Vanella describes the moment as a collective search for “direction, credibility and effectiveness in public life.” From Washington to Latin America, Argentina is being watched as a test case for whether a nation long defined by volatility can reconcile freedom with stability and national identity with global integration. The vote, he argues, was a statement that now must be translated into results through balance, strong institutions and a capable international posture. What is ultimately at stake is Argentina’s ability to trust itself once more.

Milei’s chainsaw politics

Khattar Singh turns to Milei’s fiscal revolution — his “chainsaw politics.” Vanella notes that the president inherited an economy wrecked by inflation, deficits and institutional fatigue. Drastic budget cuts and public-sector layoffs were dramatized for campaign effect, but in truth, the president did not cut everything. Instead, this could be a calculated impact strategy: the perception of radical action to restore fiscal credibility while avoiding mass upheaval.

The reforms are proceeding with surprising social calm. Argentines have endured a century of stop-start crises, and that inertia remains Milei’s biggest domestic obstacle. Economic transformation without social cohesion won’t be sustainable. The president’s alliance with former Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s Republican Proposal party and long-standing US support could prove decisive in maintaining stability during this reset.

Challenges for Milei

For ordinary Argentines, inflation is easing, but prices remain “salty.” The Argentine peso’s overvaluation against the US dollar keeps living costs high and wages weak. Vanella explains the country’s vicious cycle: devaluing the peso instantly lifts street prices. Any monetary adjustment, therefore, requires delicate “fine-tuning of the dollar … in baby steps” to align currency levels with real productivity while avoiding another price surge.

Even with consumer confidence ticking upward and inflation slowing to 2.1% per month, expectations are fragile. Citizens anxiously hope the new government will let them see “the light at the end of the tunnel.” Fiscal discipline is necessary, he says, but not sufficient: “You cannot build prosperity just by cutting costs.” True growth must come from production, trade and innovation, which he calls “smart economics.”

Milei’s foreign policy

Internationally, Milei is reanchoring Argentina toward the West. He labeled China an assassin state, rejected Argentina’s entry into the BRICS bloc in December 2023 and pledged to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem in 2026. These steps, alongside closer ties with Washington, signal strategic westward diversification.

Still, China remains indispensable as a buyer of soy, lithium and energy. Argentina seeks to align itself with the West, not isolate itself from China. The shift is geopolitical, not commercial: Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires leans politically toward the US and Israel while maintaining trade with all partners. In this balancing act, Argentina seeks influence without dependence.

Milei’s most radical economic promise, full dollarization, illustrates the same trade-off logic. Dollarization can crush inflation and reduce volatility, as Ecuador and El Salvador have illustrated, but it strips away policy tools. For now, Milei’s team has halted the plan while stabilization proceeds. “Dollarization can kill inflation,” Vanella observes, “but it can’t replace institutions.”

Milei’s influence in South America

Milei’s rise reverberates beyond Argentina. His victory underscores a regional break from long-entrenched parties and ideologies. From Bolivia, where the once-dominant Movement for Socialism movement failed to reach the presidential election’s final round on October 19, to Chile, where voters are restless ahead of new polls for its upcoming November 16 presidential election, South America’s political map is being redrawn.

Vanella calls Argentina “a laboratory of liberal experimentation in Latin America.” The region’s new divide is no longer left versus right but establishment versus anti-establishment. Citizens now reward outsiders and staunch reformers who promise competence and integrity over ideological purity. The new axis, in his words, is “efficacy and integrity versus the old machine.”

Whether Milei’s revolution endures will depend on converting disruption into durable governance, restoring trust at home while redefining leadership across the hemisphere. For now, Argentina stands as the loudest chapter in a continental experiment. It’s a nation testing whether liberty, discipline and credibility can coexist long enough to build a new future.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Javier Milei’s Chainsaw Revolution — What His Midterm Victory Means for Argentina appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

However, this acclaim should not obscure °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s presidency itself. Despite °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s declaredly moral stance, his administration was marred by contradictory foreign policy decisions.

°ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s successes in and out of office

°ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s presidency did have several positive achievements. His human rights policies resulted in the release of political prisoners in several countries. His administration pushed for nuclear arms control, notably through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II) ; although it was never ratified by the Senate, it represented a significant step in reducing the threat of nuclear war. Carter also worked to with China, successfully the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 and avoided military conflict during the Iranian . Considering the tensions of the period, the latter was a remarkable feat. In 1978, he helped broker the Camp David between Egypt and Israel.

After leaving the White House in 1981, Carter embarked on a path of active diplomacy, engaging in peace talks and humanitarian projects around the world. He facilitated efforts to eradicate the horrific Guinea worm in West Africa and spoke out against human rights violations wherever they occurred. His efforts to affordable housing through Habitat for Humanity also demonstrated his long-standing commitment to social justice. This post-presidential work remains a cornerstone of his public legacy.

°ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s moral compromises as president

Despite his achievements, °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s actions abroad during his presidency present a stark contrast to the ideals he later championed. His tenure from 1977 to 1981 was defined by a series of decisions that, though well-intentioned, often contradicted the principles of peace, international law and human rights.

Despite his moral rhetoric, his administration engaged in policies that enabled authoritarian governments and military dictatorships. °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s decision to increase military aid to in 1977, for instance, is a glaring contradiction. Indonesia had invaded and annexed East Timor, and the Indonesian military was responsible for numerous human rights atrocities. Under Carter, US military aid to the Indonesian regime increased by 80%, with the provision of OV-10 Bronco counterinsurgency aircraft that killed tens of thousands of East Timorese civilians.

Similarly, °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s for Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara and his efforts to military aid to Turkey after its 1974 invasion of the Republic of Cyprus stand out as decisions that were in direct defiance of international law and United Nations resolutions.

In addition to supporting authoritarian regimes, °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s administration failed to act on numerous human rights abuses happening around the world. One notable example is his administration’s stance on apartheid-era South Africa. Despite of the regime’s racial policies, Carter multiple UN resolutions that sought to impose sanctions on the apartheid government. This failure to take meaningful action against South Africa’s occupation of Namibia and its apartheid system was a significant shortcoming of °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s foreign policy. It was only after Ronald Reagan succeeded Carter that the US government shifted to a more robust against apartheid. The move gained broad bipartisan support in Congress.

°ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s of the Palestine issue further exemplifies the tension between his stated principles and his actual policies. Although he publicly supported the idea of a Palestinian homeland, he failed to openly support an independent Palestinian state and refused to even meet with Palestinian leaders. He failed to pressure Israel to stop expanding illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, even after the Israeli government violated the terms of the Camp David Accords.

Instead, °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s administration dramatically increased military aid to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s right-wing government. He dismissed calls for stronger action against Israeli occupation. In a particularly controversial move, Carter his ambassador to the UN, former Congressman and Civil Rights leader Andrew Young, after Young met with a Palestinian representative at the UN.

°ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s policy toward Central America also reveals a troubling disregard for human rights. In El Salvador, the military junta waged a brutal campaign against leftist insurgents and civilians. Carter continued to provide to the Salvadoran government despite widespread reports of human rights violations, including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s failure to recognize the severity of the situation and his continued support for the Salvadoran regime drew sharp criticism from human rights advocates.

Carter also authorized military aid to General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq in , King Fahd in and Ferdinand Marcos in the . Moreover, °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s covert support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, designed to counter Soviet influence, contributed to the rise of and laid the groundwork for decades of instability in the region.

As we reflect on his legacy, we should remember both the shortcomings of °ä˛ą°ůłŮ±đ°ů’s presidency and the extraordinary contributions he made to global peace and justice in his later years.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On September 25, 2024, Democratic representative Steven Horsford introduced on the floor of Congress. The resolution was intended to censure Republican Congressman Glen Clay Higgins of Louisiana over a social media post. The post in question amplified made by President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. In a post on X responding to an Associated Press article about Haitians in Springfield against Trump and Vance, Higgins wrote: “Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP.”

He continued: “All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.” Higgins later the post, but the damage was done. Condemnations flooded in, followed by the resolution to censure the congressman.

Such comments and lies reflect the worst white supremacist stereotypes about Haiti and Haitians. Broadly, consists of actions, beliefs, outcomes, policies, political strategies and practices that reify the negative connotations associated with blackness and Haitian identity. Trump and both used the false as a form of anti-black, anti-immigrant fear mongering to garner political support.

Examples of such strategies abound. In September 2021, for instance, United States Border Patrol agents appeared to Haitians in Del Rio, Texas amid a crackdown at the border. This resulted in the largest of asylum seekers in recent US history. Between January 2021 and February 2022, the US expelled or deported over . During the same period, more than 5,000 Haitians were deported from other countries, about half of them from the Bahamas.

Anti-Haitianism, of course, is not limited to the US. It is a regional and hemispheric . Within scholarly and informed circles, the best known example of this form of political domination, marginalization, and anti-blackness is in the Dominican Republic. In his study of race and politics, Professor Ernesto Sagás analyzes how Dominican political elites use race and to “construct national myths and then use these myths to stymie challenges to their hegemony.”

As Sagás explores, the national myth underlying Dominican statehood was that the Dominican Republic was the most Spanish colony in the so-called New World. After Haiti’s occupation of Santo Domingo from 1822 to 1844 — which liberated enslaved people, guaranteed Haitian freedom and independence and in Dominican independence — the Dominican Republic solidified its distance from blackness and Haitian identity. Antihaitianismo then developed as an ideology based on anti-black prejudices, stereotypes and myths about Haitians and people of Haitian descent. Antihaitianismo, Sagás writes, scapegoats Haitians for problems within Dominican society and considers Haitians to be culturally and racially inferior black sub-humans.

Dominican society violently displayed antihaitianismo in the 1937 of tens of thousands of Haitians at the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. In 2013, the country’s highest court issued a ruling, locally known simply as , that not only upheld a constitutional amendment that abolished birthright citizenship but retroactively stripped the citizenship of more than 200,000 black Dominicans of Haitian descent, rendering them stateless. Beginning in 2015, tens of thousands were forced out of the country. Now, Dominican President Luis Abinader has for a new round of mass deportations.

“A certain kind of Black”

In my book project, Anti-Haitianism in Paradise: Marginalization, Stigma, and Anti-Blackness in the Bahamas, part of the Black Lives and Liberation series from , I build on Sagás’s work and use anti-Haitianism to articulate the unique form of oppression Haiti and people of Haitian descent experience. In other words, I am wresting the idea and reality of anti-Haitianism in the Dominican Republic, applying it to varying social contexts and broadening the theory to explain what anthropologist Gina Athena Ulysse — in reference to the racist treatment and degradation of Haitians in other parts of the world — refers to as “the of a certain kind of Black.”

The Bahamas, a small, predominantly black Caribbean archipelago nation, has a history of anti-Haitian actions. Haitians have migrated to the Bahamas since the era of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803). Yet on November 9, 2019, members of a Bahamian nationalist group called protested outside a gymnasium housing hundreds of victims of Hurricane Dorian. Starting on September 1, 2019, the devastating Category 5 hovered over Grand Bahama for 24 hours, flooded much of the island and mostly submerged the Abaco Islands, rendering these areas uninhabitable. Haitians who had been living in informal settlements in Abaco faced displacement.

Two months later, the Operation Sovereign Bahamas demonstrators called on the Bahamian government to evict the displaced people taking shelter at the gymnasium. “The Bahamas is for Bahamians,” the group’s founder, Adrian Francis, said, according to Bahamian news service . Other members of the group held Bahamian flags and shouted at evacuees, presumably of Haitian descent, “Go home!,” “Repatriation!” and “We want you out of our country!” This scene came after the same civic group had held a well-attended town hall on October 4, 2019 in New Providence, Bahamas titled, “.”

Cyclical white supremacy

Anti-Haitianism operates as an ideology rooted in anti-blackness, nationalism, political domination and marginalization. We can also see anti-Haitianism expressed as a set of practices. But what is the relationship between antihaitianismo in the Dominican Republic and anti-Haitianism in the Bahamas? As in the US, political elites in both nations use anti-Haitianism as a strategy, suggesting that both African-descended nations are structurally anti-Haitian. When black Dominicans of Haitian descent were forced to leave the Dominican Republic in 2015 due to , it was partly done by the party in power to garner political capital.

Another dimension of anti-Haitianism is that these nations express and exert their sovereignty through anti-blackness. In the wake of Hurricane Dorian, the Bahamas repatriated 228 Haitian migrants, 153 of whom had lived in hurricane-ravaged Abaco. Many Haitian residents there lived in informal settlements, locally called shanty towns, and had work permits that granted them legal status in the country.

When majority black nations assert their sovereignty through anti-Haitianism, they extend the spirit of white supremacy and anti-blackness, traditions previously exerted on the ancestors of Bahamians and Dominicans through slavery. These cycles also expose the cyclical nature of white supremacy and the durability of anti-blackness.

Anti-Haitianism in hemispheric perspective

Reflecting its hemispheric dimensions, anti-Haitianism has also developed into an important type of anti-blackness informing other types of blackness within nations in North America, the Caribbean and South America. Regine O. Jackson’s 2011 book, , discusses how Haitian migrants and their progeny have served in the past and present as repugnant cultural “others” in relation to the citizens of Jamaica, Guadeloupe and Cuba.

In the wake of the 2010 earthquake, a United Nations-introduced cholera outbreak in Haiti claimed nearly and adversely affected more than 820,000 people. The UN remains unaccountable and unpunished for this human rights . In addition, much did not go to Haitians but to donors’ own civilian and military entities, UN agencies, international non-governmental organizations and private contractors. This suggests that humanitarian aid can be wielded as an anti-Haitian weapon.

And in Brazil, Denise Cogo and Terezinha Silva have observed the racist treatment of Haitians who were encouraged to migrate the country in the post-earthquake period to work as laborers ahead of the 2016 Olympics. The adverse experiences of Haitians in Brazil — home to the largest in the Americas — expose the linkages between labor extraction, anti-blackness and anti-Haitianism.

Anti-Haitianism also serves other purposes within these examples, such as identity construction. The peoples of the Bahamas, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and other countries construct their identities as superior in relation to Haitian identities, producing anti-Haitian outcomes. The fact that Haitians have still not been compensated by the UN for cholera-related illness and death, and that the people who caused the epidemic have not been punished through Haitian or international law, reflects how Haitian lives are considered expendable and unworthy of justice.

While we must consider differences in the local histories, socioeconomic conditions and political situations of the Bahamas, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, a clear anti-Haitian pattern emerges in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. This pattern, which displays in the news and scholarly publications, involves , death, expulsion, elimination, humiliation, marginalization and stigmatization.

While these majority black nations are subject to anti-blackness, all these countries promote a unique form of anti-blackness that specifically adversely affects Haitians. This should remind us that all that is black is not the same type of black, reflecting hierarchical and differentiated blackness.

Anti-Haitianism is, in other words, an expression of a rejection of the blackest of the black — a revolutionary blackness that demands freedom, equality and dignity, but remains collectively punished and stigmatized.

[The Independent Media Institute produced this piece in partnership with the .]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Anti-Haitianism: A Hemispheric Rejection of Revolutionary Blackness appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

To address this crisis, Egypt has turned to international lenders and allies, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union (EU) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. They have secured over $50 billion in financial commitments in 2023 alone.

These interventions have allowed Egypt to implement critical short-term measures, such as devaluing its currency, reducing subsidies and increasing interest rates. Meanwhile, the IMF has offered an $8 billion loan package as part of its 2022 program for Egypt, aiming to mitigate currency overvaluation and fiscal imbalances. Yet analysts like Steven Cook, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, that Egypt’s economic resilience remains uncertain without deeper structural reforms. This is particularly true given the limited progress on divesting military-controlled businesses and liberalizing the private sector.

Egypt’s exchange rate has shown significant volatility over the past two decades, with the Egyptian pound (EGP) experiencing sharp depreciations against the United States dollar (USD). In 2024, the EGP/USD rate dropped by 37.03%, driven by shrinking foreign currency reserves, a widening trade deficit and rising demand for USD amidst persistent economic uncertainties. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has responded with various stabilization measures, including devaluations, interest rate hikes and capital controls. However, structural economic challenges and market pressures continue to weigh on the EGP, signaling ongoing currency instability for the near term.

Historically, Egypt’s crisis reflects a dependence on international financial aid to address chronic fiscal issues. The country has experienced at least eight significant BOP crises since 1952, each leading to IMF programs or financial interventions from international partners to stabilize the economy temporarily. However, these interventions have rarely resulted in lasting reforms, as Egypt often returns to fixed or highly stabilized exchange rates following periods of financial distress. This recurring cycle is largely driven by Egypt’s state-centric governance model and persistent cronyism, which have deterred sustainable growth and prevented the formation of a resilient market economy.

While Egypt’s strategic importance makes it “too big to fail” for many international partners, questions remain about whether the current assistance will drive meaningful change or merely delay another crisis. According to a report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and research from the IMF, without comprehensive reform, Egypt risks continued fiscal and economic instability. Experts argue that structural adjustments — including reducing of the economy and allowing a fully flexible exchange rate — are essential for breaking the cycle of economic instability and achieving sustainable growth.

Case comparisons: Argentina and Turkey’s currency crises

The economic trajectories of Argentina and Turkey offer insights into the cyclical nature of currency crises in emerging markets, particularly those burdened with high levels of external debt and recurrent currency depreciation. These cases demonstrate the limitations of short-term financial fixes in the absence of comprehensive structural reforms and robust fiscal management, with implications relevant to Egypt’s current economic challenges.

Argentina’s financial history is marked by chronic fiscal mismanagement, high external debt and recurrent reliance on IMF bailouts. Since the early 2000s, Argentina has defaulted on its debt multiple times, eroding investor confidence and creating a volatile investment environment. The country’s approach has typically focused on immediate crisis resolution through IMF assistance, currency devaluation and austerity measures, rather than on deep structural reforms. For instance, Argentina’s 2000–2002 , during which it defaulted on $95 billion in debt, led to a sharp devaluation of the peso and significant social hardship. Despite an IMF bailout and subsequent restructuring, Argentina’s pattern of accumulating debt and renegotiating it without establishing a sustainable fiscal framework has continued. This culminated in additional in 2014 and 2020.

The core of Argentina’s instability lies in its weak fiscal discipline, characterized by chronic budget deficits and a lack of political consensus on sustainable economic policies. This instability has created a self-perpetuating cycle: High debt burdens lead to recurring defaults, eroding trust among foreign investors, which then necessitates further reliance on external support and austerity measures, perpetuating economic fragility. Argentina’s experiences underscore the limitations of debt-driven growth and the dangers of relying on short-term financial infusions without addressing underlying structural issues, such as public spending control and inflation stabilization.

Turkey’s recent economic difficulties stem from a combination of high inflation, excessive reliance on foreign-denominated debt and an unorthodox approach to monetary policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Unlike Argentina, Turkey’s crisis has been driven by its refusal to adhere to conventional monetary strategies, particularly concerning interest rate management. Erdoğan’s insistence on maintaining low interest rates, despite high inflation, has led to significant currency depreciation; the Turkish lira has lost over of its value against the dollar from 2018 to 2023.

Turkey’s debt dynamics, particularly its dependence on short-term foreign debt, have exacerbated this volatility. Turkish corporations and financial institutions, heavily indebted in foreign currency, face severe financial strain as the lira depreciates, making dollar-denominated debt more expensive to service. This high level of exposure to external financing has heightened Turkey’s vulnerability to global economic conditions, such as interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve. It has increased the cost of borrowing for emerging markets.

Jeffrey Frankel, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, that Turkey’s reliance on foreign capital, paired with its unorthodox policy stance, has deterred investors. It has further devalued the currency and intensified inflation.

Policy shifts and economic reforms

Egypt’s rising external debt raises concerns about the government’s capacity to service it without continuous outside assistance. This debt burden puts downward pressure on the currency, as investors demand higher returns to offset the risks associated with holding Egyptian assets. Moreover, declining foreign exchange reserves have limited the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) ability to stabilize the currency, contributing to further depreciation. Countries like Argentina have encountered similar difficulties, with diminishing reserves constraining options for currency defense and increasing on the IMF.

The CBE’s recent shift to a more flexible exchange rate is intended to attract foreign investment and fulfill IMF requirements, allowing the EGP to fluctuate more freely. While a floating currency can provide stability over time, Egypt’s experience the risks associated with rapid depreciation. This phenomenon is also evident in Turkey’s recent currency challenges.

To counteract inflation, the CBE has raised interest rates, hoping to draw in foreign investment; however, this has not been sufficient to prevent the EGP’s decline. This underscores the need for comprehensive economic reforms to secure long-term stability.

Strategic economic reforms for Egypt

Ruchir Agarwal, a Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government (M-RCBG) research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and Adnan Mazarei, a non-resident senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), that Egypt’s recurring economic crises, exacerbated by governance and policy shortcomings, require a fundamental shift in approach. They emphasize that Egypt has to address governance and policy deficiencies, military dominance and cronyism to implement necessary economic reforms and break its cycle of recurring crises, rather than relying on international financial bailouts.

To stabilize and attract foreign investment, Egypt should prioritize macroeconomic stability and regulatory reform using four steps. First, maintaining a flexible exchange rate will help reduce speculative pressure on the EGP, creating a more predictable environment for investors. Second, focusing on inflation control through targeted subsidies and supply chain improvements would further support this stability. Third, by adopting global standards in transparency and corporate governance, Egypt can build investor confidence; streamlining regulatory processes would make foreign investment more accessible. Finally, reducing the military’s role in the economy, curbing cronyism and enforcing anti-corruption measures could help establish a more equitable environment for private businesses.

