eggs made from plants and food, like this chocolate gelato made from microbial or gas fermentation. So in December 2020, Singapore became the first country to grant regulatory approval for the commercial sale of meat produced in a lab from cultivated animal cells. And since then, it's become the world leader in alternative proteins.

And why is Singapore so interested in these alternative proteins?

So their interests are really driven by concerns over food security. Singapore is tiny, half the size of London, and only about 1% of its land is available for food production. As a result, Singapore has to import over 90% of its food. It's very worried about a volatile food supply chain, disruption by unpredictable neighbors, inflation, pandemics and war. And so as a result, the government has a target to produce 30% of the country's food by 2030, which is a pretty big challenge.

And you mentioned that Singapore is encouraging experimentation. How exactly is it doing that?

Singapore offers licenses faster than any other place in the world. And it's known for having a clear regulatory framework as well as an efficient approval process. So when I interviewed the CEO of Solar Foods, he told me he'd been waiting for two years for regulatory approval in the European Union. But in contrast, Solene, his alternative protein, had been granted approval in Singapore within a year. And so because of this fast and transparent process, many of these alternative proteins appear in Singapore first, there are other products like Very Dairy, an animal free milk brand from a company based in California which have launched in Singapore. It sells a milk that is biologically identical to conventional milk proteins, but made from microbes instead of cows.

So it sounds like the alternative proteins industry is really flourishing then.

Well, yes and no. Orey the industry still faces a lot of challenges and one big question is, can it scale? So the alternative protein industry has very high production costs and a bunch of other challenges. So Good Meat, for example, is an American firm and the only cultivated meat company to have received approval in Singapore. Singapore, it sells less than 2,300kg a year of its cultivated chicken, which is just a tiny fraction of global meat production.

And do you think this industry will eventually catch on elsewhere? Do you think other regulators perhaps will also follow Singapore's path?

Yeah, well, Singapore is finally getting some real competition in the alternative protein world. In June, America became the second country to approve production and sale of cultivated meat. So now cell cultivated chicken from two brands, good meat which I just mentioned, and upside food are allowed to be sold there. And America's vast consumer market as well as its cutting edge technology mean that it could be about to threaten Singapore's early lead. That having been said, either way, the world is about to get more alternative protein options and whether they come from Singapore or not, that's a good thing for the planet.

Su Lin, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks very much for having me. Orey.

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Sam.