Latin America ends 2019 shaken by a wave of protests that evidences a growing.

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The triggers, however, have not been exactly the same. And, as expected, they have reflected fiercely local realities.

In Bolivia, for example, the fuse was lit by an alleged attempt at electoral fraud that ended up provoking the resignation of President Evo Morales amid allegations of coup d'etat.

"Once Evo Morales was in evidence, he had no choice but to leave": Luis Almagro, head of the OAS
While in Chile, it was the increase in the subway fare that originally brought people to protest in the streets.

Before, however, an unpo[CENSORED]r package of economic reforms had had the same effect in Ecuador. And shortly after the same thing happened in Colombia.

The deep distrust and discontent with numerous government policies has helped to maintain the mobilization, often also fueled by the authorities' response.

Dilan Cruz dies, the young protester wounded by the police who became the symbol of the protests in Colombia
For the rest, all those elements had already joined shortly before in Honduras, a country that, in a sense, has not stopped protesting since President Juan Orlando Hernández was re-elected amid accusations of fraud.

Anti-government protests have also been happening in Haiti, where a mix of accusations of corruption and unpo[CENSORED]r measures is behind the demand for a change of government, very similar to those that have been being heard in Venezuela and Nicaragua for several years.

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In Colombia, the authorities' response to the protests has only fueled them.
While widespread discontent with governments, both left and right, has also become evident in the defeats suffered by the ruling party in the recent elections in El Salvador and Argentina.

And beyond local specificities, there is an important element in common that can help us to better understand this particular Latin American moment: the poor performance of the regional economy in recent years.

"Street violence has affected the entire chain": the serious consequences of the social outbreak for the Chilean economy
Poorer
Obviously, the economy is not enough to fully explain the outbreak. And, as Moisés Naim emphasizes, the differences between what happens in each country are probably "as or deeper than the similarities".

"The reasons they protest in Chile are diametrically opposed to those of Bolivia," the former Foreign Policy director said in a recent interview with BBC Mundo.

Moisés Naím: "The perpetuation of power is what harms Latin America the most"
But "what they do have in common is that in Latin America we are still seeing the external shock after the boom in raw materials," said the Venezuelan economist.

"It is clearly a structural factor that unites the protests," says Jerome Roos, an expert in International Political Economy from the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics with a special interest in Latin America.

"But to explain them, and understand them, you can not lose sight of local contexts," he tells BBC Mundo.

Image copyrightEPA
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In Bolivia, the trigger for the protests were controversial presidential elections.
The delicate economic moment of the region, however, is more than evident in the title of the most recent regional report of the International Monetary Fund: "Economic perspectives of the Americas: frustrated by uncertainty".

"Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has slowed from 1.0 percent in 2018 to 0.2 percent in 2019," the report begins, which continues to highlight as factors "slow global growth, prices moderates of raw materials and volatile capital flows. "

The Latin American countries that will grow the most in 2019
But as Michael Stott, editor for Latin America of the Financial Times, recalls, the decline in the region's economy began much earlier, in 2014, when China stopped buying so much.

And, for Stott, the fact that several countries in the region now run the risk of reliving a second "lost decade" - the name given to the Latin American financial crisis of the 1980s - is key.

After all, during the last six years the real growth of the Latin American economy has averaged only 0.8% of GDP.

But if po[CENSORED]tion growth is considered, this has resulted in a reduction in GDP per capita.

Image copyright REUTERS
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In Ecuador it was a package of economic reforms that brought people to the streets.
That means that poverty has c