The Egyptian conundrum: elite capital flight and economic stability

Egypt’s economic journey has frequently involved partnerships with the IMF to address persistent fiscal challenges and stabilize the macroeconomic framework. However, one of the most significant yet underexplored dynamics undermining Egypt’s fiscal stability is elite capital flight — the large-scale transfer of domestic wealth by political and economic elites to offshore financial centers. This practice has far-reaching consequences for economic development, governance and societal equity.

Egypt’s case exemplifies the challenges of elite capital flight. Over decades, economic and political elites have transferred vast sums of wealth to offshore havens, facilitated by weak anti-money laundering (AML) frameworks and global financial opacity. While exact figures are difficult to ascertain, estimates of the financial assets held abroad by Egyptian elites highlight the magnitude of this issue.

These outflows coincide with structural economic inefficiencies and governance gaps, leaving the state financially constrained. In turn, the government is often forced to implement austerity measures or seek external funding, amplifying socio-economic pressures.

Elite capital flight undermines economic stability and development through several interrelated mechanisms. It exacerbates socio-economic disparities. While elites secure their wealth abroad, the general population faces the consequences of reduced public spending and austerity measures. This creates a dual economic reality where the wealthy remain insulated from domestic economic pressures, while lower-income groups bear the brunt of fiscal challenges.

Elite capital flight is a longstanding feature of Egypt’s economic landscape, deeply rooted in governance inefficiencies and weak regulatory frameworks. Economic and political elites often perceive domestic instability, potential expropriation or shifts in policy as triggers for safeguarding wealth abroad. These dynamics are facilitated by global financial systems that accommodate opaque wealth transfers and shield assets from domestic scrutiny.

Egypt’s economic elite have historically diversified their financial portfolios, funneling resources into offshore financial centers such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions with favorable conditions for wealth concealment. This “insurance” mechanism not only provides security against domestic uncertainties but deprives the nation of critical resources that could otherwise bolster infrastructure, public services and social programs. As Andreas Kern, a Teaching Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, , “the ability to draw on the IMF creates perverse economic incentives so that a country’s elites can privatize economic gains by moving funds into offshore financial destinations before the arrival of the Fund.”

Egypt’s economic trajectory highlights the interplay between governance failures, elite capture and external financial interventions. Without addressing the systemic drivers of elite capital flight, external assistance risks perpetuating a cycle of dependency rather than fostering sustainable growth. As global scrutiny on financial transparency intensifies, Egypt’s experience offers valuable lessons for crafting more equitable and resilient economic policies.

Egypt’s next steps

To effectively implement and sustain the policy recommendations made in this piece, in addition to macroeconomics and government reform, Egypt must prioritize the development of expertise in AML and counter-financing of terrorism (CFT). This will require a skilled workforce across financial regulation, law enforcement and compliance to ensure that Egypt’s AML/CFT frameworks align with international standards while addressing the country’s unique economic challenges. Building this expertise will involve continuous training, technical assistance and collaboration with global organizations such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and IMF.

Elite capital flight also represents a significant barrier to Egypt’s economic development and stability. By diverting critical resources from the domestic economy, it exacerbates fiscal deficits, perpetuates inequality and undermines trust in governance. Addressing this issue requires a comprehensive approach that combines domestic reforms with international cooperation to foster a more equitable and resilient economic framework. For Egypt, tackling elite capital flight is not only a question of fiscal prudence but also of social and economic justice.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Egypt’s Policy Challenges and Deep Reforms for Lasting Financial Stability appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The only area where there might be some hope for ending a war is Ukraine. Rubio has come close to Trump’s position on that matter, praising Ukraine for standing up to Russia, but that the US is funding a deadly “stalemate war” that needs to be “brought to a conclusion.”

But in all the other hotspots around the world, Rubio is likely to make conflicts even hotter, or start new ones. Here are eight reasons why he would make a dangerous secretary of state:

Rubio’s obsession with Cuban regime change will sink any chance of better relations there

Like other Cuban-American politicians, Rubio has built his career on vilifying the Cuban Revolution and trying to economically strangle and starve the people of his parents’ homeland into submission.

It is ironic, therefore, that his parents left Cuba before the Revolution, during the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Batista’s executioners, secret police and death squads killed an 20,000 people, leading to a wildly popular revolution in 1959.

When President Barack Obama began to restore relations with Cuba in 2014, Rubio swore to do “everything possible” to obstruct and reverse that policy. In May 2024, Rubio his zero-tolerance for any kind of social or economic contacts between the US and Cuba, claiming that any easing of the US blockade will only “strengthen the oppressive regime and undermine the opposition… Until there is freedom in Cuba, the United States must maintain a firm stance.” Two months earlier, Rubio legislation to ensure that Cuba would remain on the US “State Sponsor of Terrorism List,” imposing sanctions that cut Cuba off from the US-dominated Western banking system.

These measures to destroy the Cuban economy have led to a massive wave of migration in the past two years. But when the US Coast Guard tried to coordinate with their Cuban counterparts, Rubio introduced legislation to prohibit such interaction. While Trump has vowed to stem immigration, his secretary of state wants to crush Cuba’s economy, forcing people to abandon the island and set sail for the US.

Applying Rubio’s anti-Cuba template to the rest of Latin America will make enemies of more of our neighbors

Rubio’s disdain for his ancestral home has served him so well as a US politician that he has extended it to the rest of Latin America. He has sided with extreme right-wing politicians like Argentinian President Javier Milei and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. He rails against progressive ones, from Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the popular Mexican former President López Obrador, whom he “an apologist for tyranny” for supporting other leftist governments.

In Venezuela, Rubio has promoted brutal sanctions and plots to topple the government of Nicolas Maduro. In 2019, he was one of the of Trump’s failed policy of recognizing opposition figure Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł as president. He has also advocated for sanctions and regime change in Nicaragua.

In March 2023, Rubio urged President Joe Biden to impose on Bolivia for prosecuting  leaders of a 2019 US-backed coup that led to that killed at least 21 people. He also the government of Honduras for withdrawing from an extradition treaty with the US this past August. This was a response to decades of US interference that had turned Honduras into a narco-state riven by poverty, gang violence and mass , until the election of democratic socialist President Xiomara Castro in January 2022.

Rubio’s major concern in this part of the world now seems to be the of China, which has become the second-largest of most Latin American countries. Unlike the US, China focuses on economic benefits and not internal politics. Meanwhile, US politicians like Rubio still see Latin America as the US’s “backyard.”

While Rubio’s virulent anti-leftist stands have served him well in climbing to senior positions in the US government, and now into Trump’s inner circle, his disdain for Latin American sovereignty bodes ill for US relations in the region.

Rubio insists that the US and Israel can do no wrong, and that God has given Palestine to Israel

Despite the massive death toll in Gaza and global condemnation of Israel’s genocide, Rubio still the myth that “Israel takes extraordinary steps to avoid civilian losses” and that innocent people die in Gaza because Hamas has deliberately placed them in the way and used them as human shields. The problem, he says, is “an enemy that doesn’t value human life.”

In November 2024, when CODEPINK if Rubio would support a ceasefire, he replied, “On the contrary. I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals.”

There are few times in this past year that the Biden administration has tried to restrain Israel, but when Biden begged Israel not to send troops into the southern city of Rafah, Rubio that was like telling the Allied forces in World War II not to attack Berlin to get Adolf Hitler.

In a to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in August 2024, Rubio criticized the Biden administration’s decision to sanction Israeli settlers linked to anti-Palestinian violence in the occupied West Bank.

“Israel has consistently sought peace with the Palestinians. It is unfortunate that the Palestinians, whether it be the Palestinian Authority or FTOs [Foreign Terrorist Organisations] such as Hamas, have rejected such overtures,” Rubio wrote. “Israelis rightfully living in their historic homeland are not the impediment to peace; the Palestinians are,” he added.

No country besides Israel subscribes to the idea that its borders should be based on 2,000-year-old religious scriptures, and that it has a God-given right to displace or exterminate people who have lived there since then to reconquer its ancient homeland. The US will find itself extraordinarily isolated from the rest of the world if Rubio tries to assert that as a matter of US policy.

Rubio’s enmity toward Iran will fuel Israel’s war on its neighbors, and may lead the US to war

Rubio is obsessed with Iran. He that the central cause of violence and suffering in the Middle East is not Israeli policy but “Iran’s ambition to be a regional hegemonic power.” He that Iran’s goal in the Middle East is to “seek to drive America out of the region and then destroy Israel.”

He has been a proponent of maximum pressure on Iran, including for more and more sanctions. He believes the US should not re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, saying: “We must not trade away U.S. and Israeli security for vague commitments from a terrorist-sponsoring regime that has killed Americans and threatens to annihilate Israel.”

Rubio calls Lebanon’s Hezbollah a “full blown agent of Iran right on Israel’s border” and claims that wiping out Hezbollah’s leadership, along with entire neighborhoods full of civilians, is a “service to humanity.” He alleges that Iran has control over Iraq, Syria and the Houthis in Yemen, and is a threat to Jordan. He claims that “Iran has put a noose around Israel,” and says the goal of US policy should be regime change in Iran. This would set the stage for war.

While there will hopefully be leaders in the Pentagon who will caution Trump about the of a war with Iran, Rubio will not be a voice of reason.

Rubio is beholden to big money, from the weapons industry to the Israel lobby

Rubio has reportedly received over in campaign contributions from pro-Israel groups during his career. The Pro-Israel America PAC was his single campaign contributor over the last five years. When he last ran for re-election in 2022, he was the recipient of funding by pro-Israel groups in the Senate, taking in $367,000 from them for that campaign.

Rubio was also the recipient of funding from the “defense” industry in the Senate for the 2022 cycle, receiving $196,000. Altogether, the weapons industry has invested $663,000 in his Congressional career.

Rubio is clearly beholden to the US arms industry. He’s even more beholden to the Israel lobby, which has been one of his largest sources of campaign funding. This has placed him in the vanguard of Congress’s blind, unconditional support for Israel and subservience to Israeli narratives and propaganda. Therefore, it is unlikely that he will ever challenge the ongoing extermination of the Palestinian people or their expulsion from their homeland.

Rubio is so antagonistic towards China that China has sanctioned him — twice

at the Heritage Foundation in 2022, Rubio said: “The gravest threat facing America today — it is the challenge that will define not just this century, but my generation and every generation represented here in this room today — that challenge is not climate change, it’s not the pandemic, it’s not the left’s version of social justice. The threat that will define this century is China.”

It will be hard for our nation’s “top diplomat” to ease tensions with a country he has so maligned. He antagonized China by co-sponsoring the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which allows the US to bar Chinese imports over alleged Uyghur rights abuses — abuses that China denies and independent question. In fact, Rubio has gone so far as to accuse China of a “grotesque campaign of genocide” against the Uyghurs.

On Taiwan, he has not only introduced legislation to increase military aid to the island, but actually supports Taiwanese — a dangerous deviation from the US government’s long-standing One China approach.

The Chinese responded to Rubio by sanctioning him, not once but twice: once regarding the Uyghurs and once for his support of Hong Kong protests. Unless China lifts the sanctions, he would be the first US secretary of state to be banned from even visiting China.

Analysts expect China to try to sidestep Rubio and engage directly with Trump and other senior officials. Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the United Kingdom’s School of Oriental and African Studies, told , “If that doesn’t work, then I think we’re going to get into a much more regular escalation of a bad relationship.”

Rubio knows sanctions are a trap, but doesn’t know how to escape them

Rubio is a leading advocate of unilateral economic sanctions, which are under international law, and which the UN and other countries refer to as “unilateral economic coercive measures.”

The US has used these measures so widely and wildly that they now a third of the world’s population. Officials from Treasury Secretary to Rubio himself have warned that using the US financial system and the dollar’s reserve currency status as weapons against other countries is driving the rest of the world to conduct trade in other currencies and develop alternative financial systems.

In March 2023, Rubio on Fox News, “We won’t have to talk sanctions in five years, because there will be so many countries in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”

And yet Rubio has continued to be a leading sponsor of sanctions bills in the Senate. These include new on Iran in January 2024 and a in July to sanction foreign banks that participate in alternative financial systems.

While other countries develop new financial and trading systems to escape abusive, illegal US sanctions, the nominee for secretary of state remains caught in the same sanctions trap that he complained about on Fox.

Rubio wants to oppress US free speech

Rubio wants to curtail the right to enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. In May, he campus protests against Israel as a “complete breakdown of law and order.”

Rubio claimed to be speaking up for other students at US universities. “[They] paid a lot of money to go to these schools, [but are being disrupted by] a few thousand antisemitic zombies who have been brainwashed by two decades of indoctrination in the belief that the world is divided between victimizers and victims, and that the victimizers in this particular case, the ones that are oppressing people, are Jews in Israel,” Rubio said.

The Florida senator has said he supports Trump’s to deport foreign students who engage in pro-Palestinian campus . In April, he for punishing supporters of the Israel boycott movement as part of efforts to counter antisemitism, falsely equating any attempt to respond to Israel’s international crimes with antisemitism.

And what about those crimes, which the students are protesting? After visiting Israel in May, Rubio wrote an article for in which he never mentioned the thousands of civilians Israel has killed. He instead blamed Iran, Biden and “morally corrupt international institutions” for the crisis.

Rubio expects US citizens to believe that it is not genocide itself, but protests against genocide, that are a complete breakdown of law and order. He couldn’t be more wrong if he tried.

Students are not Rubio’s only target. In August 2023, he that certain “far-left and antisemitic entities” may have violated the Foreign Assistance Registration Act by their ties to China. He called for a Justice Department investigation into 18 groups, starting with CODEPINK. These unfounded claims of Chinese connections are only meant to intimidate legitimate groups that are exercising their free speech rights.

Conclusion: Rubio is a dangerous choice for secretary of state.

On each of these issues, Rubio has shown no sign of understanding the difference between domestic politics and diplomacy. Whether he’s talking about Cuba, Palestine, Iran or China, or even about CODEPINK, all his supposedly tough positions are based on cynically mischaracterizing the actions and motivations of his enemies and then attacking the straw man he has falsely set up.

Unscrupulous politicians often get away with that, and Rubio is no exception. He has made it his signature tactic because it works so well for him in US politics. But that will not work if and when he sits down to negotiate with other world leaders as secretary of state.

His underlying attitude to foreign relations is, like Trump’s, that the US must get its way or else. Additionally, other countries who won’t submit must be coerced, threatened, couped, bombed or invaded. This makes Rubio just as ill-equipped as Blinken to conduct diplomacy, improve US relations with other countries or resolve disputes and conflicts peacefully, as the United Nations Charter requires.

[ edited this piece.]

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The courts of the northeastern Pernambuco state have seized the assets of various celebrity targets, including private planes and luxury vehicles. They have also blocked their financial assets, amounting to over three billion reais (approximately $600 million).

If the estimates of international studies and reports are confirmed, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Groups like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the United Nations estimate that 2%–5% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from activities that attempt to legitimize illegal money. When applied to Brazil, the money laundered annually varies between 200 billion and 500 billion reais (over $35 billion and $88 billion, respectively). The rest of the report paints a picture of the rest of the iceberg — the laundromat called Brazil.

The Brazilian bookie boom

The greed for easy, exorbitant profits found fertile ground in Brazil around 2018, when there was an explosion of bookies for gambling. Up until then, the Council for the Control of Financial Activities (COAF) — the body responsible for preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing — received around one million tips from institutions about suspicious operations. This number rose to 3.6 million in 2019 and hit a record high last year, at 7.6 million. The institution, which produced 3,178 financial intelligence reports (RIFs) a decade ago, quintupled that number in 2023, with 16,411 RIFs.

Starting in 2025, the government will enforce a that fixed-odds betting sites operating in the Brazilian market have a checking mechanism. The goal is to prevent the space from being used for financial crime.

The explosive combination of greed and betting sites stems from the fact that bets have almost qualified for the money laundering practices manual. The sites allow or facilitate frequent, fractionated deposits and withdrawals, which make it more difficult to trace the origin of funds; the use of false identities, which allows fraudsters to create multiple accounts and, above all, cryptocurrencies as payment, which guarantee anonymity. The complexity and high number of possible betting methods coupled with the huge volume of financial transactions makes it easy to reinsert dirty funds into the formal market.

“I’m sure that more than half of the profits from illegal gambling take the route of digitalizing bets,” said an anonymous IT executive who specializes in financial transactions.

The key figures in the web of legal and illegal gambling relationships and the main method of Brazilian money laundering are not Bezerra or Lima. Rather, two men, a father and son sharing the name Darwin Henrique da Silva Filho, led the seizure that triggered Operation Integration. In December 2022, police 180,000 reais (nearly $32,000) from the headquarters of da Silva’s father’s company, Caminho da Sorte, in Pernambuco’s capital city of Recife. Since 1999, this company has been the biggest name in the illegal gambling game, jogo do bicho (“animal game”), in Recife. Along with the money, police collected a notebook containing, according to the police report, “daily notes of bets and prizes paid out from the game of bicho and soccer, betting slips with the letterhead of the Caminho da Sorte and Esportes da Sorte stalls, accounts from some physical stores.” This “demonstrates the umbilical relationship between the two types of activity classified as criminal contraventions.”

The investigation also points to the digitalization of Brazilian financial laundries — in this case, Filho, who was arrested in the same operation as Bezerra. His father comes from a time when the most common operation among fraudsters was the use of front companies, or companies posing as part of Brazil’s massive orange industry, to launder money raised through illegal means. Many bicheiros — operators who run jogo do bicho games — and owners of slot machines, bingos and illegal casinos used this tactic.

The trick was for them to become serial entrepreneurs, with several corporations operating regularly and a few trading companies with astronomically unrealistic turnover compared to the number of employees or services provided. If a tax audit were to be carried out, the business owner would have his seven or eight regular companies to show to make up for his own smoothness in “business,” and any connection with a dubious one. Filho, for example, has seven companies registered in his name. One of them is Esportes da Sorte, a bookie opened in 2018 and based in the Caribbean tax haven of Curaçao.

Legal loopholes

Curaçao, along with Malta, is home to the vast majority of bookies. They remain the destination for most of the money from the Brazilian criminal market. Since the days when bicheiros and slot machine owners wore flashy gold chains under patterned, open-chested shirts, these have been the preferred locations for money laundering. That’s why the businesses which have passed down through the generations have always maintained legal bodies on the tax islands.

Lawyers with knowledge of all the minutiae and loopholes in local legislation had their paths mapped out when bookies opened their headquarters in the localities, through which the proceeds of illicit activities could enter Brazil. “Outside Brazil, the financial systems are more rigid and nullify these paths,” the IT executive said.

They began by following the path indicated by the central banks of the countries where bets are placed, such as Brazil. With the consolidation of a digital betting company, the counterfeit money is converted to digital with the purchase of cryptocurrencies on an exchange, which is the platform for buying, selling, trading and storing virtual money.

The money is generally bought from one of Brazil’s dozens of exchanges that operate on the fringes of regulation — only 14 are legal here. The money travels untraceably to the tax haven where it is traded and becomes legal tender. “I’d guess that around 80% of the bets have a bicheiro behind them. The ones that don’t are the ones established abroad before coming here, like Bet365, Betano and 1XBet,” the IT executive stated.

This illegal market is extremely lucrative. It’s worth an estimated 10 billion reais (over $1.7 billion) a year, occupied by around 60% slot machines, 35% gambling and the rest between bingos and casinos.

As for the other major loophole in digital legislation, crash games such as Aviator and Tigrinho — which have players bet on a multiplier value that rapidly increases until the game crashes — account for half of the online casino network and an estimated 35 billion reais (approximately $6.1 billion) in annual revenue. The operators export the technology here and import the profits. The owners of the brand offer white label use; interested parties register their own domain, use the game code and offer it to the public in exchange for sharing the revenue with the creators.

In order to operate by receiving deposits in pixels, interested parties must set up an account with a fintech or financial agent that accepts them. Thus, the fiscal responsibility falls on them and the brand can simply wash its hands of it, claiming no involvement with the practice. Despite this, crash games were legalized in Brazil in 2023 and are currently being implemented by bookies.

Bezerra and Lima’s cases

This affiliate system is similar to the one that recently splashed across the media with Bezerra and then Lima’s faces. Celebrities who convey an image of integrity are sought out by betting companies, offering to share profits based on the number of punters they attract. The same tactic has been used by other fraudsters in the government’s opening to digital betting companies interested in operating legally in the country from 2025.

One of the 113 that agreed to pay 30 million reais (over $5.2 million) to obtain a license is Zeroumbet, owned by Bezerra. It placed the deposit on August 20 with the intention of operating legitimately. A careful look at the list reveals several other common names in slot machines and bingo parlors, simply to give a veneer of legality to the dubious activities of their investors.

Another much more eye-catching way of reintegrating dirty money into the formal market is through the acquisition and sale of luxury goods. This is how the connection between Bezerra and Filho was presented in the media. The influencer bought a Lamborghini Urus from the businessman for 3.85 million reais (over $675,000), paid cash and raised suspicions of “laundering money from gambling and sports betting.” The courts ordered that 34 million reais (over $5.9 million) be blocked from her bank accounts. Bezerra declared that she earns 1.5 million reais (over $263,000) per month.

In the case of Lima, Judge Andrea Calado da Cruz, who ordered his arrest, states that he gave “harbored fugitives” — José André da Rocha Neto and his wife, Aislla Rocha — during a trip from the city of Goiânia, Brazil to Greece on the singer’s private plane. This couple was investigated in the operation for being partners to lead bookie Vai de Bet. As heir to the real estate business, André has more than 30 companies to his name.

