Montevideo hosts a progressive congress after three consecutive electoral defeats in the region

Friday, August 21st 2026 - 10:12 UTC The meeting takes place at an adverse moment for those forces. The last three presidential elections in Latin America were won by conservative candidates. Photo: Sebastián Astorga More than a hundred lawmakers, former presidents, ministers and political figures from fifteen countries across the Americas gather from Friday at Uruguay's Legislative Palace in Montevideo for the third Pan-American Congress, a parliamentary forum of progressive forces running until Sunday. Organisers put attendance at more than 150 participants. The meeting takes place at an adverse moment for those forces. The last three presidential elections in Latin America were won by conservative candidates: José Antonio Kast in Chile, Keiko Fujimori in Peru and Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia, all three sworn in this year. Uruguay and Brazil remain the main centre-left governments in South America. “We are not arriving in a golden age, but in full recognition of those defeats,” said the congress's general coordinator, David Adler, an economist, co-founder of the Progressive International and a former adviser to US Senator Bernie Sanders. He explained that some sessions will be held behind closed doors “to talk frankly about good practices and also about experiments that have failed to reach the public.” Under the slogan “Solidarity among peoples, sovereignty among nations,” the programme is organised around four themes: peace, security and multilateralism; sustainable development and regional integration; digital sovereignty and artificial intelligence; and wellbeing and care. Organisers also propose rebalancing relations between the north and south of the continent. “We have the International Monetary Fund and the Organization of American States, both headquartered in Washington, which shows an architecture in which the north speaks and expects the south to obey,” Adler said. The congress was created in 2024 in Bogotá on the initiative of then Colombian president Gustavo Petro and held its second edition in Mexico City in 2025. It closes a week of events in the Uruguayan capital that included a gathering of women in politics, a closed forum of fourteen parties from eleven countries and the relaunch of the magazine Nueva Sociedad. The Uruguayan delegation will be led by President Yamandú Orsi, who opens the forum, alongside Vice-President Carolina Cosse, former vice-president Lucía Topolansky and the secretary of the presidency, Alejandro Sánchez. International participants include former presidents Ernesto Samper of Colombia and Gabriel Boric of Chile; the governor of Buenos Aires province, Axel Kicillof; Brazilian senator Humberto Costa, of the Workers' Party; Mexican Morena official Carolina Rangel; and US representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jesús García. Adler highlighted the choice of Uruguay as host. “We have a great deal to learn from Uruguayan society, which has a very living memory and knew how to deepen its democratic roots,” he said.