“It is imperative to point out that Nivaldo Batista Lima [Gusttavo Lima’s real name], by harboring fugitives, shows an alarming lack of consideration for justice. His intense financial relationship with these individuals, which includes suspicious transactions, raises serious questions about his own participation in criminal activities. His company’s connection to the money laundering network suggests a commitment that cannot be ignored,” the judge added.

The police also seized an airplane that belonged to Lima’s company, Balada Eventos e Produções. The singer’s lawyer said the aircraft had been sold to another company owned by Vai de Bet, but the National Civil Aviation Agency claims Lima is still the owner. The bookie even sponsored Sport Club Corinthians Paulista in a now-broken contract, worth 360 million reais (over $63 million), for three seasons and support for Buteco, Brazil’s biggest country music festival. Through companies Balada Eventos e Produções Ltda. and GSA Empreendimentos e Participações Ltda, the artist has received around 49.4 million reais (over $8.7 million) since last year from Vai de Bet and Filho’s Esportes da Sorte. His involvement doesn’t seem to be ending, as the singer acquired 25% of the latter on June 1.

A few hours before his (now ended) arrest on September 22, Lima appeared at Rock in Rio posing for photos with the music festival’s creator, Roberto Medina. Before the decision was published, he traveled to Miami, Florida with his wife, where he owns property worth 65 million reais (over $11.3 million). From there, he phoned controversial São Paulo mayoral candidate Pablo Marçal, who reassured fans that his friend “is fine.”

“Regardless of their financial condition, no one can evade justice … Wealth should not serve as a shield for impunity, nor as a means of escaping legal responsibilities. The application of the law must be equitable, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their social or economic position, is accountable for their actions. The attempt to escape legal consequences through financial connections is an affront to the fundamental principles of the rule of law and to the very notion of justice,” the judge of Recife’s 12th Criminal Court concludes. Here’s a tip for punters.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Milei’s public appearance began as a commentator on different television . He promoted the protests against the mandatory isolation imposed during the pandemic, as he alleged that it restricted individual freedoms. Based on his popularity in social media, he was national deputy in the legislative elections of 2021 for his party “La Libertad Avanza” (Liberty Moves Forward). In 2023, with a strong erosion of the ruling party due to a dragging and poorly managed economic crisis, and an alliance with the conservative-right “Juntos por el Cambio” (Together for Change) coalition, he became President of the country.

Milei defines himself as an anarcho-capitalist and a disciple of the Austrian economic school. What does this mean? Contrary to global practices of economic protectionism, Milei proposes unrestricted market freedom. He also proposes it not only as a foreign trade policy but also as a domestic policy.

Based on Murray Rothbard’s , Milei considers the state an illicit association that appropriates taxpayers’ money to sustain the privileges of the “political caste.” He believes in the market as the “natural” regulator of life in society and, therefore, public ownership and administration of services as an aberration. For instance, he believes public education and public health should not exist. This philosophy vindicates the “Law of Talion,” or an “eye for an eye,” as a valid practice of justice.

From this perspective, he intends to position himself as one of the leaders of the global ultra-right that discusses “cultural Marxism.” This is the way in which they characterize progress for rights, women, sexual diversity, migrants and those excluded from the system in general. Milei also adopts a denialist position with respect to and the scientific evidence for it.

From political philosophy to government practice

During his tenures as an economics columnist and as a presidential candidate, Milei promised the dollarization of the economy and an end to inflation. It averaged 8.6% monthly in Argentina in 2023 until Milei took office.

As part of his economic policy, he has caused a devaluation of more than 100% of the local currency and embarked on a strong deregulation of economic activity, which implied a price increase for basic goods and services. Additionally, as administrator of the state’s resources, he slowed down investment in public works and cut at all functional levels.

These measures provoked a great redistribution of income from the working class to the sectors that live off the economic and financial income it produces, as well as big businessmen. They also created an economic recession that equals and in some sectors exceeds the levels reached during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this context, the government celebrates that inflation has been reduced monthly since it took office (from 25.5% in December caused by the devaluation to 4.2% in May), and boasts of a fiscal surplus (which hides the country’s actual debt). But the purchasing power of the minimum salary (considering a total basic food basket) was 30% and poverty reached of the population in the first quarter of 2024 (with an increase of approximately 11% in the first three months of government). People expect an increase in the unemployment rate due to the magnitude of the recession and the layoffs that have already taken place.

This economic arrogance is spread from the executive power to the rest of the powers of the state, especially toward the legislature and the federal governments; such arrogance pressures and extorts the institutions of the state so that whatever decrees and laws the executive proposes have to be approved without discussion. Given the impossibility of such power to the executive, it had to negotiate with its political allies and give them ambassadorships in exchange for their support.

The official discourse and public policy persecute and target the freedom of the ; the institutions of national culture; those rights that guarantee the lives of women who have been ; those laws that promote non-discrimination in terms of and xenophobia and institutions such as public universities, and human rights organizations.

Milei’s foreign policy is torn between the attempt to obtain dollars to maintain its anti-inflationary policy and ideological positioning. For instance, it exaggerates positions against China but later renegotiates a . It the state of Israel from charges against the genocide Israel is perpetrating in Palestine, but always from behind the cloak of the Western empire.

How long will it last?

One of the most heard phrases in Argentina once Milei entered the presidential ballotage was, “He is not going to do everything he says.” This phrase served both to justify voting for him and to protect the voters emotionally from the disaster that would follow if he won the presidency. However, Milei is doing quite a lot of what he said.

The other most frequently heard phrase is, “How long will it last?” Although the politically correct answer is four years, as in every democratically elected government in Argentina since the reestablishment of democracy in 1983, the economic and social crises experienced do not leave room for such an accurate answer. Even less so with the application of policies that are so extremely detrimental to the majority.

If we look at his economic plan and review Argentina’s history, we can find similarities with two recent historical moments. The first is the government of Carlos Menem (which for Milei was the best in Argentina’s history) and the second is that of Fernando de la Rúa.

Menem’s government (1989–1999) applied structural changes at the economic level (neoliberalism). It had a boom moment (which allowed Menem to be reelected) by curbing inflation achieved by the exchange rate parity with the dollar. The beginning of the policies of privatizations of services and public goods, as well as of foreign indebtedness, sustained this. However, it resulted in the closing of many national companies and industries and an increase in unemployment that exceeded 20% at the end of his second term.

De la Rúa’s government (1999–2001) followed Menem’s policies. Although it entered power to carry out a “radical” change, it ended up in multiple debt renegotiations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This resulted in strong fiscal adjustment programs and increasing poverty levels. De la Rúa ended his term declaring a state of siege, resigning and leaving the Government House by helicopter.

Milei has begun to follow Menem’s example. Within this framework, he has begun to implement an economic plan that reduces inflation and reactivates economic activity if he obtains new IMF loans, privatizes companies and obtains dollars to liquefy Argentina’s banking system. Such policies will have similar consequences in terms of economic activity, employment and poverty in a shorter period of time. Or, if he does not manage to access the necessary funds in dollars, he will have to rely on ever greater economic adjustment and repression with a government closer to that of de la Rúa. Helicopters should be on standby.

For six months, the streets of Buenos Aires and the central squares of all the provinces of the country have been the epicenter of constant against the government’s policies and laws. Among the government’s adherents, though, the situation continues to be justified under arguments such as, “We are in bad shape, but we are doing well,” “We have to let it govern,” and “Who did you want to vote for?” Those who still support Milei cling to the drop in the inflation rate. But the latest polls also reflect a in his positive image, especially in the country’s interior provinces where Milei’s presidential campaign received strong support.

[ produced this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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But a huge positive development has occurred: A network of spontaneous solidarity has arisen in Brazil’s other 25 states and the Federal District. They have formed the largest mobilization of donations and volunteerism in the country’s history. In the month since the floods began, the Civil Defense has 2,000 tons of donations. The Services for the Underserved (S:US) volunteer bank has registered 70,000 records. These numbers showcase the virtuous circle of aid that has united the country.

Brazilians have proven to be generous in serious situations before. In the world solidarity ranking, the World Giving Index (2022), the country 18th out of 119 nations for their contributions to helping strangers, donating money and volunteering. The figure reflected a time when the world was emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, a calamity that severely impacted Brazil. In the next year, 2023, political uncertainty and the population’s impoverishment majorly reduced the country’s giving; it to 89th place in the index.

“This contributed to a decrease in the population’s participation in donations,” said Paula Iabiani, CEO of Integrated Disbursement and Information System (IDIS). Her company represents the ranking. At the current rate of collaboration in recent days, it is likely that the country will return to the top positions in 2024.

“We are being profoundly impacted by the experiences of other human beings. Cognitive and also emotional impact, linked to our ability to let ourselves be sensitized by what others experience. It touches on our affections and unconscious identifications. This is the primordial impulse for solidarity action,” psychoanalyst Maria Homem said.

As Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on X, this is the “largest movement of donations recorded in the history” of Brazil. Further, the chain that formed is multidisciplinary and goes beyond the expected crisis professionals: doctors, firefighters, social workers and health professionals.

NGOs and volunteers show solidarity

One unexpected resource is SOS Rio Grande do Sul. This connects and updates the needs and availability of over 400 shelters across the state. A total of 1,300 volunteers work to meet the flood victims’ demands. They update the day-to-day life of the shelters, provide care for the children and collect and distribute supplies.

“The first few days were focused on rescues. But everything changes very quickly,” said Pedro Schanzer, a founder of the Porto Alegre-based operation. “I was putting donations in trucks, rescuing people in the floods, until I noticed that at each point I arrived, the desperation was so great that there was no single coordination. We set up a team that has adapted our actions according to the needs of each day.”

For the roughly 100,000 children displaced by the floods, the treatment must be different. Many have not only lost their homes, but cherished belongings as well, like toys and pets. World Vision Brazil, a child care non-governmental (NGO) based in São Paulo, has helped by putting together 15,000 “tenderness kits.” These kits aim to restore children’s emotional well-being by stimulating them with activities. They include a toy, coloring books, colored pencils and crayons, educational games, modeling clay, and snacks. The organization has also assembled food baskets, hygiene kits and basic necessities.

“Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in the midst of crises, and often have no idea of the magnitude of the events they are experiencing. They find themselves away from home, family and friends, and are likely to be psychologically impacted by this crisis,” Thiago Crucciti, director of World Vision Brazil. “Without an appropriate intervention, these events could leave lasting scars. We must respond now to ensure that they get the support they desperately need.”

Brazilians created another group to provide care for a specific minority. In the Cristo Redentor neighborhood of Rio Grande do Sul, the Solidarity Kitchen prepares meals in a shelter for pregnant and postpartum women. The volunteers receive donations, buy supplies, assemble menus and organize the space. “We work with donations of food or by Pix [],” said founder and publicist Kaká Cerutti.

In the city of Porto Alegre, the Homeless Workers Movement (), the Movement of People Affected by Dams () and Popular Youth collaboratively run the Azenha Solidarity Kitchen. Every day, 60 volunteers use 22 stoves to prepare and distribute around 3,000 meals.

Solidarity transcends geographical boundaries and socioeconomic conditions. The Rio-founded Central Ăšnica das Favelas () organization proves it; it promotes integration and social inclusion in Brazilian communities, as well as 15 other countries. It mobilized a humanitarian operation that in two weeks 20,000 cleaning kits; 25,000 personal hygiene kits; 20,000 liters of water; five carts of food; 30,000 bath kits and 30,000 mattresses.

Individuals can make a difference, too. Firefighter Robinson Luiz Jobim Rosa did an extraordinary service; while his own house was flooded in São Leopoldo, he evacuated 200 people stranded at the Canoas Emergency Hospital. “Saving people in their time of need and distress is part of our routine. I keep working because that’s our mission,” he said.

Jobim Rosa still doesn’t know how he’ll recover from the floods. Fortunately, his three children and their mother were elsewhere when the water reached their home. “The only one at home at the time was my dog, who was rescued by a neighbor,” he mentioned.

A similar story involved police officer Roberto Kaminski in Lajeado. When he saw the water rushing into his apartment on the second floor, he went to rescue an elderly couple on the third floor. With the help of a neighbor, he took what he could carry to two empty apartments on the fourth floor. “I must have climbed about 150 times. By the end, I was exhausted. I didn’t manage to rescue everything I wanted in time,” he explained.

In Santa Cruz do Sul, police officer Everton Toillier prioritized saving items belonging to his one-year-old daughter. When he heard a neighbor’s call for help, he immediately swam out and rescued a lady who was clinging to a tree, and saved her dog as well. “I managed to get them both to a boat and went back home to try and rescue my daughter’s belongings,” he stated.

Many helpful volunteers started out with one mission and ended up on another, like Edu Leporo, founder of the NGO Moradores de Rua e Seus Cães (). Based in São Paulo, the photographer and activist traveled to the South to assist animals in the floods. “You see whole families on the streets, not knowing where to go. The problem will get worse when the water recedes and people want to go back to their homes and start again,” he stated. “We went ahead: We bought a trailer, a truck, squeegees, brooms, shovels, detergent, disinfectant and floor cloths to help.”

In Porto Alegre, Leporo relies on the NGO’s volunteer veterinarian Audrei de Oliveira Souza. The assistance forces rescued 11,500 animals by midweek, including the symbol of the resistance: a horse named . “The rescue team is exhausted, tired and cold. Some are getting sick. But they remain tireless in their search for human and animal survivors,” Leporo described.

Christian Kristensen, the coordinator of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) Center for Studies and Research into Trauma and Stress, helped the rescuers. He identified several cases of burnout — the physical and emotional exhaustion caused by work — among them. “Some because they’ve been overworked, even physically, others because of the emotional overload in the face of so much suffering. Even compassion fatigue, a term we use for this moment,” he explained.

Artists unite to help

Technological resources have helped mitigate the catastrophe. “How can the hyperconnection of mobility and communication be used favorably? How can we solve global problems with specific regional effects?” Homem asked. “The awareness that we are one people and one species mobilizes us in an unprecedented way.”

Artists and public figures are some of the most adept at navigating networks and platforms. In the disaster’s first days, Lucas Silveira, lead singer of the Brazilian band Fresno, led his colleagues in a solidarity concert. He was born in Ceará but raised in Porto Alegre, so this tragedy is personal to him. He raised 2.5 million reais ($460,000) in just a few hours.

“What’s happening is something of unprecedented proportions. I saw my neighborhood on TV and a guy passing in front of my house in a boat. It’s mind-boggling,” Silveira stated, considering the next steps. “There’s a task force that’s going to get thousands of volunteers to clean the houses. We’ve bought more than a hundred pressure washers at cost, which will be very useful for cleaning up when the water recedes.”

Other big names in music have announced plans to help. On July 7 and 9, Chitãozinho & Xororó, Zezé Di Camargo & Luciano and Leonardo & Luísa Sonza will host their classes at Allianz Parque in São Paulo. The proceeds will be put toward flood damage repair. “Helping is urgent and meeting basic needs is the least we need right now. Today, regardless of where we are, we want to save the South,” Sonza said.

Another benefit was held on May 22 at the Vivo Rio venue in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It brought together singers Paula Toller, Ney Matogrosso, Rogério Flausino, Milton Guedes, Fernanda Abreu, Léo Jaime and Kleiton & Kledir, as well as the rock band Barão Vermelho.

During the first week of rain, comedian and presenter Fábio Porchat started a collection campaign. He gathered tons of drinking water, bed and bath linen and warm clothes to distribute in the South. “Donating should be the norm, not the exception,” he told . “It’s worth donating time, money, image, whatever. If we want a functioning community, we need to do our bit to help others.”

The mobilization to help the Brazilian South has crossed borders and reached some of the world’s lead artists. Beyoncé’s foundation BeyGOOD, which some Brazilian initiatives, has stepped up its work to encourage collaboration. The band Metallica $100,000 (about 514,000 reais) to the victims. The band Guns N’ Roses has been Brazil Found’s Light Alliance Emergency Fund for donations.

The Brazilian government plans a solution 

During the floods’ second week, the people of Rio Grande do Sul received good news from the Brazilian capital of Brasília. On his third visit to Porto Alegre, Lula announced the of the Ministry to Support the Reconstruction of Rio Grande do Sul. It will be headed by Paulo Pimenta, who was the Minister of the Social Communication Secretariat. The ministry’s mission will be to define the state’s reconstruction plan, distribute tasks to other ministries and demand results.

The minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, explained that the Brazilian government will expand the Minha Casa, Minha Vida (“My Home, My Life”) — which provides a swath of affordable housing units to Brazilians — in the affected cities with the purchase of properties. The government will also direct properties that were set to be auctioned by the Caixa and Banco do Brasil banks to replace those that the floods destroy.

The National Confederation of Municipalities () estimates that 102,000 homes were affected by the floods: 93,000 damaged and 9,000 destroyed. Many families will need help to buy basic goods, such as a stove, fridge and bed. To this end, the government proposes financial aid of 5,000 reais ($920) for 100,000 families. The homeless who lost their income in the floods are to be included in the income transfer program, with average monthly aid of 672 reais ($123).

The state’s debt to the federal government has been suspended for three years, which will generate savings of 23 billion reais ($4.2 billion), including monthly payments and interest for the period. The Porto Alegre city government plans to build a temporary city for homeless families close to the city center. Located in the Porto Seco neighborhood, it will have capacity for 10,000 people. It will include accommodations, a communal kitchen, toilets, garbage collection and a leisure area to receive people assisted in the current shelters. Canoas, Guaíba and São Leopoldo will receive similar facilities.

The initiative draws inspiration from a recovery that helped the US state of Louisiana recover from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the hurricane, the project managers hired consulting Alvarez & Marsal, which specializes in the reconstruction of damage caused by extreme events, to draw up an assistance plan. Former president Dilma Rousseff, who is from Minas Gerais but built her political career in Rio Grande do Sul, is currently in charge of the New Development Bank, known as the . She opened a 5.75-billion-real (over $1.1 billion) funding line for the state’s reconstruction work.

Throughout the week, the plenary of the Federal Senate fast-tracked the approval of a bill that creates guidelines for forming climate change adaptation plans. The goal is to adopt measures to reduce environmental, social and economic vulnerability in episodes of climate upheaval. “In addition to actions and public policies that affect real life, we need to improve the mental health support network, because we are discovering that psychic life is just as important and can have just as many effects on reality as concrete life,” Homem recalled. “Solidarity is the most important good at this time and should be deepened if we want a fairer, more developed and interesting country.”

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Great Compassion Shines in Brazil Following Its Horrific Floods appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In July of 1994, a man drove an explosive-laden van into the headquarters of the AsociaciĂłn Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) killing 85 and injuring more than 300 people. The bombing is the deadliest terrorist incident on Argentine soil to date.

In 2006, the Argentine federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman accused Iran’s paramilitary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of designing the AMIA attack, and its Lebanese proxy force Hezbollah of executing it. However, there have been members within Argentina’s political leadership who have consistently sought to stall any investigation into the case.

More Twists and Turns

Among them was Argentina’s former president  Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, now serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption. When Fernández came to power in 2007, the country signed a memorandum of understanding  withIran.  Together with Interpol, the two governments agreed to form a truth commission.

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Multiple  Jewish community groups in Argentina, including the AMIA, filed a petition denouncing the memorandum as unconstitutional. Their  contention was that the evidence of Iran’s involvement in the bombing  was undeniable, and that it offered no benefit to the victims of the attack or Argentina. .

Nisman also opposed the memorandum, calling it a “wrongful interference of the executive branch” , and accused President Fernández and her government of trying to cover up Iran’s involvement.. 

Nisman  even a 300-page dossier on the Kirchner government’s efforts to cover up the AMIA incident. Butt in January of 2015, before he had a chance to present his findings to  Congress, he was shot dead. Hismurder as well as that of the AMIA bombing are still open.

After Mauricio Macri succeeded Fernández later that same year , his justice ministry immediatelyoided the memorandum. Israel’s former and most likely next prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the move as a “welcome change of direction” for  Argentina and expressed hope that relations with Tel Aviv  would improve.

However, the seizure  of an Iranian-Venezuelan Boeing 747 in Buenos Aires lastJune added  another  twist to an unfolding drama . The plan had a crew of 19 people, 5 were Iranians. Some had clear ties to the IRGC and the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s . It was also discovered that  such flights to Argentina have been a regular occurrence for some time. 

This has raised many questions regarding the extent of Iran’s security and military presence as well as political influence in Argentina. For example, the pilot of the seized plane, Gholamreza Ghasemi, is aranking of the Quds Force, the same security wing  that plotted the AMIA bombing.

Just An Argentine Cover Up?

The opposition and members of the judiciary have accused Macri’s  government of orchestrating a of these  flights of the regime-affiliated Iranian-Venezuelan aircraft to Argentina. Many of the current Argentine government officials are the same people who signed the AMIA memorandum under Fernández.

Last July, a group of US Senate Republicans sent a letter to the Biden administration demanding a rationale for their delay in delivering key information of the Iranian suspects in the Boeing case to Argentine law enforcement officials. e. They believed the administration was aware of the extent of the IRGC’s association in South America but were withholding information in order to not undermine efforts to revive the JCPOA.

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Last August, Argentina arrested four Iranians with fake French passports with possible links to the  Revolutionary Guards. They were arrested at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, intending to  fly to Amsterdam. 

The arrest for the four was issued by the Federal Judge Federico Villena, who is also in charge of investigating the Boeing case.

In October, a month after protests in Iran began, Argentina released the Boeing 747 cargo plane and the 5 crew members still detained. The federal judge Federico Villena determined that there was no basis to prosecute the crew. However, the judicial investigation will still remain .

Although the case seems closed at this point, the IRGC’s active presence in South America can be still used to  scuttle the JCPOA for good.  Flight records even show that the same Boeing plane made a brief stop in Moscow before heading to . 

In light of all of these events, Washington should find no reason to appease the theocrats of Tehran with a revised nuclear deal. Hopefully, the JCPOA will finally enter the archives of failed deals with dictators.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post How is the AMIA Bombing Linked to the IRGC Aircraft in Argentina? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Lula owes his triumph to the formation of a broad political front built during the election campaign to reverse the unpopular policies of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s far-right government. The 60 million Brazilians that elected Lula hope that Brazil will be politically rejuvenated, marking the end of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s effort to erode Brazilian democracy.

Lula’s comeback

Lula  began his long political career as a trade union leader in the early 1980s. In 2003 he was the first leftist leader to be elected president in Brazil. After two terms in power, his government ended in 2011 with the highest popularity rating of any democratic government in Brazil’s history.

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Lula cannot however dissociate himself from the scandal known as Operation Car Wash, a corruption probe that uncovered a web of money laundering schemes involving the Brazilian state’s oil company. The unraveling of the judicial procedures that followed led to the jailing of the president in 2011. However, the Brazilian Supreme Court ultimately annulled all criminal convictions against Lula on the grounds of a series of judicial procedural errors by the prosecution.

In the  extremely polarized country that Brazil has become, Many Brazilians view Lula as the  leader who led Brazil to a brief period of prosperity. Lula’s administrations may boast of a number of achievements, in particular, a considerable reduction of poverty and hunger in Brazil, an increase of Brazilians’ real income, the expansion of social programs and policies, sustainable economic growth, creation of a domestic regime for environmental preservation, and the strengthening of Brazil’s multilateral vision in global debates.

Despite Lula’s many accomplishments as president, the corruption crisis involving Lula and his party provided the pretext for the rise of Bolsonaro to power as a far-right leader. In effect, Lula’s disapproval rating among the electorate still stands at approximately 46% (according to two opinion polls, Datafolha and Ipec). What saved him in the election is the fact that µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s disapproval rating was even higher.

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For an important percentage of citizens Lula’s return to power has sparked great optimism for the future. 44% of Brazilians believe their lives will change for the better with Lula in the presidency, compared to 21% who believe their lives will improve if Bolsonaro were to continue as president (Datafolha).

Brazil and the Latin American “pink tide”

Lula’s government will be confronted with strong opposition in the national congress. He will have to govern with a National Congress dominated by a majority of far-right senators and deputies, who will do everything in their power to block his political agenda.

The parties forming the pro-Lula alliance in the senate and the lower house do not have the numbers that will permit them to pass laws. Lula will have to negotiate with the pragmatic parties representing the center of the ideological political spectrum who are in the habit of trading their congressional support in exchange for political benefits (for example, political appointments in ministries).

Unlike other Latin American countries that have turned to the left in what analysts have called a “pink tide” in the region, there are doubts whether Lula has enough political strength to implement progressive policies. Lula won the elections with a narrow margin of 2 million votes, revealing a deeply divided country. In his victory speech, Lula focused on the urgent need to reconcile the country: “There aren’t two “Brazils, he proclaimed. “It’s time to lay down our arms”.

Brazil’s deep social divisions

The majority of Lula’s votes +came from women, the poor, and Catholics. The poorest voters, those who earn up to two minimum wages (45% of the Brazilian electorate),  supported Lula, who received 61% of their vote intention, compared to 33% support for Bolsonaro. Also, Lula showed a great capacity for attracting female voters (53% of the electorate). In pre-election polls, around 52% of women declared they would vote for Lula. Only 41% expressed the intention to vote for Bolsonaro.

In recent years, there has been a marked politicization of Pentecostal churches in Brazil, the country that hosts the largest Catholic population in the world. Aligned behindBolsonaro, 62% of Evangelicals (27% of the electorate) declared their intention to vote for him, while only 32% intended to support Lula. In contrast, 55% of Catholics (52% of the electorate) showed a preference for Lula, whereas 39% declared their intention to vote for Bolsonaro.

Policy changes under Lula

The fight against hunger is urgent in a country that has experienced an increase in child malnutrition. 33 million Brazilians suffer from food insecurity. Lula’s popularity among poor Brazilians derives from his policies aimed at combating poverty and hunger, such as the creation of the cash-transfer program, Bolsa FamĂ­lia, which lifted over 40 million Brazilians out of poverty. Many Brazilians expect that Lula will once again innovate in his social policies, in contrast with µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s failure to promote policies aimed at alleviating hunger.

Lula has a strong commitment to environmental preservation. One of his campaign promises concerned the creation of a ministry to deal with the interests of indigenous peoples. Lula also guaranteed the reactivation of existing institutions and legislation to combat environmental destruction. Currently, Brazil has one of its highest deforestation rates in decades and a significant increase in land conflicts culminating in record killings of environmentalists and indigenous people.

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Brazil’s foreign policy will undergo a radical change as Lula will vigorously participate in global debates. Furthermore, Lula will bring Brazil closer to its Latin American neighbors, increase the weight of Brazil in the reform of international organizations, actively participate in the BRICS’ initiatives, and create cooperation mechanisms between Brazil and developing countries.

Challenges ahead

Since becoming president in 2018, Bolsonaro immersed Brazil in a permanent democratic crisis. In this year’s elections, Bolsonaro used the tools of the state for political purposes to influence the electoral process. In recent months, the ministry of economy increased social benefits, granted special credit for the beneficiaries of social assistance, and decreased taxes to reduce the price of gasoline and electricity. In addition to electoral abuses, Bolsonaro attacked democratic institutions in an attempt to generate public mistrust in the election results in the case of his defeat. Bolsonaro until now has not explicitly conceded the election.

After four years of democratic setbacks, politics must now seek solutions to the real-life problems that afflict most Brazilians. Lula has committed to transforming Brazil’s harsh social reality while at the same time seeking a way of appeasing the followers of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s ultra-right movement. This task seems particularly difficult so long as µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s anti-democratic extreme right movement remains present and active in the political landscape.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Brazil’s New President and Hope for a Democratic Revival appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

An unsolved criminal case of suspected kidnapping and murder would spark column inches and large-scale police operations in other countries. But in Mexico, Estrada’s fate hardly merits a headline – and is far from an isolated case: 27 journalists have disappeared there since 2003,according to the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders , and all of them are still considered missing. All are suspected cases of abduction or “enforced disappearance” but not one of them has been completely solved. In a few instances, suspected henchmen have been arrested, but the instigators of the crime remain at large. This was also the case with the journalist Roberto Carlos Flores Mendoza who disappeared on .

It is no secret that the situation for media professionals in Mexico has been precarious for years — and has worsened of late. Figures from RSF show that no other country worldwide has seen so manyjournalists killed in connection with their or disappearing without in unexplained circumstances as in Mexico. According to RSF’s count, 15 journalists have been killed so far in 2022, at least 12 of them because of their work. This is more than ever before in such a short stretch of time.

A vicious circle of violence and impunity

As worrying as these horrendous figures are, the greatest threat to journalists in Mexico comes from the rampant corruption of the authorities and their close ties to organized crime, especially to the drug cartels. It is precisely these networks that paralyze the Mexican justice system at all levels. Crimes against media professionals are rarely prosecuted, let alone punished. This in turn creates a deadly spiral that is most threatening to journalists trying to investigate this entrenched corruption. Even President AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador, whoannounced when he took office, has not been able to stamp out this vicious circle of violence, corruption and impunity. 

It is true there are already various government measures in Mexico to improve the situation. In practice, however, they often prove ineffective. The states that although the government of AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador has made the fight against corruption a priority, the results remain “sparse, if not contradictory”. Some former officials and government representatives are being investigated and there has been a large-scale operation against oil theft. Yet the fact that the government is trying to circumvent or weaken anti-corruption agencies raises doubts.

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The judiciary is also, the BTI says , “clearly biased” and citizens continue to face a “a very corrupt judicial system in which criminals are released and innocent people are detained for years before they are even tried”.

A reprimand from the UN might improve things

In a bid to improve the catastrophic security situation, press freedom organizations like RSF are fighting at various levels to increase the pressure on the Mexican authorities. For example, RSF is involved in the “” program, together with its Mexican partner organization Propuesta CĂ­vica, to investigate unsolved murder and kidnapping cases. On November 2, the International Day against Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, RSF and Propuesta CĂ­vica went one step further: together they submitted two complaints, so-called “individual communications”, to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva.

The UN should now take a clear position on the case of the newspaper journalist and university lecturer RamĂłn Ă�ngeles Zalpa, who went missing in 2010, and also on the Mauricio Estrada Zamora file. The organizations spent a year preparing for this step in close consultation with the families concerned. The selection of these two cases is not coincidental. Both Zalpa and Estrada disappeared in the state of Michoacán, and RSF and Propuesta CĂ­vica have recently analyzed, in detail, the work of the public prosecutor’s office there. They allege that the two cases had numerous omissions in their investigations, both at the state and the national level. The crimes were not investigated with due diligence, nor were there serious efforts to find the journalists and to identify the perpetrators and those behind them.

In view of these findings, the organizations accuse the Mexican state of having violated its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Therefore, the UN Human Rights Committee should now call on Mexico to finally conduct an efficient and thorough investigation and to compensate the affected families. Whether the Committee will actually make such a “recommendation” remains to be seen.

[ first published this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Toxic Spiral of Violence Has Wrecked Mexico appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

As soon as the battle is won, the reality of politics in today’s democracies returns to its default status, that of a game. Once elected, politicians deploy their carefully refined skills that allow them to dodge anything that might tend towards implementing long-term solutions. 

Electoral battles leave the dead and wounded on the battlefield to be mourned, cared for or revenged. But like the pieces on a chessboard, in most cases they can be replaced on their initial squares. The political games that follow the battles have the effect of simply changing the order of the teams in the standings. In the game, the only thing that counts is the score when the final whistle blows as well as the corresponding W or L. The score-keeping device of democracies is called an election.

This past Sunday saw two significant elections in two very different settings. France completed its presidential-cum-legislative election cycle that, since 2002, ritually takes place every five years. The second election took place on the American continent, the country whose surreal political metaphysics were summed up by Gabriel GarcĂ­a Márquez in 1967 in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad). 

Both of those elections produced shocking results, signaling the kind of reversal of trends that Olaf Scholz recently evoked when speaking about Germany’s foreign policy. He used the German word,, a turning point in history. Scholz applied it specifically to the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the newfound military resolve of Germany. Scholz thus evoked a top-down decision that foresees other top-down decisions to follow in the future. In contrast, Zeitenwende as reflected in the French and Colombian elections is likely to be more significant and with more long-term effects. They  both represent bottom-up examples of a historical “turning.”

The drama of France’s Cinquième République

The French legislative elections had the radical effect of breaking what until now was felt to be the fundamental logic of France’s Fifth Republic and a sacred tradition. The result of every presidential election in the Republic’s history was confirmed in the immediate aftermath by the same electors’ voting in a solid majority for the president’s party in the National Assembly. Within less than two months, the voters thus not only elect a supreme leader, but promptly empower the president to implement the announced battle plan. 

When, in May, 1981, François Mitterrand with a razor thin majority defeated the incumbent, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a month later the electorate provided him with a clear legislative majority. He immediately and boldly began implementing his announced plan to nationalize all the major French industries, including the banks. Mitterrand’s actions conformed perfectly to the model of presidential government foreseen by the constitution of the Fifth Republic a little more than two decades earlier.

Now, four decades later, the Fifth Republic has clearly run out of steam. On Sunday, for the first time a newly re-elected president, Emmanuel Macron, found himself deprived of the majority that will allow him to preside over a program of government. Macron will now be faced with the challenge of cobbling together some kind of coalition that will be given the label of a government. Most likely both Macron and his new government will be permanently occupied with managing a chaos of conflicting interests. That situation clearly contradicts the entire logic of the Fifth Republic.

Many are predicting that the Assembly will be dissolved within a year and new elections called to permit the definition of a stable majority. At that point, two things can happen. If the spirit of the Fifth Republic is still alive, the prospect of dissolution will provide Macron with the means of breaking the apparent deadlock by soliciting the population to endow him with a majority committed to his program and his leadership. Depending on how things play out, that will appear either as a clever or desperate gamble.

If, as the turning point seems to reveal, the spirit of the Cinquième République has effectively retired or died, it will mark a return to the most dramatic moment of the Fifth Republic’s history. That was the revolt of May 1968, an event President Charles De Gaulle had the temerity to malign with the word “chienlit” (shitting in bed). The Republic nevertheless managed to clean the sheets after May �68 and survive intact. This time feels very different.

The Colombian surprise

Even more astonishingly, the Colombian election marked an inflection if not a reversal of what appeared to be the eternal fate of Colombia: to be governed by a corrupt right-wing establishment permanently closely aligned with the foreign policy goals of the United States. The newly elected left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, alas does not have access to the luxury of newly elected French presidents who historically could count on an immediate legislative election to confirm the voters’ endorsement of the candidate’s program. 

The current bicameral Congress of Colombia is dominated by right-wing, centrist, and neoliberal parties. In other words, Petro will have a major challenge on his hands trying to get anything accomplished. Add to that the fact that the state security services and the armed forces are likely to resist Petro’s authority, and it appears likely that Colombia will be living through its own, but very different kind of chienlit.

Most observers see Colombia’s turnabout as simply part of the new “pink tide” in Latin America, a phenomenon in which more and more American nations are voting in leftwing leaders. It is expected to increase the chances later this year of a victory in Brazil for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – better known as “Lula” – over the current right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro. More broadly, Petro’s triumph confirms the increasingly visible sentiment in Latin American countries that it is time to break free from the invisible shackles of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) that have bound them to a state of subservience to the US economy for almost exactly 200 years.

The ambiguous question of NATO

When Chancellor Olaf Scholz evoked his Zeitenwende, he gave no details about its meaning. He appeared to be saying that the Ukraine crisis was a wake-up call forcing Germany to break with its policy of cultivating a long-term friendship with Russia as well as its post-World War II stance of keeping a low military profile. 

The immediate impression this gave, eagerly welcomed in Washington, is that Germany would even more securely adhere to NATO. But in the background, there may be an even more significant turning point, which could have a deeper meaning. The current move may be more like a chess gambit designed to further a goal Germany already shares with France that consists of creating an autonomous European security framework no longer dependent on US leadership imposed through NATO. 

Reinforcing NATO would hardly justify the idea of Zeitenwende. In contrast, Europe breaking free from Anglo-American domination, especially after Brexit and the increasingly obvious revolt of many poorer nations and emerging powers, would truly mark a turning point in European and German history.

Was it all foretold by William Butler Yeats in 1921?

Speaking of Zeitenwende, this may be an appropriate moment to revisit a of anguished foreboding by Irish poet William Butler Yeats published just over a century ago. Here are the first ten lines of The Second Coming.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Yeats’s poem has remained one of the most memorable literary pieces of the 20^th century. These lines have been quoted by political commentators at various times over the past hundred years to sum up the state of Western civilization. Yeats’ message in the immediate aftermath of the First World War was dire. At its core, in the third line, was a somber double assertion: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Oswald Spengler had already reflected a similar sentiment that had been growing for some time in Europe. In 1918, he published the first volume of his Decline of the West, a work he had begun composing much earlier. In 1922, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land appeared after being strenuously edited and ultimately “crafted” by Ezra Pound. It offered a panorama of the cultural and indeed civilizational confusion that had overcome Europe in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

The Waste Land took over first place and never relinquished it in the race to establish “the 20^th century’s “greatest poem in the English language.” Nevertheless, thanks to a succession of political events that seemed to bear out Yeats’s description of a broken system, the Second Coming has probably earned more references in the media than Eliot’s masterpiece. As the history of the twentieth century advanced, at various critical moments, things really did seem to be falling apart.

Just as Zeitenwende itself can be interpreted in various ways, so can Yeats’s assertion that “the centre cannot hold.” Yeats believed that the core of Western civilization was beginning to unravel like the twine below the leather surface of a baseball that has been torn asunder. His prescience was justified by the events listed above. But the unraveling is still incomplete. Most people are now aware that it could come to absolute fruition with an impending climate crisis, already making its marks, or perhaps even more quickly thanks to a nuclear “accident” provoked in the context of the increasingly nerve-racking standoff in Ukraine.

Defining the center

Sunday’s elections in France and Colombia provide a hint that what people thought of as the stable “center” of their global and local political systems is losing its grip. The center has gone off kilter, leaving the impression that it can no longer hold. As a concept, the center can be defined as a normative idea of how governments, with decent enough efficiency, carry on managing forces that are so complex and powerful they defy the ordinary citizen’s understanding. The center can thus be defined essentially as the inertia at the core of any establishment that keeps things ticking over from day to day.

The idea people have of the center implies belief in notions such as fair competition, free markets, reasonable government regulation, rule of law, free and fair elections. These cultural ideas are trotted ouy to reassure populations that their leaders are doing a decent job. At the same time, the guardians of the center spend much of their energy warning voters to be wary of personalities who deviate from the center. If given a free hand, these deviant personalities might upset the precious applecart. That is why Barack Obama intervened two years ago to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Joe Biden was chosen, clearly an avatar of “the center,”. Jeremy Corbyn suffered a fate similar to Sanders’ in the UK. In France, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon were both labeled extremist. But these deviants have now returned to squeeze the life out of Macron’s vaunted center.

The political center in the West’s democratic countries has long assumed the task of defending and protecting the existing balance of economic and coercive power. It’s a system that has evolved, in an increasingly oligarchic fashion, around the productive forces of a neoliberal system designed specifically for the needs of the consumer economies promoted in the West. Additionally, over time, the question of security and the growing needs of the military-industrial complex have tended to set the tone and influence all the major decisions of the center.

Leaders such as David Cameron in the UK, Angela Merkel in Germany, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the US, and Emmanuel Macron in France, epitomized a center that had clearly become oligarchic and increasingly plutocratic at its core, but democratic in its formal constitution. 

And then something happened. Six years ago a series of events set in motion the feeling that the center might no longer hold or no longer deserve to hold. Various political personalities came to prominence whose style and bearing challenged the idea of “centerness.” Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Bernie Sanders, Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon and others, with contrasting levels of seriousness and surging popularity, dared to deviate from an ideology built around the idea of trusting the “tried and true” to keep things on a relatively even keel. Paradoxically, that turned out to be  the key to Macron’s success in 2017, when the former pillars of the hard center – that included the traditional parties of the left and right – had fallen into discredit. The young interloper, aided by a runoff with the extremist Marine Le Pen, appeared to be a safe alternative to the existing sclerotic system.

Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, both ambiguously perceived by their own establishments, have adopted policies respectful of the oligarchic power base that defines the center. But in their own way, they have both undermined the credibility of the center, in part by being too close to its oligarchic interests, which people have come to suspect, and in part because they have deviated from the cultural norm associated with the center.

The long and the short of it is that, within the Western block of respectable democracies, the center is rapidly losing its grip. At the same time, the periphery around that Western core is beginning to drift away from the traditional grip of the West, a grip that began with colonial conquest half a millennia ago. 

In its reporting on the Colombian election, The New York Times a television director who lives “in a wealthy part of Bogotá.” “It’s been a long time,” he recounts, “since we had an opportunity like this for change. If things will get better, I don’t know. But if we stick with the same, we already know what we’re going to get.”

That may be the clearest sign that, even those who have benefitted from the status quo the center was designed to protect, are beginning to understand that “the center cannot hold.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post France and Colombia: The Center Keeps Trying (but Failing) to Hold appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The Politics Behind the Coronavirus in Brazil

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The commission heard more than 100 witnesses during 66 sessions and examined some 20 million gigabytes of digital information to trace the causes and consequences of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s decisions, such as his lax COVID-19 policies derived from the disastrous attempt to let the virus run its course in order to reach herd immunity. Last year, Bolsonaro downplayed the coronavirus as “,” promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine and other unproven medications as a cure, opposed the use of masks and, most critically, failed to secure adequate stocks of the COVID-19 vaccine for the federal program.

COVID-19 Crimes                                        

The PCI was in April, a month after the pandemic at over 89,000 infections and almost 4,000 deaths a day. The commission’s final report is weighty, providing nearly 1,300 pages of robust evidence to indict Jair Bolsonaro on nine criminal charges, including crimes against public health and crimes against humanity. In addition to the president, , including three of his sons, two former and one current minister, as well as several close allies who are occupying key positions in public institutions, are on the indictment list.

The final report has been submitted to the general prosecutor’s office for further consideration. If Bolsonaro is formally charged, he might face between 21 and 79 years in prison.

The report will also be presented to the lower house of Brazil’s national congress. This could lead to an impeachment process for misconduct. Approval of the report by the lower house is unlikely, however, given it is controlled by Bolsonaro supporters. Formal would have to be issued by Brazil’s attorney general, Augusto Aras, who is the president’s political appointee. The senators who led the commission have of taking the case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the likely scenario that the Brazilian justice system fails to prosecute Bolsonaro.

The turning point of the investigation was the uncovering of a inside the Ministry of Health to spend $300 million on 20 million doses of overpriced COVID-19 vaccines produced by the Indian company Bharat Biotech. The investigation revealed that the Ministry of Health reserved approximately $45 million to buy Covaxin, which has not undergone proper clinical trials and hasn’t been approved by any of the world’s health regulatory agencies. 

The payment was to be deposited in an offshore account of an opaque Brazilian company, Precisa Medicamentos, which was brokering the deal and is facing several judicial probes into irregularities of public procurement contracts. A deputy in the lower house of congress and former minister of health who is a of Bolsonaro led the negotiations for the acquisition of the vaccine. Allegations from witness testimony indicate that the president was aware of the scheme. The attempt of the Bolsonaro administration to buy Covaxin is perplexing given that last year, it to buy the Pfizer vaccine even at a discounted rate.

Political and Social Consequences

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a lack of leadership across the country, turning a public health emergency into an economic and sociopolitical crisis. While there already were undisputed signs of a fast-approaching recession, with the rapid spread of the virus, the economic scenario deteriorated further. In 2020, Brazil’s economy was the second-most affected by the pandemic, after Spain. Last year, Brazil presented a negative GDP growth of .

Economic projections for 2021 suggest that the Brazilian economy will show only a modest expansion considering last year’s economic debacle, with estimated GDP growth of . This comes in a context of worsening macroeconomic indications such as increasing inflation rates, devaluation of the currency and rising interest rates.

The pandemic has also deepened political tensions in Brazil, with Bolsonaro more isolated than ever. The pandemic made crystal clear the president’s ineptitude to lead, coordinate and articulate meaningful solutions to the crisis. It brought to the fore µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s belligerent personality and put him at odds with close aides. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Brazil had rotated four ministers of health, two of whom have left the government due to with the administration’s policies.

Bolsonaro has also tried to shirk federal public health responsibilities to state and local authorities. This has the political conflict with state governors, which has greatly contributed to the disarticulation of coordinated pandemic response. Despite µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s obstructionist policies, state governments carried out their own vaccination programs. The state of SĂŁo Paulo began a large-scale vaccination drive after an agreement was signed with the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech to locally produce the Coronavac vaccine. As of last week, the state had a of 87% for those over the age of 18, compared to 53% for the rest of the country.

Electoral Prospects

Initially, Bolsonaro interpreted the pandemic as an opportunity to advance his narrow political interests, such as his controversial agenda of easing arms control, relaxing implementation of environmental legislation and combating anti-corruption laws and actions. Furthermore, the president used the pandemic as an to distribute financial assistance to the poor, a move that allowed him to enjoy high popular approval ratings during several months of the pandemic, from February to October 2020.

The indictment will have far-reaching consequences for µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s ambitions in next year’s presidential election. Based on an opinion poll from October, if the election were held today, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva would win with in the second round.

Lula, who is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from Bolsonaro, was on corruption charges, until the supreme court his conviction in April this year. Thus, despite current projections that give Lula a clear lead, Brazil’s 2022 presidential election will be a highly polarized affair with unpredictable results.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, since the launch of the senate inquiry, has dropped significantly. Between January and October this year, the number of those who describe µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s governance as “bad” increased from 40% to 53%, while “good” or “excellent” ratings have from 32% to just 22%, the lowest point since he took office in 2019. This is bad news for Bolsonaro, who will lose his presidential immunity from prosecution if he fails to win reelection.

In response, on October 20 — the same day the results of the investigation were first made public — the president announced that he would increase financial support to a major social assistance program, the “,” designed to alleviate poverty. This populist welfare policy, which was announced for the sole purpose of bolstering the president’s reelection prospects, had a negative effect on the Brazilian financial markets.

The government’s is creating a record deficit, with the International Monetary Fund projecting public debt to reach 96% of the country’s GDP. Under this fiscal deterioration, investors are concerned about Brazil’s capacity to further control its debt, leading to a sharp devaluation of the currency; since January 2020, the almost 40% of its value.

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Jair Bolsonaro thought the COVID-19 pandemic would help disguise his incompetence. Instead, the crisis has shown how lack of leadership kills — at a shocking scale. The more than 607,000 Brazilian lives lost during the pandemic serve as a constant and grim reminder there is no place in Brazil for weak leadership.

While bringing those protected by immunity to justice will be an uphill struggle, the parliamentary inquiry has demonstrated that Brazil has strong democratic institutions that can not only effectively resist the by the executive but also hold the president accountable for fomenting what may be the in Brazil’s history.  

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will Brazil See Justice for the Mismanagement of the COVID-19 Pandemic? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

A newly-edited by one of the greatest Peruvian historians gives clues as to the future. Jorge Basadre’s intriguing “Risk in History and Its Limits” was first published in 1971 and examines the role of chance in history. Basadre magisterially applies this theme to Peruvian independence. He was fully aware of the latest developments in game theory and anticipated the power of computers to apply this theory. This great thinker is honored today with his portrait on 100 soles banknotes.

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Inspired by Basadre, there are five scenarios that could unfold once the election authorities proclaim the winner. Although scenario analysis and game theory are distinct concepts, scenarios allow for a simulation of the role of chance in history and in determining the future. The Peruvian case is an exciting starting point for such analysis because the country is deeply divided and each candidate appeals only to a small minority of the population.

The Two Candidates

Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of the former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights abuses committed during his tenure. The former president inherited a bloody insurgency led by two terrorist groups. The larger group, the Shining Path, espoused Maoist ideals similar to Cambodia’s infamous Khmer Rouge. The other group was the Marxist-Leninist Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. Both were most active in the 1980s and early 1990s. Alberto Fujimori is credited with crushing them.

Keiko Fujimori still attracts public support because many Peruvians continue to be grateful to her father for navigating the country out of what seemed to be an intractable crisis. Along with the insurgency, Peru suffered chronic hyperinflation. The authoritarian elder Fujimori ended both insurgency and inflation. In the current election, his daughter won 13.41% of the vote in the first round, reaching the final round in the presidential election for the third time.

Keiko Fujimori the 2016 presidential election to a liberal candidate by a mere 41,000 votes even though her party won an absolute majority in the congressional election. Her deep unpopularity among a large number of Peruvians probably explains why she lost while her party won. The divided mandate — with Fujimori’s party dominant in congress and the presidency in her rival’s hands — was a recipe for disaster.

Following the 2016 election, the country went into a political . New congressional elections and constitutional changes followed. Within one presidential term, four presidents have come and gone. The constitutional changes backfired spectacularly. Members of congress are no longer allowed to stand for reelection. This was supposed to make them more honest. Instead, they treat their one term as the only chance to extract their pound of flesh. Almost invariably, Peruvian members of congress have furthered their own personal interests over the interests of society. Naturally, voters are tired of the current political situation with its unresolved tensions between regions and classes. This benefited Fujimori’s unlikely political rival who could cast himself as an outsider.

is a rural school teacher and union leader. His parents were illiterate peasants; he is the third of their nine children. Castillo comes from one of the poorest regions of the country. As a relatively unknown presidential candidate, he remained under the radar of the mainstream press during the first round of elections. With 20 candidates competing to get into the second round, Castillo won a surprising 18.92% of the vote. His victory caught the Lima elites by surprise.

In Peru, political parties largely center around their founders. Castillo’s party, Perú Libre, revolves around Wladimir Cerron, who used to be the governor of a region in the Andean part of the country. Cerron draws inspiration from Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. He is believed to support surviving members of the Shining Path. Two former members of the Maoist terrorist organization will now take their seats in congress for Perú Libre.

Cerron shares legal troubles relating to corruption and campaign finance with the Fujimori family. Whereas Fujimori herself is still awaiting trial, Cerron has already been sentenced to four years and eight months. He is currently out on parole.

A Mess That Keeps Getting Messier

Even though the vote was held over a month ago, the election authorities are yet to declare an official winner. Fujimori has challenged the election outcome. She claims irregularities in the voting districts in the Andean region where she is extremely unpopular. The independent election authorities have rejected most of the challenges, some on entirely technical grounds. According to law, challenges must be lodged within three days of the election. The polls closed at 8.00 pm on July 6. Fujimori filed some of her challenges after 8.00 pm but before midnight on July 9.

To her supporters, the extra four hours do not matter because July 9 was still the third day after the election. The election authorities are mindful of this perception and perhaps this contributes to why they have yet to proclaim a winner. However, we can safely assume that Castillo will be proclaimed president-elect before July 28. That day marks 200 years of Peru’s independence and is the day the constitution provides for the swearing-in of a new president.

Even though Castillo is highly likely to take charge, wild speculation dominates both the news and social media. He has frequently made contradictory remarks about his future plans. His erratic comments and improvisational team-building have made many nervous. Tensions are rising while confidence in the economy is falling. Just three months after Castillo won the first round, Peru’s foreign exchange reserves have by 11%. They have largely been spent to prop up the country’s falling currency that has fallen by 8.4% against a weak dollar despite the measures. 

Capital is also . Even before the second round of elections, the business elite was “looking to get money out of the country.” Reportedly, $13 billion in bank deposits have left Peruvian shores in the last few months. Castillo’s plans to nationalize or heavily tax major industries such as mining, oil and gas have caused tremors among investors and the business community. The Andean leader has continued to call for a constitutional convention despite a majority in congress or among voters who oppose such an elaborate and expensive exercise. 

Castillo’s call for a new constitution has fueled economic anxiety. There is a fear that the rules of the game could change and Peru might retreat from a market economy. This could create massive problems for the country. Previous administrations have signed trade agreements and international treaties that commit Peru to certain market-friendly policies. Castillo’s incoming administration does not have as much leeway as it imagines, and ideological policies could have costly consequences for the economy.

Ironically, Peru’s economy was recovering from the COVID-19 crisis faster than those of neighboring countries. Rising commodity prices would have given the new government more money to redistribute to the rural and Andean areas that historically lag behind Lima and other coastal cities. Instead, a close election in a fragmented society has exacerbated a protracted ongoing crisis. There are five scenarios that could play out at this point in time. Let us go through each of them.

Scenario 1: Cooperation

The government and the people they govern could come together to address the main problems affecting the country. These include ramping up the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, improving Peru’s ailing health care and public education systems, creating employment for the millions who lost their jobs due to lockdowns, increasing prosperity in poor areas practicing subsistence agriculture, building more infrastructure and improving resilience against climate change. 

Under this scenario, Castillo would successfully earn the confidence of the majority of congress. Instead of drafting a new constitution, members of congress would agree on amendments to improve governance.

Although this would be an optimal scenario, it is unlikely to unfold. Peru’s new congress of 130 deputies is splintered among 10 parties. Three of them, commanding 44 seats, represent the right and the far right. Of these, 24 belong to Fujimori´s Fuerza Popular. Parties of the left hold 42 seats, with 37 from Peru Libre, the party of Castillo and Cerron. The remaining 44 seats are held by centrist parties. It is difficult to predict whom they’ll support. Some might back the government in exchange for favors for their regions or for themselves. Others might ally with the right-wing opposition, which is expected to ferociously oppose what they view as Castillo’s socialist experiments.

Scenario 2: Military Coup

The military could take over. Some have already appealed to the army to act against a Castillo government. Some of the 44 right-wing congress members might support such a coup. This scenario is also unlikely for now. Perú’s institutions are still strong enough to follow a constitutional process.

The military has not been in power since 1980. By then, the armed forces were divided between their own left-wing and right-wing camps. The left had seized power in 1968 in hope of doing many of the things now proposed by Cerron and Castillo. The right took over in 1975 in response to the macroeconomic consequences of leftist policies instituted from 1968.

Between 1990 and 2000, the military supported the elder Fujimori. The army liked his strong, authoritarian leadership at a time of hyperinflation and insurgency. In the latter part of the 20^th century, right-wing military coups typically took place when a country entered a political deadlock. Almost invariably, institutions failed, the government stopped functioning, the economy collapsed and violence increased, leading to a military takeover.

Peru has just had an election. A winner has emerged. A military coup — or even a civilian one supported by the military — would not fly. Only if Castillo and congress repeatedly fail to find a way to work together, govern the country and manage the economy, the military would risk an intervention.

Scenario 3: Hegemony Via a New Constitution

CerrĂłn and Castillo could circumvent congress, appeal directly to the people and change the constitution. Such a scenario would give them unbridled power. Peru would emulate the Ecuador of Rafael Correa, who managed to grab absolute power despite lacking a majority in congress by ushering in a new constitution.

Correa came to power in 2007 as part of the so-called Latin American pink tide, a term that refers to the election of left-wing governments in the region. He allied Ecuador with Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and hoped to install a 21^st-century style of socialism. Correa boosted agricultural subsidies, increased minimum wage and sought to improve the standard of living by raising spending on social programs, especially health care and education.

Castillo is not as popular as Correa. Peru is highly fragmented. He got under 20% in the first round and has barely squeaked through in the second. A third of the voters want a new constitution, another third support some amendments to improve governance and the remaining third oppose any change. Therefore, the hegemony of the left is possible but improbable.

Scenario 4: Hegemony Through Weakening of Institutions

Cerron and his hardcore comrades could make a grab for power with or without Castillo’s support. First, they would appoint loyalists as employees of the state. Friendly prosecutors and judges as well as aligned teachers and generals would infiltrate different arms of the Peruvian state. With the help of loyalists in key positions, the left wing could circumvent congress and bend the constitution. , Nicaragua and are already experiencing this phenomenon.

Peru has huge mineral reserves and access to some wealth. Left-wing countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia in need of financial support could bolster their ideological counterparts in Peru. Even the likes of Argentina and Surinam could turn to Peru for help. Peru could emerge as the new version of Chavez’s Venezuela. As with the Chavismo experiment, such a scenario would eventually end badly. Peru’s previous left-wing experiments have all failed. 

Scenario 5: Impasse and Chaos

Castillo and the right-wing members of congress could clash bitterly. The latter are likely to oppose the new government with all the means at their disposal. Peru’s right-wing media is likely to create a narrative of scandals.

Peru’s present constitution has weaknesses pertaining to governance. It gives the president and congress ample opportunities to act against each other. The president could dissolve congress, which in turn could impeach the president. In fact, a supermajority could impeach the president in a single afternoon. Sadly, such bitter polarization is the most likely scenario. It could unleash chaos in Peru. Governance could fail and the country’s long-standing problems would continue to fester.

It is important to note that four of the five scenarios are not in the interest of Peru. Yet such scenarios dominate because its democracy is immature. Voting is compulsory. Those who do not vote are penalized. Yet the country demonstrates that elections and voting by themselves do not lead to a functioning democracy.

Elected representatives have to learn to work together in the public interest. Putting private interest or ideological pursuits over public benefit invariably leads to disaster. Like voters in many other fraught democracies, Peruvians tend to opt for el mal menor, the lesser evil. It is increasingly unclear if such a choice even exists. A fragmented country desperately needs its politicians to end a savage knife fight and work toward a better future.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post A Contentious Election Deepens Peru’s Crisis appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The basis of guacamole is smashed ripe avocados. Most of the avocados sold in European supermarkets originate from a handful of countries. In Switzerland, for instance, most avocados are imported from Chile, Peru and Spain. In 2020, imported roughly 19,000 tons of avocados. Over the past several decades, avocado imports have skyrocketed across Europe. In , for instance, between 2010 and 2015, avocado imports rose from 28,000 tons to 45,000 tons; by 2020, it more than 118,000 tons, reflecting an ever-growing demand. Once considered an exotic fruit, today the avocado has become a staple as common as the good old potato.

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The reason for the popularity of avocados is hardly a secret. Like blueberries and quinoa, avocados count among today’s “.” They are not only a great source of nutrients and fibers but also, more importantly, of “heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids.” Avocados are supposed to be able to lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels and thus reduce the risk of heart disease. At the same time, they contain antioxidants that might of contracting certain types of cancer. Health-conscious consumers buy avocados, so do trendy urban Green-voting hipsters, vegetarians and .

For many of them, avocados are not only a delicious ingredient, but a . Unfortunately, more often than not, the environmental consequences of a healthy diet are disastrous, particularly in the case of avocados.

The Right to Water

Avocado production is highly water-intensive, roughly , more than 12 times as much as it takes to grow a tomato. (Avocados, like tomatoes, are a fruit, not a vegetable.) Ironically enough, most avocados are grown in relatively arid regions. In California, for instance, whose avocado output amounts to several hundred million pounds per year, the fruit is in the southern parts of the state, from San Luis Obispo to San Diego, in the desert. For that is what is — a “natural desert irrigated by man into a sense of artificial lushness.” It takes a bit less than 75 gallons (about 280 liters) of “blue” water to grow a pound of avocados. Blue water comes from rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers; it does not include rainfall (“green” water) or recycled (“grey”) water.

In late 1972, Albert Hammond stormed the charts with his song “It Never Rains in Southern California.” The title was a bit of an exaggeration. It does rain, on occasion, yet hardly enough, particularly in recent years. In the mid-2010s, California was faced with one of the most severe prolonged droughts in its history. With climate change, the situation is likely to get even worse. At the time of the drought, one commentator her readers that “you should think twice before eating avocados.” That was in 2015. Yet her words are as pertinent today — and arguably even more so — as they were then.

Take the case of Chile, a top exporter of avocados. In 2019, Chile exported some 145 thousand metric tons of its avocado crop. Most of the exports went to Western Europe, with the Netherlands topping the list. In fact, the imports more avocados from non-EU countries than all other member states combined. By 2019, the country accounted for almost two-thirds of EU avocado imports from non-EU countries. More than 90% of imported avocados are reexported to the rest of the European Union after being inspected and repackaged.

Chile is a main supplier of “Dutch” avocados, second only to Peru. In Chile, avocados are primarily grown in the Petorca province, the northernmost part of the Valparaiso region, some 200 km north of the capital, Santiago. In Petorca, , “with droughts happening once every seven years.” Yet as an in The Guardian has claimed, in Petorca, “every cultivated hectare requires 100,000 litres of water per day, an amount equivalent to what a thousand people would use in a day.” In 2019, the Chilean government declared a water emergency in the province.

Since 2016, the people living in Petorca have been allocated 50 liters of water per day, a fraction of what avocado trees need. In fact, the water shortage has been so acute that water was being delivered by trucks. When the water was tested, it contained far above the legal limit, among children.

The fact is that in the major avocado exporting countries in Latin America — Mexico, Chile and Peru — the primary has been “through plantations where avocados are grown in monoculture. This type of agriculture is associated with high water usage due to a heavy reliance on irrigation systems and management practices that degrade soil quality and thus, its water-holding capacity.”

According to international conventions, access to safe water is a fundamental human right. In 2020, Leo Heller, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights to drinking water and sanitation, the Chilean government that it failed to meet its international human rights obligations if it continued to prioritize “economic development projects over the human rights to water and health.” In April 2020, the Chilean government resolved to increase the daily water allowance for Petorca’s residents to 100 liters.

A week later, it revoked the resolution, most likely in response to pressure from the avocado industry. For, as Heller noted, in the meantime, the Chilean government not only continued to “grant new water rights to agricultural companies” but also failed “to control the illegal and excessive use of water by avocado companies.” So much for sustainable development.

Avocado Superpower

This holds true even more for the globe’s number one avocado exporter — Mexico. Most of the Mexican avocados are produced in the state of Michoacan, just west of Mexico City. Most of these avocados are exported to the United States. When it comes to avocados, Mexico is a superpower. In fact, , Mexico “controls half of global avocado trade.” Avocados are a lucrative commodity, attracting unsavory characters, most notably Mexico’s notorious , extorting “producers, transporters and packers to gain control over the sector.”

At the same time, the expansion of avocado production for export to the Unites States has had a devastating impact on the region’s flora. According to every year, more than 20,000 hectares of forest land have been converted into avocado plantations, resulting in massive deforestation, which in turn has taken a toll on . At the same time, the focus on avocados has jeopardized food security in the region, with the cultivation of the cash crop supplanting local staples.

Finally, there is the problem of virtual water. Virtual water refers to the amount of water embedded in the production of a commodity. The virtual water content of avocados is exceedingly high. Avocados exported from Mexico, Peru and other developing countries to Western Europe and North America translate into massive amounts of virtual water imported from water-scarce to generally water-rich countries.

The UK is a case in point. In 2017, the country’s from its five most important suppliers (Peru, South Africa, Chile, Israel and Spain) was estimated at over 25 million cubic meters annually, “equivalent to 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.” As a result, a recent notes, “the overexploitation of water underlying the avocado trade flows may end up worsening environmental conditions in many relatively poor countries in which the export of avocado is often regarded as an important source of economic growth.”

The situation is likely to get even worse given the growing demand from China. Both Chile and Peru have free trade agreements with China, granting them privileged access to the Chinese market. In the six years between 2012 and 2017, the amount of avocados exported to China from 1,500 tons to over 32,000 tons. In Latin America, avocados are seen as “green gold.” Unfortunately, as been the case throughout history, gold tends to cloud the human mind and, eventually, turn into a curse.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Green Gold: The Curse of the Avocado appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The Pacific Alliance was born out of the 11-nation Latin American Pacific Arc Forum, which included the above four nations alongside Pacific Alliance observers, Costa Rica and Panama, as well as Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Established in 2007, the forum’s purpose was to improve its participants’ engagement with the Asia-Pacific region. All apart from Nicaragua are today among the 59 observer states the Pacific Alliance has across five continents. The organization also admitted four nations as associate members in 2017, made up of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore.   

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Underpinning the Pacific Alliance is a commitment to use integration to promote greater growth, development, competitiveness and among its members, with Article 3 of the association’s Framework Agreement committing members to the progressive promotion of free movement of goods, services, capital and people. Meanwhile, Article 8 of the agreement precludes member states from modifying or replacing existing economic and trade deals involving any alliance members, highlighting the fact that the bloc is intended as a mechanism through which great value can be drawn from those agreements rather than as a move intended to replace them.

During 15 summits since being founded, the last of which was held in December 2020 in Chile’s capital Santiago, the Pacific Alliance has acted as a tool for promoting integration among its members as well as being a vehicle for connecting them with the outside world. The alliance lists 23 areas of work, including tourism, education, finance, intellectual property and digital development, in which it aims to build industry standards and collaborate on best practices. The organization has also engaged in free trade and cooperation negotiations with a wide range of countries globally, including the four associate members.

Australia has been engaged in such negotiations since June 2019, with the government in Canberra heavily promoting the benefits of deepening ties with the four fast-growing Latin American economies. In the case of Canada, agreements have been reached on areas of cooperation and deeper integration, complementing the free trade agreements (FTAs) Canada already has in place with each of the alliance members.

New Zealand, meanwhile, remains engaged in FTA negotiations, while in December 2020, Singapore announced that it had substantially concluded negotiations for a Pacific Alliance – Singapore Free Trade Agreement (PASFTA). Just two months earlier, marking the reach into Asia that the alliance has now achieved, South Korea formally requested membership. All of this increases the diplomatic clout of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, and makes the alliance a more enticing prospect for future members, which the organization appears intent on recruiting.

The future of the Pacific Alliance appears to be broad, with numerous countries slated as potential members. Those not only include the four associate members, whose participation would provide the alliance with a truly global reach, but also the likes of Panama and Costa Rica. Meanwhile, Ecuador’s recent election of new business-friendly means the Andean nation’s potential entry into the alliance will now get a boost.

The expansion of the alliance could also see a deepening of integration in South America, with the bloc developing with the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), a rival economic integration comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and to which Bolivia is awaiting acceptance as a full member.

FTAs between members of each association are already in place, with ongoing between Chile and Paraguay, representing Asuncion’s first foray into bilateral FTAs and the final agreement Santiago needs to cover the entire MERCOSUR membership. With plenty of negotiations among many nations yet to go, it is impossible to say with certainty what the future holds for the Pacific Alliance.

However, based on the ambitions it has shown and the countries mooted as possible members, the alliance promises to become a powerful bloc on a global scale. It already counts four of the five best countries for doing business in Latin America among its members, according to the World Bank. If New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea were to join, it would have three of the best five in the world.

[*Thomas Bouvry contributed to this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Pacific Alliance at 10: A Global Future Beckons appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Images of in the Amazonian town of Manaus and the dead bodies left in coffins in the streets of , Ecuador, have spread worldwide. More than died because of the virus, placing the two countries second and third in absolute numbers of fatalities. Peru registered 1,421 deaths per million and Panama 1,352 on March 4 — numbers that show the devastation caused by the virus in the region so far. Chile has also experienced a significant death rate of 1,084 per million.

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The big difference in Chile was that authorities mobilized in advance to secure vaccines, on various suppliers in different stages of development. In September last year, President Sebastian Pinera the purchase of 10 million doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. Deliveries commenced on December 24, making Chile the first Latin American nation to start its vaccination program. The country has ordered some 90 million doses, more than enough to immunize its 19 million citizens. By March 4, more than 20% of its population received at least one shot, placing Chile in the world when it comes to vaccination rates, just behind Israel, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Political Conflict

On December 29, Argentinians started to the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. The pace of immunization in Argentina has been much slower than expected, with several complaints of those not in priority groups receiving the jab before health workers and the elderly. The “” scandal has caused the resignation of the health minister, drawing protesters onto the streets and generating criticism against President Alberto Fernandez. So far, only 2.61% of its 45 million citizens. The slower pace seems to be standard in the region, with most nations to vaccinate even 1% of their citizens. The cause is not only the shortage of vaccines but lack of planning and, more significantly, internal political conflict. 

In Brazil, president Jair Bolsonaro has made several statements that undermined efforts to slow the pandemic. In a national on March 24, 2020, he criticized the restrictive measures adopted by governors and mayors, urging people to return to work and referring to COVID-19 as a “little flu.” The president also highly publicized the unproven anti-malarian drug chloroquine as being effective against the virus, the Ministry of Health to produce four million doses. His insistence on the use of the drug caused the , Dr. Henrique Mandetta, fired by Bolsonaro last April, and Dr. Nelson Teich, who resigned less than a month after taking over. Since then, the position has been by an army general specializing in logistics, with neither medical education nor experience.

Over the course of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has been exchanging with the state governments, such as over lockdown measures adopted by individual governors last month. On March 1, 16 of the country’s 26 governors, including three Bolsonaro allies, criticizing the government and accusing the president of misleading the public about federal pandemic relief funds. Sao Paulo’s governor, , a former ally in the 2018 elections and a potential competitor in 2022, has been the president’s most vociferous antagonist over the handling of the pandemic.

At the center of the dispute is the Butantan Institute, one of the most prestigious health centers in Latin America, situated in the state of Sao Paolo. Back in June, Butantan signed a partnership with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech to produce the CoronaVac vaccine. Initially, Bolsonaro has signaled that Brazil would not purchase the , questioning its efficiency, but in January, the Ministry of Health the vaccine to the national immunization plan following approval by the health regulator, Anvisa. Last month, Doria a deal for a further 20 million doses of CoronaVac to complement the 100 million already secured by Butantan.

Last August, Pfizer said it 70 million batches of its vaccine to Brazil, with a delivery scheduled for December. However, with Brazil dissatisfied with the terms of the contract, the deal is still being negotiated. Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello hopes to secure 100 million doses from Pfizer and 38 million from a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, to start deliveries in May and August respectively. Due to this lack of urgency and an absence of a unified policy between the federal and state governments, Brazil has so far just 3,67% of its population.

Crisis Management

Chile has also faced political unrest. Since 2019, the country experienced several calling for education and pension reforms. In a televised address, President Pinera declared a , granting powers to restrain freedom of movement and assembly. The measure resulted in violence that cost 18 lives in five days, leading the UN to examine possible . As a result, Pinera’s fell to just 7%. In 2020, amid the ongoing political crisis, COVID-19 hit the country hard, provoking the of the health minister, Jaime Manalich.

However, Pinera managed to turn the situation around. With a degree in commercial engineering from the Catholic University of Chile and a PhD in economics from Harvard, the president is a billionaire businessman, with an estimated . He has already led the country once, between 2010 and 2014, earning crucial government nous. Pinera to the protesters and supported the calls for a new constitution in an attempt to turn down the political temperature.  

A referendum on October 25 saw 78% of the population that will substitute the current one created in 1980 under General Augusto Pinochet. The new Magna Carta will be written by a also elected through a popular vote and with an of men and women. The document will then be confirmed by a popular vote before being implemented.

To assuage popular discontent caused by the initial handling of the pandemic in combination with other historical grievances relating to health care, education and pensions, Pinera focused his negotiation abilities to mediate the purchase of million doses of vaccine from different laboratories and suppliers. While most developing nations have been struggling with a lack of supplies, Chile is among the , along with Canada and the UK, when it comes to the number of doses ordered per capita. Back in September, just before the peak of protests, Pinera on the development and clinical trials between the Catholic University of Chile and Sinovac; the University of Chile, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca; as well as the University of Frontera and another Chinese laboratory, CanSino Biologics. More than that, purchases were agreed with Pfizer, Covax, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.

But despite perceived goodwill from an , the president still faces an uphill climb when it comes to popularity. By March 1, 83% of the Chileans deemed the massive vaccination as , 58% asses the general management of the pandemic as positive, but Pinera’s personal approval is still only at 24%.

The successful vaccination has already yielded positive outcomes. According to Chile’s Health Ministry, the number of new COVID-19 cases has in six of the country’s 16 regions in the last seven days and in eight the last 14 days. Chile hopes to vaccinate at least 15 million people in the first semester, which would allow the country to by the end of June. These numbers would put Chile way ahead in the vaccination game not only in Latin America but worldwide, suggesting that resolute leadership is as important for the nation’s well-being as a robust medical system.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post What’s Behind Chile’s Vaccination Success? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The closeness of that contest — in which the conservative candidate Carlos Mesa missed forcing a runoff against Morales by 0.58% of the official vote tally — meant that 2020 was also expected to be a tight race. In the event, this year’s election saw Arce gain over half a million more votes than Morales had the previous year, with a similar amount bled away from Mesa’s 2019 total, handing Arce an outright victory without the need for a run-off.

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While it would be tempting to see the Arce administration as a continuation of the Morales era, on the campaign trail, the new president , “I am not Evo Morales.” Since being elected, Arce has made clear that Morales would have “” in his government. Nevertheless, with Arce serving as minister of economy and public finance for most of Morales’ tenure, any consideration of what to expect from the new president must take into account his predecessor’s record. 

Business Under Morales

The Morales administration presided over a period of considerable economic growth and social development, which saw the drop by more than half, from 48% in 2006 to 23% in 2018, while gross national income (GNI) per capita — a general indicator of prosperity among the population — more than to reach $3,530 in 2019.  was also continuous and relatively consistent during this period, fluctuating between 3.4% and 6.8% until 2019, when it dipped to 2.2%. Those figures made Bolivia one of the countries in the region for much of Morales’ presidency.

These changes were partly the result of a policy of nationalizing the petroleum, telecommunications and mining industries, enacted by decree early in Morales’ first year in office and less than two years after 92% of Bolivian voters had supported the during a compulsory referendum. While the country’s revenues from hydrocarbons increased dramatically and provided the funds to support poverty alleviation programs, that approach did not lead to a dramatic fall in foreign direct investment (FDI) in oil and gas extraction or mining, as many expected. In fact, both industries saw , which subsequently declined again but never below the levels seen before Morales came into office. Throughout this time, it was Arce overseeing these programs and investment, as well as a process of agricultural development and rural land redistribution, which was followed by both a significant increase in production. 

It is important to note that a major policy shift occurred toward the latter years of the administration, with Arce himself during Morales’ final term that “our nationalisation agenda is over. … we need FDI, and we respect genuine, new private investment. Today FDI makes up 2 percent to 3% of our GDP. We want to double that by 2020.” In 2017, the country signed deals with foreign investors for hydrocarbon exploitation , supplemented by a further the following year. 

The fact that the interim presidency of Jeanine Añez, who occupied the office between Morales and Arce, largely coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic makes it incredibly difficult to properly assess its performance, given the massive economic upheaval experienced throughout the region. While the interim government ordered an audit of the previous administration early on, it was soon forced to focus on implementing a range of measures designed to address the closure of businesses and an increase in unemployment.  

In October, the interim government reported that the economic damage caused by the pandemic totaled around $5 billion, with an economic contraction of at least 4% expected by the end of 2020. While this unprecedented situation might make an assessment of the interim government difficult, it at least provides some important context for Arce’s approach to business and investment, which will be framed by the need to address the deep economic wounds caused by the pandemic.

Arce’s Approach to Business

As a candidate, Arce highlighted the efficacy of the economic policies pursued during the Morales administration and his intention to continue them. While this has been met with concern among some commentators, the more FDI-friendly latter years under Morales should give some cause for hope for investment in the country. Arce has proposed a drive for industrialization to replace importing foreign products in order to stimulate the internal market and generate more opportunities for locally-based companies. He has also said that he wants to encourage new in order to stimulate employment.

Yet Arce has also said that some form of to deal with the country’s economic woes will be needed, even as he has pledged not to reduce public expenditure. In a sign of his pro-FDI approach, he has also highlighted his desire to tap into Bolivia’s massive and unexploited lithium reserves, at a time when demand for the mineral is skyrocketing in the face of the shift toward electric vehicles. Arce has stated that exploitation of those reserves will demand the help of a “strategic partner” and could pour an additional $2 billion into state coffers over the course of his five-year term.

With the economic uncertainty that continues to swirl due to the ongoing pandemic, it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions about what to expect from the Arce administration, given that it is impossible to know what challenges and obstacles may present themselves in the coming months or years. Nevertheless, his early moves have pointed to a clear desire to stimulate business, with measures taken to provide for deferred credit, refinancing and rescheduling of debts, as well as forbidding additional interest being added to such credit by banks. 

What is abundantly clear is that Luis Arce understands how critical FDI is to Bolivia’s future development, and that understanding will surely only have deepened in the context of the economic turmoil that has traversed the globe. With Bolivia boasting a host of and unsaturated markets, and with the new president already highlighting his desire to bring foreign investment into Bolivia’s massive untapped lithium reserves, it seems reasonable to expect that his administration will pursue a significant deepening of FDI even while he maintains the high levels of social spending seen under Evo Morales.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post What Should Business Expect From Bolivia’s New President? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The 2020 election is another exception. Oddly, Bolsonaro has kept a low profile on the topic. On November 4, he expressed : “I think everyone has a preference, and I will not argue with anyone. You know my position, it’s clear, and that’s not interference. I have a good policy with Trump, I hope he will be re-elected. I hope.” Officials said that Brasilia was awaiting the US Supreme Court’s decision on the final vote tally before congratulating anyone — which Bolsonaro yesterday, following Biden’s Electoral College win.

The Biden-Bolsonaro equation matters because the United States and Brazil have had strong links for nearly two centuries. The US was the first country to recognize Brazil’s independence in 1822. During the period of the First Republic, from 1889 to 1930, the country’s official name was the Republic of the United States of Brazil. It imported a federal system of governance from the US and tried to associate with its northern counterpart.

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The US-Brazil relationship goes back a long way and is deeper than ideological affinities between the two countries’ presidents. Until China overtook it in 2010, the US was Brazil’s biggest economic partner. A by the United States Congressional Research Service on US-Brazil trade relations gives insight into American thinking. in Latin America and the Caribbean from 2005 to 2019 amounted to $130 billion, with Brazil accounting for $60 billion and Peru for $27 billion. It is no surprise that the report states that there are “strategic and economic reasons for strengthening trade ties” with Brazil.

In 2016, between Brazil and the US hit a low of $23.2 billion in exports and $23.8 billion in imports. In the first year of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s presidency, exports reached $29.7 billion, a new high since 2008, and imports rose to $30.1 billion, the highest figure since 2014. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, falling oil prices and restrictions on trade have led to a negative performance. Amcham Brasil, published by the American Chamber of Commerce, tells us that exports and imports by 25% this year as compared to 2019. The total trade figure from January to September was $33.4 billion, the lowest in 11 years.

A Conservative Alliance

When Biden enters the White House next January, Brazil may suffer a stronger fallout. Bolsonaro aligned very closely with Trump’s highly conservative, anti-globalization agenda. Brazil and the US will have to sort out their personal and strategic differences.

According to Cristina Pecequilo, and professor of international relations at the Federal University of SĂŁo Paulo, the personal bond between Bolsonaro and Trump will be difficult to let go of. Bolsonaro and his minister of international affairs, Ernesto Araujo, have aligned themselves with and have often emulated Trump. They repudiated multilateralism, undermined state actors and attacked intergovernmental organizations. Bolsonaro was critical of the World Health Organization and the United Nations in his speech at the UN General Assembly this year. He was appealing more to his anti-globalization voters back home than his audience at the UN.

“There is this idea that Brazil and the US belong to the West and that they should be a unit. However, when we look north, it is clear that they historically understand it as themselves and Western Europe, what we call the ‘new transatlantic.’ Brazil is out of that equation,” Pecequilo told me in an interview.

Araujo sees the world differently. He is a strong Trump supporter. In 2017, in an titled “Trump and the West,” Araujo praised the US president, describing him as a crusader against communism, Islam and globalism. Araujo then reposted the text in his blog . In the minister’s view, “The United States was getting into the boat of western decay, surrendering to nihilism, by deidentifying itself, by deculturation, by replacing living history with abstract, absolute, unquestionable values. They were going into that, until Trump.” Last month, he deleted the post.

Such words are unlikely to have gone down well with the Biden team. Therefore, Pecequilo believes that Araujo will have no option but to resign when all legal challenges to the US election result are exhausted.

The Question of the Environment

Apart from ideological differences, environmental and human rights issues will also present major challenges to US-Brazil relations. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have both openly and repeatedly criticized µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s environmental policies and beliefs. On September 29, Biden even took the issue to the first presidential debate, that he “would be right now organizing the hemisphere and the world to provide $20 billion for the Amazon, for Brazil to no longer to burn the Amazon. And if it doesn’t stop, it would face significant economic consequences.”

The statement generated an angry response from Bolsonaro, who the comment as “regrettable, disastrous and gratuitous.” Ricardo Salles, Brazil’s environment minister, the speech and questioned whether the amount would be an annual or a single transfer.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to place Biden’s remarks in context, delivered by a candidate reaching out to the more progressive voter. Such rhetoric often comes up in a debate. Biden will behave differently when in the Oval Office. His policy will be more centrist. Gabriel Adam, professor at Brazil’s Superior School of Advertising and Marketing, says: “There will be pressure concerning the Amazon, but there will be no sanctions. Pressure shall come through diplomatic means, but at no time will it harm relations concretely. Brazil has more risks of damaging trade relations with the European Union.”

µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s handling of the environment is a key element for Brazil’s relations with the European Union. In 2019, the EU and Mercosur, the South American trading bloc formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, announced an to boost trade between the two continents. They agreed to eliminate import tariffs on more than 90% of the products. However, the ratification faces by European civil groups and members of the European Parliament. Both criticize Brazil’s environmental policies. Last October, parliamentarians passed a non-binding resolution calling for changes in Mercosur countries’ environmental agenda to ratify the agreement. This is likely to hurt not only Brazil but also Mercosur’s other members.

Historically, the US has not been a great advocate for the environment. Recently, this issue has been growing in importance. At the center of the recent discussion is the Green New Deal, the project conceived by Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markley. Nevertheless, not even Biden and Harris seem to agree on a position on the subject. While Harris claims to support the plan, Biden says the Green New Deal is a “crucial framework” for his own platform but shies away from fully embracing the plan.

is aggressive when compared to other American presidents. His first duty is to work domestically and demonstrate that the US is no longer a . Internationally, the president-elect intends to “name and shame global climate outlaws” through “a new Global Climate Change Report to hold countries to account for meeting, or failing to meet, their Paris commitments and for other steps that promote or undermine global climate solutions.” Brazil is a candidate to be part of this ignominious group.

Brazil faces international outrage over deforestation in the Amazon. It must also decide whether to strengthen the country’s environmental targets under the Paris Climate Agreement by the end of the year. This decision could improve or worsen Brazil’s image on the international arena. On November 4 this year, the US formally withdraw from its commitments under the Paris accords, but the Biden administration promises to rejoin on its first day in office. American action may push Brazil in the same direction, even if unwillingly.

More Pragmatism, Less Ideology

Like their American counterparts, many Brazilians value the US-Brazil relationship. In an interview with CNN Brazil, the Brazilian ambassador to Washington, , said that a Biden victory would change in the relationship’s emphasis, not its essence. He stressed that he would seek to increase the Brazilian presence in discussions in the US Congress. 

Some people in µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s government have shown signs that they understand that changes are about to take place in January 2021. , the minister for the economy, said that Biden’s eventual victory would not affect the country’s growth dynamics. An admirer of the Chicago School of minimal state intervention and free competition, Guedes declared that Brazil’s government would “dance with everyone.”

While µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s silence on the US election and failure to recognize Biden as the president-elect has been widely criticized as hostile, the president, unlike his congressman son, , has not openly speculated about voter fraud. While the time it took the Brazilian president to recognize Biden’s win was damaging, it is unlikely to undermine a historic and extremely important relationship where strong mutual interests remain. Yet there are wrinkles to iron over. The Biden administration will not accept open hostility from Bolsonaro.

Despite current ideological differences, common sense will prevail on the American side. Good relations with Brazil will help the US contain China in Latin America. Pecequilo believes that “Biden will keep his pragmatism. We will see localized tensions, but, structurally, Biden will not want to lose the advantages that Trump obtained in the Brazilian market.”

It is Bolsonaro who faces a great dilemma. If Brazil’s ties with the US are further corroded by a blind belief in Trumpism and a lack of pragmatism, the South American giant will emerge as the major loser. As a superpower, it is easier for the US to find other partners and make Brazil a global pariah. Jair µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s choice will have significant consequences for Brazil.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will Bolsonaro Leave Trumpism Behind to Embrace a Biden-led US? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The world watched in awe as the “,” as Jair Bolsonaro is often referred to, went from strength to strength and took power democratically in Latin America’s largest economy. This was the impact of local elections in Brazil.

Local Power

If only interesting to the world because of the global surge in far-right politics that contaminated Brazil (arguably aided by ) in the 2010s, the country’s municipal elections are extremely important because most social policies are enacted , which are guaranteed ample managerial autonomy. Consequently, it is also at the municipal level that most resources are embezzled by who understand that perfect oversight by the federal government is nearly impossible in such vast territory. 

Voter turnout is generally over 80%, and cities witness months of on radio, TV and in print media. Mayoral candidates in the country’s largest cities end up being recognized state and nationwide, and many will go on to their office and run in state and presidential elections.  

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Brazil just held its ever to choose mayors, vice mayors and city councilors in 5,567 municipalities. Over half a million candidates ran for 67,840 . On November 15, in the first round of elections, 113 million of the nearly 148 million eligible voters went to polling stations, with 34 million claiming one of the to abstain from mandatory voting.

High were expected due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and were the highest in 20 years. There were fewer ballots than in the last municipal elections in 2016, but these surpassed the number of votes for the winner in 483 municipalities, including state capitals.

On November 29, 57 municipalities with over 200,000 inhabitants, including 18 state capitals and the two largest cities in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, picked their winners in the . These municipal elections were the first since Bolsonaro — not representing — took power in January 2019. Some observers that the elections could push the country definitively into the hands of the far right as polls showed a 40% approval rate of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s government. Others saw how important these elections were for µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s hold on power — and how his victory.

Blood on the Campaign Trail

Three political fields were vying for power in municipalities all over the country: the far-right, headed by the president and his supporters; the left, including center-left parties, which have been facing a crisis since Rousseff’s impeachment; and the traditional right, including center-right parties, which have lost some power with the arrival of the far-right wave. With 33 official political parties, alliances are crucial to winning office, and parties with apparently conflicting ideologies often join forces in municipalities all over the country.

The Brazilian political spectrum is so complex that a by the BBC tried to fit the country’s parties onto a political map by analyzing how their members voted in the national congress. The report confirmed that most left-wing parties vote for progressive ideas, that the majority of right-wing parties adopt more conservative views, but that centrist parties change between progressive and conservative positions depending on the state of (power) play.

The 2020 campaign season saw a record number of candidates representing µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s anti-political ideology, for campaign photos and advocating violence. There was a in evangelical candidates, usually representing the far right, and a more visible presence of priests of with more progressive ideas, who faced aggressive resistance from evangelicals. On the other hand, there were record numbers of , as well as candidates, with the number of black and mixed-race candidates surpassing the number of white candidates for the first time.

Analysts explain these numbers as an effect of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s rule: While far-right candidates feel empowered to expose their extreme ideology, form social movements to fight back from a position of power.

Violence in municipal elections has always been a common occurrence on the campaign trail in Brazil, and a was reached in 2016 with the surge of the far right. This year again witnessed unprecedented political violence, with during the campaign season, in a phenomenon caused, according to researchers, by the current administration’s normalization of political violence. In Guarulhos, in Greater Sao Paulo, a shooter several bullets into a city council candidate while he was live streaming on social media. If one counts militants also killed during the campaign, the number of rises to 82, with militias allegedly involved in a number of cases.

Violence has been used by conservatives to limit their political participation. This has come as a reaction by the religious right to the implementation of the law that mandates that a minimum of 30% of all candidates must be women. Political violence continued past the first round and plagued , with some murders happening after the polls closed. The increase in violence was particularly pronounced in states where rich landowners are involved in politics as well as in the poorer states of the north and northeast regions.

Disinformation was broadly used as a campaign tool, a trend that started with the . With over 140 million internet users, Brazil suffered an epidemic of before the elections, with progressive politicians being the target of misleading information being spread on social media. In 2018, a congressional commission uncovered a large operation headed by Carlos Bolsonaro to spread disinformation, the so-called “,” responsible for organizing demonstrations against the federal supreme court.

The security chief of the president’s office and former head of the infamous UN peacekeeping forces in Haiti, , floated the idea that Indigenous peoples, with the help of foreign powers, were sabotaging the elections in a plot to topple the president. To add to the problem, Bolsonaro himself about the electoral system — without citing any evidence — the day following the first round of voting. He also pushed for printed voting receipts, a move that many suspect would make it easier for corrupt politicians to who would photograph printed receipts as proof of loyalty.

Pendulum Swing

Despite these issues, elections ran in relative order even though the results were delayed due to incidents provoked by militant all over Brazil. The results of the first round already pointed to a of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s political allies. From his ex-wife and his cousin, who were both not elected, to the slim margin of victory for his son Carlos, who was elected with a small percentage of his record win in 2016, µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s picks lost major positions in key cities. At the same time, traditional parties regained power, with progressive candidates winning seats all over Brazil and the wife of murdered councilor and activist Marielle Franco securing a seat on Rio’s city council.

Left-wing parties in many of the 100 largest cities across Brazil and went on to dispute the second round in many capitals, notably in Sao Paulo. In two state capitals, Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro, a candidate supported by Bolsonaro reached the second round, while the traditional right won seven capitals in the first round.

The Workers’ Party (PT) in bigger cities despite reaching the second round in some capitals, but managed to get 183 mayors elected across Brazil, down from 630 in 2012. Losses were expected for the PT since the rise of , the political resentment fed by an intense right-wing media effort that led to the poor performance by the party’s presidential candidate Fernando Haddad in 2018. At the height of antipetismo, candidates from traditional parties in favor of electing unknown faces not yet involved in public corruption scandals.

The second round of elections confirmed the loss of PT’s strength, with the winning in the biggest cities and a growth in other left-wing parties, such as Socialism and Liberty Party and the traditional Democratic Labour Party. Center and center-right parties that were since Brazil’s return to democracy, like the Brazilian Democratic Movement and Brazilian Socialist Democratic Party (PSDB), took the place of far-right ones such as the far-right Social Liberal Party (to which the president was affiliated when elected) and Patriotas. On the other hand, PT lost 11 of the 15 in the second round.

Special attention was given for the second round in the two largest cities of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. In Rio, Marcelo Crivella suffered a “” against the Democrats’ party candidate Eduardo Paes, although the evangelical pastor, an ally of Bolsonaro, launched a barrage of fake news against Paes, connecting the centrist politician with “.” Crivella’s defeat was a severe blow to Bolsonaro, whose political career began in Rio.

In Sao Paulo, “” won again, with incumbent mayor Bruno Covas securing his position. His victory was not that surprising. Traditionally conservative, the richest city in Brazil has kept the PSDB in power for decades, with the exception of two left-wing mayors in 30 years, both from the Worker’s Party at a time when Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was president with an 85% approval rate. Surprising was the presence of the former leader of the Homeless Workers’ Movement, , in the second round, showing that the grip of conservatism is not working, at least in Sao Paulo’s suburbs.

Bolsonaro is in with Sao Paulo’s state governor, Joao Doria of the PSDB, a former ally-turned-political-enemy, especially in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Doria is one of the presumptive against Bolsonaro in 2022, and his management of the wealthiest state in the country during the pandemic can give him a chance at victory.

Catastrophic Loss

There are many reasons for the catastrophic suffered by Bolsonaro and his supporters in the 2020 elections. µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s anti-political , anti-democratic and illogical obsession with a mythical left bound to destroy the country’s youth did not sit well with voters. The wave was a reflection of antipetismo, not of connivance with extremist ideology or lack of decorum. With a more progressive population becoming politically active this year, attitudes changed, and people were able to display their discontent with the current administration by wearing on their shirts to go to the polls, something that would been impossible in 2018.

µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s loss of support also involves the spiral of corruption he and his family descended into in recent months, including the involvement of his eldest son, Flavio Bolsonaro, in an using his employees’ government salaries. The president’s response to the coverage of these scandals was a threat to and indirectly agencies.

seems to be the trend in the administration, bringing with it serial economic, social and environmental crises. The state of Amapa, on the border with French Guyana, has had a for almost a month. Elections were postponed to December 6, and the capital city, Macapa, will decide the second round between center-right or center-left candidates on December 20.

µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s catastrophic incompetence to address the COVID-19 pandemic may well have been the most crucial factor in his defeat. The president dismissed scientists’ warnings and the country to a disaster of unparalleled proportions. State governors rebelled and took their own emergency measures, and the with them. The federal government continues to ignore the pandemic and did not secure a national vaccine, with Bolsonaro announcing that he . Governor Doria is in a race to bring to the state of Sao Paulo in January and, if successful, will increase his chances in the presidential bid.

Political defeat seems to follow those governments that are mismanaging the pandemic and may have been a factor in the November US election. µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s political power was voluntarily tied to Donald Trump, whose defeat was predicted to Brazilian politics. After Joe Biden’s victory, Bolsonaro displayed his loyalty to Trump by not recognizing the election results, at least for a .

European far-right parties openly but are losing power in , and , perhaps indicating a global return to traditional political attitudes and a rejection of the chaotic, violent and bigoted ways of proto-authoritarian governments. The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the importance of and, even if a new progressive era does not dawn in the wake of the largest public health crisis in a century, the conservative is not up for consideration either.

Personal views also influence of the pandemic and how they respond to it. For example, there is a clear political divide in , as elsewhere, when it comes to protective measures such as mask-wearing, with conservatives less likely to follow public health guidelines. 

There is a long road before the 2022 presidential elections in Brazil, but the trend is not favorable to µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s destructive politics. With all the political agitation in Brazil and around the globe, and with the end of the pandemic still out of sight, there is hope that Eliane Cantanhede’s of “Bolsonarismo” is right in stating that this era of political incompetence is just a “hiatus” in Brazil’s young democracy and that the country will move forward toward a less chaotic political future. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Brazil Rejects µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s Anti-Politics appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

As defined by the , femicide is the “intentional murder of women because they are women.” According to the UN, die at the hands of intimate partners and family members, mainly through domestic abuse or “honor killings.” Unfortunately, as with many forms of domestic violence, COVID-19 — and the subsequent isolation and economic pressures — has increased rates of femicide across the globe. Many countries including , and the have seen increases in femicide rates.

How to Fight Domestic Violence During a Global Pandemic

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Even before the pandemic, there was an upward global trend in terms of femicide rates over the last several years. Approximately 87,000 women died by femicide in 2017, and the UN has recorded an average in reporting of domestic violence in 2020 due to the pandemic. In total, the of violence against women and girls is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion, or 2% of the global GDP on a yearly basis. Femicide has damaging effects on all levels of society, but, first and foremost, action needs to be taken against femicide to prevent further victimization of women and girls.

Mitigating Femicide

In order to effectively mitigate femicide, three main policies have been endorsed by international organizations. These include laws and legal frameworks that specifically forbid femicide and allocate resources toward domestic violence prevention; education and community outreach that is inclusive of women but also engages men and boys; and support, including law enforcement and other social service agencies, that women can safely report violence to in order to prevent further aggression.

However, the problem remains that while many countries do have legislation on the books and are signatories of agreements that call for an end to violence against women, these laws are simply not enforced. Thus, the reality is that women are vulnerable to violence with few protections, and those they have are at risk of being eroded. Because of the public outrage over Pinar Gültekin’s death, Turkey is one of the most notable examples of femicide in 2020.

Turkey was the first country to ratify the in 2012. The convention is intended to promote gender equality and reduction of violence against women through a series of prevention, protection and persecution strategies aimed at both victims and perpetrators. However, despite the fact that many elements of the convention now exist in national legislation, Ankara announced that it would from the convention, citing “harm to the family institution and promotion of homosexuality.”

Many feminist advocates see the problem as emerging long before this potential withdrawal because, contrary to the laws in place, the government admitted to not keeping records of women killed by femicide. The feminist platform began record-keeping after this announcement, and reported that 474 women were killed in Turkey in 2019, the highest in a decade during which murder rates of women have increased year on year.

In light of this disparity between law and practice, community action is one of the most visible methods to force public recognition of women’s issues that can lead to further policy implementation. A pivotal moment in second wave feminism was Iceland’s 1975 “,” where women forwent work and household labor to join in mass protests against unequal pay. This widespread movement ultimately led to the restructuring of many gendered laws in Iceland and offered other women’s rights activists an effective example on which to draw.

More recently, many activists have organized mass protests against femicide. Many of these occur on International Women’s Day, March 8. One particularly active region of anti-violence protest is Latin America, which is home to some of the highest femicide rates in the world. In response to President Sebastian Pinera’s nonchalant reaction to over reporting sexual abuse per year in Chile, feminist activists staged protests that led to global popularization of the , “A Rapist in Your Path.”

Similarly, women across Mexico participated in a 24-hour strike to protest the increasingly graphic murders of women around the country. While Mexican authorities reported in 2019, feminist advocacy groups say that the number of women killed is underrepresented.

Social Activism Alongside Policy

Social movements are critical for garnering attention and support but can be easily co-opted without meaningful change. The hashtag was originally used by Turkish women as a way to honor Pinar Gültekin and prevent future femicides, but after its adaptation by Western celebrities, the original intention dissolved into one of female friendships and “sisterhood.” Similar to the media campaign, when the #BlackLivesMatter feed was overrun with black squares that quashed the voices of those it was intended to uplift, the degeneration of #ChallengedAccepted undermined its ability to promote meaningful change and address femicide.

Therefore, social activism needs to occur alongside policy reform. When the voices of the people are included in legislation, the framework to implement anti-violence campaigns becomes more tangible and effective. In addressing femicide at government level, the short, mid and long-term expectations must be defined.

In the short term, countries must ensure that women and children have adequate support to report and escape abuse, especially in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. The effects of the pandemic will only continue to increase that include unemployment, problematic alcohol use, mental health problems and reductions in government social spending in areas such as health and education. Having more responders available and ensuring more temporary safe spaces are accessible is key to reducing violence and femicide in the immediate future.

Within the next six months, countries should have drafted updated long-term anti-violence plans that incorporate the effects of COVID-19 into existing legislation and propose methods to fully implement it. If the country has gaps in existing protections, it would be beneficial to work in tandem with local women’s organizations as well as with the chapters of international organizations that can report back on the state of women’s affairs and offer improvements to legal protections. In the case of Turkey, it is vital that existing protections and legislation for women are not removed. The removal of protective legislation can create immediate backlash and unrest among women and perpetrators.

In the long-term, women should have access to regular, streamlined services to turn to in cases of abuse, with particular support provided to vulnerable groups including transgender women and women in low-income brackets. Governments should maintain standardized records on violence against women. Additionally, there should be educational campaigns to inform women about access to resources, as well as initiatives to encourage gender equality, particularly those aimed at boys and men.

For perpetrators with low-level offenses, rehabilitation programs should be put in place to prevent repeat or more serious offenses. Most critically, perpetrators of femicide should be prosecuted in ways that stop the spread of violence. Removing repeat and high-level sexual violence perpetrators from the public sphere will diminish incentives for others to commit honor killings and sexual assault.  

The rise of femicide is a public health hazard like any other and affects not only victims’ families but their communities, countries and the wellbeing of women across the world. At a time when preventative measures to combat femicide are obscured and governments remain passive in the face of mounting crimes against women, it is necessary for the public to speak out in unison against gendered violence and hold governments accountable for their actions.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Around the World, Femicide Is on the Rise appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Will Colombia See a #MeToo Revolution?

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The most critical step the government can take during this unstable time is to address inequality in access to the formal economy, education and land ownership that has been the underlying cause of conflict in Colombia for decades.

Most Unequal

While poverty fell from 49.7% in 2002 to 27% in 2018, Colombia remains one of the world’s 15 . Those with fewer economic opportunities, particularly in rural areas, are more likely to enlist in rebel outfits since these armed groups offer clothes, food, money and accommodation. For example, in Colombia make up 10% of rebel fighters despite having no real connection to the conflict. Economic opportunity has shown to be one of the best deterrents of violence: As the economy continues to grow, violence has gone down. In 2018, the number of homicides reported in Colombia was at its since the start of the civil war in 1964.

A lack of opportunities in the formal economy has limited growth while . Only 35% of those employed contribute to the pension system, and only 30% of the population above the age of 15 have a debit card, much lower than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 80%. Because of large regional discrepancies in development, the government should consider differentiating the minimum wage by region and age. This can create more job opportunities depending on the needs of Colombia’s different regions, which are as diverse geographically as they are economically. Reducing non-wage labor costs can stimulate job creation by reducing the economic burden on employers. Simplifying the procedures for registering a business can further help new companies establish themselves and aid job creation.

Addressing educational inequities will also improve formal employment. Some  with postgraduate education are employed formally, where only 9% of those without any education are employed. Colombia spends less than the OECD  per capita on education, and having a more equitable education system is paramount. According to Andrea Arevelo, a biotechnologist in Colombia, “Despite the fact that there is more space in private universities versus public ones, most people can only apply to public schools because they can’t cover the high cost of tuition in private universities.”

Increasing funding for lower-income regions should be a priority to help reduce educational inequality. The government should also add more incentive-based programs like  that provide financial rewards to parents who keep their kids in school.

Closing the Gender Gap

However, overall educational advancements in Colombia have not completely benefited women. While women have higher tertiary educational attainment levels than men, they have lower levels of formal employment participation, higher levels of unemployment, lower wages and less access to quality jobs. Better training for women in the formal economy is a start:  is at 12% compared to 7% for men. Increasing women’s political participation can further close the gender gap in Colombia.

While other South American nations like Brazil and Argentina have recently had female leaders, Colombia has yet to elect a female president. In 2000, the government implemented a law requiring a 30% female quota on electoral lists. However, this has yet to make a significant impact at the highest level, with just two female governors elected in 2019. Improving economic opportunities for women can help level the playing field by bettering access to campaign financing.

Lastly, implementing the land reforms discussed during the  between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas is necessary to reduce inequality. “A lot of the inequality today in Colombia is a result of unequal land ownership. Currently, there is a massive concentration of land, especially in rural areas. That makes it difficult for people to develop their own small business or agricultural business,” says Fabio Acero, a management consultant based in Bogota.

Progress has been made, but as of 2019, only a quarter of the 7 million hectares of land the government planned to formalize in accordance with the peace agreement have been  Unequal land distribution among a small elite was a key driver of the Colombian Civil War in the 1960s and remains a major contributing factor to inequality today.

It is often a misconception that violence is the cause of poverty. It is true violence perpetuates poverty — conflict reduced economic growth in Colombia by a third in 2018. But economic inequality in Colombia, as in many countries, is the cause, not the result, of conflict. For example, the first two chapters of the 2016 peace agreement discussed land redistribution and equal political participation instead of focusing on diplomacy. Social and political reforms are the key to reducing economic inequality and achieving a more peaceful future — a key that the country’s leaders have in their toolbox. 

*[51łÔąĎ is a  partner of .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Inequality Is a Barrier to Peace in Colombia appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Jair µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s Image Crisis

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The accusations against Flavio Bolsonaro pertain to the period between 2007 and 2018, when he served four terms as state deputy. The chronology of the facts and the characters involved expose the shadowy political trajectory of his father’s path to the presidency of Brazil.

Splitting the Salary

Jair Bolsonaro has five children. His three eldest sons — 01, 02 and 03, as he refers to them — followed their father into politics. Flavio was born in 1981; Carlos, in 1982, and Eduardo in 1984. At the time, Bolsonaro Sr. was a paratrooper in the army, where he met Fabricio Queiroz, who became a military police officer in 1987, serving in the rank of lieutenant until 2018. Jair µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s military career ended after he to plant bombs in army barracks in retaliation for low wages. He was tried, acquitted and sent to the reserves in 1987, entering public life the following year.

Upon winning his first term as state deputy in Rio de Janeiro, in 2003, Flavio Bolsonaro hired Mariana Mota, a friend of his mother (to whom Jair Bolsonaro was no longer married) as an adviser. The public prosecutor designated her as the first operator of the so-called rachadinha (salary split), a scheme where employees are “hired” only to return most of their income to the employer. These “salary splits” constitute the main charges against the president’s eldest son.

In 2007, Flavio Bolsonaro began his second term and hired his father’s army friend, Fabricio Queiroz — as well as Queiroz’s wife and daughter. He also hired the wife and mother of the leader of one of Brazil’s largest militias, Office of Crime, , who ran an extortion racket in ​​Rio. Flavio Bolsonaro had already awarded Nobrega the Tiradentes medal, the highest honor of the legislative assembly of Rio de Janeiro, in 2005, when the former policeman captain was serving jail time for murder. In 2007, Nobrega was released after Jair Bolsonaro, then a federal deputy with the right-wing Progressive Party, appealed to the chamber of deputies in his favor.

Nobrega was in a police ambush earlier this year, when he was on the run after being accused of the murder of Councilwoman Marielle Franco. The case caused widespread national commotion. Nobrega and Fabricio Queiroz were friends. 

Debt and Real Estate

The list of suspected criminal activity in connection with Flavio Bolsonaro is lengthy. Mainly, it entails cash payments for real estate and debts, in a country where cash is notoriously linked to illegal activities such as drug trafficking and extortion. In 2008, Flavio Bolsonaro 86,779.43 reais (around $40,000 at the time) in cash for the purchase of 12 commercial offices in a high-end shopping mall in Rio, which he resold less than a month later at a healthy profit. The following year, he 31,000 reais in cash to pay off his losses on the stock exchange.

In 2012, 638,000 reais in cash went toward the of two properties in Copacabana, on which Bolosnaro Jr. declared a profit of nearly 300% when they were sold in 2014. In 2016, he acquired a franchise branch of luxury chocolate stores. An investigation by the public prosecutor’s office concluded that the establishment was used for money laundering since it sold products below the list price while filling invoices with integral values.

Fabricio Queiroz, meanwhile, was investigated until 2018, when the public prosecutor’s office pointed out suspicious movements on his accounts in the order of 5.3 million reais between 2014 and 2015, and a further 1.2 million in 2016 and 2017. A businessman in charge of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, Paulo Marinho, said that the Bolsonaros were of the federal police operation to detain Queiroz on the eve of the election. Queiroz fled, remaining at large until June this year, when he was found and arrested at the country home of Flavio µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s lawyer, Frederick Wassef. 

Another explosive testimony by Flavio’s former adviser, Luiza Souza Paes, revealed that between 2011 and 2017, she passed on more than 90% of her salary back to Queiroz, providing bank statements as evidence. Between December 2014 and November 2017, she was at her designated workplace at Rio de Janeiro’s assembly just three times.

The investigation into Flavio Bolsonaro has continued in parallel over the past two years, tracking the suspicious hiring of advisers by the family. In 2018, Flavio was elected senator, Carlos councilman, Eduardo deputy, and Jair Bolsonaro president. An investigation by O Globo last year that since 1991, the Bolsonaros — nicknamed “familicia” in Brazil — had hired 102 people with family ties to work in their four respective offices. In total, 15 of Flavio µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s aides were denounced. If the court accepts the motion against the president’s eldest son, he will become a defendant in a criminal case. Fabricio Queiroz has served a month in jail and currently remains under house arrest.

Downward Spiral

With these revelations, the downward spiral of Jair µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s government seems to be increasing. Bolsonaro was elected on the promise of ending corruption in the country, distancing himself from “old politics” that distributed high posts to politicians with a questionable past in exchange for support, as well as ending benefits and privileges for those in public office.

In the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, after trying to interfere in the federal police investigation into his children, his main asset in the fight against corruption, Judge Sergio Moro, who was responsible for the arrest of former President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, resigned his post as minister of justice, accusing the president of political interference for personal reasons.

Bolsonaro sought help from party politicians he said he disliked, who are known for shifting positions and accepting money for support, and recently faced public embarrassment when his deputy in the senate, Chico Rodrigues, was caught by the federal police with 33,000 reais in his , some of which was stashed between his buttocks. In addition to the detention of Fabricio Queiroz, Flavio Bolsonaro faces possible arrest; the public prosecutor has demanded that the senator at the end of the investigation if he is convicted.

All of these events betray Jair Bolsonaro as a politician trying to balance himself in a tightrope of popularity. He was elected on the right-wing wave that has swept many parts of the globe in recent years, spurred on, to a degree, by the election of Donald Trump in the United States. The Bolsonaro family even hired Trump’s controversial campaign strategist, Steve Bannon. Adopting seen in the 2016 US election, µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s campaign employed bots to influence social media narratives at an opportune time when Brazil’s leftist government opened the black box of corruption, which started by exploding the then-ruling Workers’ Party from within. Bolsonaro assumed the position of his middle name, Messias â€” the savior — who would rid the country of corruption, with guns if necessary; his campaign gimmick was to make a weapon gesture with both hands.

Tightrope of Popularity

Bolsonaro took office with a 50% approval rating. When the first signs of family corruption began to appear, the index dropped to around 40%. Much of this was sustained on creating smoke screens, making fiery speeches against imaginary opponents and trying to divert attention. At the end of 2019, when the rachadinha case made headlines, ratings dropped further, to around 30%. As Bolsonaro fumbled with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, following Trump in denial of the seriousness of the threat and disdain for preventative measures against the virus, Sergio ˛Ń´Ç°ů´Ç’s resignation brought the president’s popularity down to the 20% range.

During this nadir of his government, the national congress demanded emergency aid for the population unable to work and who could not survive without financial assistance. Approximately $100 in monthly allowance was approved and, as a consequence, Bolsonaro realized that he could since most of those who received it believed they have the president to thank for it.

Bolsonaro then began to fight for the maintenance of emergency aid, which diverted attention from the problems of corruption in the family. But Brazil is not a rich country, and financial assistance is being reduced gradually; it is now at $50.

Without the purchase of popularity, with nothing to conceal the tenebrious connections that marked his entire political trajectory and that of his children, and without his idol in power — Bolsonaro even “I love you” to Trump during the UN General Assembly last year â€” the clouds appear to be gathering above the heads of the Bolsonaro familicia.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Bolsonaro Family’s Downward Spiral of Corruption appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Mortality rates in Santiago’s public hospitals are  that of the nation’s private hospitals. However, those with fewer resources in Chile have been marginalized from the elites in the nation’s capital long before the virus. A highly privatized economy has allowed many to fall through the cracks, bringing millions of Chileans to the streets in protest in 2019. To close this gap, economic, social and educational reforms are required.

What Is Driving the Protests in Latin America?

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The Chilean government is aware of the discontent among its citizens. In 2006, 800,000 students took to the streets, with subsequent protests in 2008 and 2011 in response to the rising costs of higher education. Then, in October last year, a 4% subway fare increase sparked nationwide protests that brought over a million Chileans to the streets of Santiago, the largest protest in the country’s history. The 2019 protests have in at least 30 deaths and 11,000 injured. Human rights organizations have reported incidents of torture, sexual abuse and assault by Chilean security forces.

Most Unequal

The government of President Sebastian Pinera has responded with various reforms, such as a middle-class stimulus package, early access to pensions as well as a promise of a vote on a . Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980, during the 17-year military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, furthering the need for a new democratic framework. The Chilean government must make good on its promises if it is to shake its place as the most  among the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

The virus has disproportionately affected Chile’s poorest citizens, who often live in densely populated areas and do not have the luxury of working from home. Speaking to The Guardian, a university professor , “What are people in poor rural communities supposed to do with online yoga and cooking classes?” Chile must reach into its savings and provide immediate relief for those who are struggling. A stimulus package that benefits low-income populations should be implemented immediately.

In the long term, Chile must reverse its stance on fiscal prudence. Savings can help mitigate recession, but Chile’s conservative fiscal management is its Achilles’ heel. Chile offers very few social services, ranking second only to Mexico in  among OECD countries. Even water is a private commodity. However, Chile has taken actions that indicate less austere policies may be coming. The lower house of parliament voted to allow Chileans to dip into their  to provide immediate COVID-19 relief. President Pinera announced a 1$.5-billion middle-class as well. This is a positive step, but more funds must be directed to the country’s poorest citizens.

“One Bread per Person”

Looking to the long term, educational reform must be prioritized. Public schools in Chile are underfunded, while private education is often unaffordable. Average annual in Chile is $7,600 — approximately half of the median income and among the highest in the world; only American private universities and British universities have higher tuition rates adjusted for income.

There have been efforts to reduce public university costs, such as when the  system was introduced in 2016. While the program mitigated university costs for low-income students, it has reduced funding for public universities. For public universities to be competitive with their private counterparts, funding is critical. Not only is an improved education system perhaps the most important factor in reducing inequality, but it is something that Chileans have been asking of their government for over 15 years.

Feeling pressure from its citizens, Chile has pushed forward an agreement to vote on a new constitution in October. Polling showed last year that  of Chileans supported the protesters, with 87% backing the demand for constitutional reform. Camila Meza, a 28-year-old publicist living in Santiago, agrees with the need for a new constitution: “The need for a new constitution is paramount. One that allows for a more efficient response to issues of citizen interest, such as education and guaranteed health care.”

A government directly addressing public needs amidst protest is not a given. But there should be optimism for a better, more stable Chile. It is important for the country to push forward with the drafting of a new constitution. Otherwise, the capacity for further violence and unrest will remain. The late Chilean poet Nicanor Parra : “There are two pieces of bread. You eat two. I eat none. Average consumption: one bread per person.” 

*[51łÔąĎ is a  partner of the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will Chile Listen to Its People? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

For starters, it is the first time that a former president has been deprived of personal liberty in Colombia, a country where more than one recent head of state has questionable records, such as . Secondly, since March, Colombia has been in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which means that individuals are for the most part already confined within their residences. Moreover, as former president and senator, Uribe doesn’t go anywhere in Colombia without a substantial security apparatus.

Defeating Systemic Corruption: Colombia’s Next Major Challenge

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Thirdly, the former president is well known both nationally and internationally, which translates to extremely low flight risk and one that could have been addressed by merely confiscating his passport. Adding to the controversy of the supreme court’s order is the fact that, as recently as last year, individuals who pose actual security and flight risks, such as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leaders Ivan Marquez and Jesus Santrich, were not preemptively detained despite probable cause and ended up fleeing Colombia to set up a .

Lastly, Uribe should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, like any other citizen, as in Article 29 of Colombia’s Constitution. However, it seems that given his high profile and political history, the supreme court is treating the former president differently. This is problematic for the rule of law in Colombia.

Irregularities in the Process

Under Uribe’s presidency, Colombia’s security was largely restored, narco-terrorism was fought head-on by the national government, numerous FARC leaders were , over a thousand drug traffickers were extradited to the United States, and large paramilitary groups demobilized under the auspices of the . Uribe’s work and legacy, much of which was implemented in close coordination with the United States at the time, is also recognized internationally. One of the global voices against Colombia’s former president’s house arrest is US Vice President Mike Pence, who, on August 14, , asking that Uribe be allowed to “defend himself as a free man.”

Given his former status as senator, Uribe’s case, which happens to be against , had Colombia’s supreme court as its original jurisdiction, in accordance with Article 235 of the constitution. Specifically, this case began in 2012 when Uribe filed a legal complaint against Cepeda accusing him of paying bribes to imprisoned criminals in exchange for testimony that would incriminate the former president and his brother for paramilitary activities during Uribe’s time as mayor of Medellin and governor of Antioquia. In 2018, an election year in Colombia, the supreme court flipped the accusation and with allegedly paying witnesses to testify in his favor and against Cepeda.

Since its inception, the process against Uribe has been overly politicized and marred by irregularities, including the admission of illegally obtained wiretap recordings as evidence in the case. Over 20,000 were made to Uribe’s cellphone, under a judicial order that was supposed to tap Congressmember Nilton Cordoba, not the former president. Making matters worse, as soon as the analyst from Colombia’s attorney general’s office in charge of the wiretap realized that the cellphone belonged to Uribe and not Cordoba, he notified his superiors. However, the illegal interceptions for nearly a month and were eventually submitted to the supreme court as evidence.

There is a history of animosity between the former president and members of Colombia’s supreme court of justice due to alleged of the court’s premises as well as judges’ phones by the security services during Uribe’s presidency. Compounded by the evident lack of procedural guarantees for a fair trial, shortly after he was placed under house arrest and triggered a jurisdictional change. His case has now been on to Colombia’s attorney general and a lower court, in which Uribe expects a less politicized and more fair trial.

The Need for Judicial Reform

Although Uribe’s house arrest remains in force until a new judge takes over the case and decides whether to revoke or maintain the preliminary detention, public outcry has been heard throughout the country. The most salient example of an institutional double standard is the recent case of FARC commanders like who were never placed under house arrest pending trial as part of the 2016 peace process and then escaped to . Observing this precedent, the judicial measure against Uribe is disproportionate, particularly since the former president has attended all of his court hearings as scheduled and been responsive to judicial inquiries.

Finally, the controversy around the judiciary’s handling of Uribe’s case has rekindled the calls for in Colombia. Reforming the country’s complex judicial branch seems for many to be the only way to rescue the institutional mechanisms, which are currently failing within the Colombian justice system. In this time of uncertainty, the alternative of carrying out judicial reform would give a new direction to the presidency of Ivan Duque and would provide a unique opportunity for Colombia to emerge institutionally strengthened.

One of the main issues with Colombia’s judicial system is that the country has not one but three top courts: the supreme court of justice, the council of state and the constitutional court. Another problem lies with the fact that the members of both the supreme court and the council of state select their membership themselves, without much executive or legislative oversight, albeit in with Article 231 of the constitution. Having such a closed and endogamous nature has led to judicial malpractice and corruption in Colombia’s judiciary, such as the infamous “” scandal that saw supreme court judges abuse their independence to derail cases and stifle investigations by the attorney general in exchange for hefty bribes.

While Alvaro Uribe’s case is likely to drag on for months, there is a higher likelihood that the process will have a lower profile and a more balanced outcome now that it has left the supreme court’s docket. Nevertheless, the judicial branch will now be increasingly seen as a politicized institution, and there are important voices in the country calling for both a consolidated supreme judiciary and a more transparent selection process for its members. Already in a bind due to the pandemic and its socioeconomic fallout, Colombia’s government must now address growing calls for constitutional reform in an increasingly polarized political climate.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Can Colombia’s Former President Get a Fair Trial? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Is Brazil’s Soft Power Under Threat?

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It’s almost impossible not to be seduced by the rhythm, the beautiful men and women dancing on a paradisiacal Caribbean beach in the video clip. Seduction is a key element to soft power that works through attraction instead of coercion, which is the prerogative of hard power projected via politics and economics. Soft power shapes the preference of other people and societies through culture, diplomacy, science and religion. It is usually the best propaganda for any country precisely because it doesn’t look propaganda, with credibility being an important element of the message it carries.

Favorite Genre

Hollywood, one of the most successful vehicles of soft power globally, needed more than just one film to achieve its levels of influence in the 20^th century. So, is Latin music a new soft power, or is “Despacito” a rare phenomenon? Latin music has been internationally renowned for decades, with bossa nova and tango capturing audiences the world over. But the number of Latin artists wining important international awards and topping charts like appears to be a more recent phenomenon.

According to Rolling Stone magazine’s of the 50 Greatest Latin Pop Songs from 1950 to now, 24 of the 50 are from the past 25 years, including songs like Ricky Martin’s 1995 hit “María,” “A Dios le Pido” by Juanes from 2002, Julieta Venegas’“Algo Esta Cambiando” from 2003 and Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” released in 2006, among others. This trend may just be a new outlet of soft power for the continent.

Artists from all over the world are being seduced by Latin music, inspiring increasingly more international collaborations. In 2019, the Swedish singer went to SĂŁo Paulo to produce “Are U Gonna Tell Her?” with Brazilian funk singer MC Zaac, a racy and rather Latin-looking clip, sung in English and Portuguese. The American magazine Variety that Brazilian singer Anitta “offers a much more interesting counterpoint to Madonna than Britney Spears,” referring to their collaboration on “Faz Gostoso” on Madonna’s 14^th album “Madame X.”

We can thank funk music for this trend. Although funk has its origins in black communities in 1950s America, with artists like Horace Silver and, later, James Brown, Brazil’s was born in the 1970s in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, but still mostly focused on remixes. Later in that decade, it became the rhythm we know today, with faster beats, more erotic and original lyrics about guns, drug trafficking and other favela problems.

However, it is only in the past 20 years that Brazilian funk got a new look, with songs identified more heavily with Brazil’s black community and the nouveau riche that became known as , or ostentation funk. That is when funk became another Latin hit on the internet, with artists like Anitta, Ludmilla and videos by getting millions of views on YouTube and SoundCloud. The rhythm was once known for its violent, sexist and pornographic lyrics. But that also changed in the past few years, with new variations like offering a dance beat and romantic lyrics, and building on influences ranging from MPB (), pop and bregga, or .

As a result, funk became the Brazilian music genre in foreign countries. “Bum Bum Tam Tam,” by MC Fioti, released in 2017, is the first Brazilian song to reach 1 billion views on YouTube, with views abroad overtaking the domestic audience. According to a from DeltaFolha, of the 200 most-listened-to songs on Spotify in 51 countries, funk is the favorite Brazilian genre internationally.

Seduced by Latin Music

Reggaeton is another Latin rhythm that is part of this soft power. in the Caribbean countries like Puerto Rico, Panama and the Dominican Republic in the 1980s, it has grown into a bigger phenomenon in the 2000s. Daddy Yankee and Snow’s “Con Calma” had over last year and has been awarded the 2019 Premio Lo Nuestro — an annual award presented by Univision TV channel in the US since 1989 to distinguish the new talent of Latin music. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s list of the includes famous reggaeton hits like Bad Bunny’s “Yo Perreo Solo.”

It’s not the first time that Latin music becomes a soft power. In the 1950s, Brazilian bossa nova, which translates as “new wave,” seduced hearts and minds all over the world, with a genre that mixes samba, jazz and African beats. Singers like João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim made a historical debut at the , introducing bossa nova to American audiences. Two days before the show, the White House , and Jackie Kennedy, a big fan of the rhythm, insisted on Brazilian music as the main theme. American jazz artists like Quincy Jones, Herbie Mann, Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd soon started to record bossa nova. Bebel Gilberto, the daughter of João Gilberto, made her career in the US with bossa nova.

At the same time that bossa nova swept the world, tango was also conquering the global radio waves. This rhythm of Argentina is responsible for a , involving festivals and numerous tango houses that have been drawing tourists from all over the world for over 70 years. The genre of Astor Piazzolla, Julio Sosa and Carlos Gardel captivated Hollywood, becoming central to films like “Scent of a Woman,” which grossed and won an Academy Award for Al Pacino.

Bossa nova and tango conquered the world long before the birth and popularity of music festivals and multimillion tours. Although the music industry almost collapsed in the 2000s as the internet made music freely available, streaming saw its first significant . And it’s in this new era of YouTube and Spotify hits that Latin artists are shaping the tastes of their audiences — a soft power that gives the continent a distinct voice in the world.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Throughout the last century, Paraguay has struggled with a military dictatorship and ultra right-wing political movements. Between 1954 and 1989, the country was ruled by the military , who was a Nazi sympathizer of German descent. Stroessner’s 35-year reign came to an end with a coup led by General Andres Rodriguez, who subsequently acted as president from 1989 to 1993. Stroessner was exiled in Brazil, where he lived until his death in 2006, never acknowledging the numerous crimes committed during his regime.

Both Stroessner and Rodriguez were officially affiliated with the Colorado Party, which formally ruled Paraguay between 1948 and 2008. In 2008, the Colorado’s right-wing hegemony was pierced by the election of a former Catholic bishop-turned-leftist politician, Fernando Lugo. However, President Lugo’s term in office was marked by a great deal of resistance from the country’s establishment and ended abruptly in June of 2012 with a legislative impeachment process that some in the country and the region denounced as a parliamentary coup.

Paraguay’s Haunted History

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Lugo’s mandate was completed by Vice President Federico Franco as interim president. Since then, the Colorado Party has in Paraguay. Nonetheless, Fernando Lugo has served as senator in Paraguay since 2013 and is still a popular figure amongst the country’s progressive bases.

More recently, in 2017, President Horacio Cartes tried to the post-Stroessner constitution to allow his own reelection, but this move sparked a wave of protests that forced the proposal’s withdrawal. Constitutionally barred from seeking reelection, President Cartes passed the party’s leadership and nomination to Mario Abdo Benitez, himself a descendant of the traditional Colorado lineage from the days of the dictatorship.

Domestic and Regional Agenda

Both Cartes and Abdo Benitez have focused on making Paraguay a fiscally attractive and economically stable destination for foreign investment. Efforts to achieve this have been so successful, that earlier this year Paraguay placed $1 billion in a dollar-denominated 10-year (weighted average life) issuance to support the country’s recovery from COVID-19. Paraguay’s strong fiscal and macroeconomic fundamentals led to an oversubscribed offering and a favorable net interest cost for the landlocked South American nation.

Nevertheless, low tax rates and lax fiscal controls have also created headaches for Paraguay’s national treasury, compliance and other financial institutions as they seek to curb money laundering and the financing of illegal actors. In addition to smuggling and contraband, Abdo Benitez’s government has faced the mounting challenge of addressing the presence of such as Hezbollah and the (EPP), a leftist guerilla founded in 2008 with an estimated force of 100-200 members.

On the diplomatic front, President Abdo Benitez has been an active leader within Latin America’s Lima Group and was one of the first heads of state in the region to Juan Guaido’s proclamation as interim president in Venezuela, breaking ties with the Maduro regime. In 2019, President Abdo Benitez also announced , an increasingly moribund multilateral institution that was created by the continent’s leftist “pink tide” leaders between 2008 and 2011 as South America’s alternative to the Organization of American States, which they perceive as too influenced by Washington.

Meanwhile, Paraguay has maintained stable relations with its neighbors, particularly as they seek greater regional integration and policy coordination. Nonetheless, porous borders, particularly at the tri-border region with Argentina and Brazil, remain a challenge in terms of tax evasion, drug and human trafficking, and money laundering.

Global Projection

Paraguay is currently one of the few remaining countries in Latin America — and the last one in South America — to as the legitimate representative of the Republic of China. To this end, Asuncion hosts one of Taipei’s last embassies in Latin America after Panama and the Dominican Republic switched their diplomatic recognition to Beijing in recent years, driven largely by the promise of trade and investment benefits.

Nevertheless, President Abdo Benitez is also exploring the possibility of following the path that US President Nixon opened up for Latin America back in 1972 by recognizing Beijing at Taipei’s expense. Intentions by the region’s Mercosur trade bloc, which includes Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, to sign a trade agreement with Beijing are also on Asuncion to switch its diplomatic recognition.

A relatively small capital city for the Southern Cone region, Asuncion doesn’t host many diplomatic missions from countries outside of the Western Hemisphere because many European and Asian governments fold representation to Paraguay into their embassies in larger capitals such as Buenos Aires or Brasilia. However, in December 2018, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the first time, following the opening of a new Turkish Embassy there, and announced plans by both countries to increase trade and commercial exchanges.

Part of a diplomatic waltz, Turkey’s government inaugurated its new embassy following Abdo Benitez’s of his predecessor’s decision to relocate the Paraguayan Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on the heels of the Trump administration’s controversial move.

COVID-19 and the Itaipu Dam

Like most countries around the world, Paraguay has taken measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. For example, Abdo Benitez’s government has in-person classes nationwide until at least December. In recent weeks, given the low infection numbers, the national government began a staged reopening of the Paraguayan economy after months of quarantine. While seeking aid from the International Monetary Fund, in addition to the debt emission, President Abdo Benitez has allowed the reactivation of small and mid-sized businesses in specific sectors throughout Paraguay.

Although Paraguay’s Constitution only allows heads of state to serve a single term, the Colorado Party’s hold on power and President Abdo Benitez’s legacy will be tied to two key issues: the handling of the COVID-19 crisis and the renegotiation of an accord with Brazil that governs the joint Itaipu Dam. A central policy issue in Paraguay since its inception in 1973, Itaipu is Latin America’s largest hydropower generator. Located on the Parana River, this mega-dam was constructed jointly with the Brazilian government and, at the time, the Stroessner regime didn’t negotiate as favorable of a deal as it could have on the partition of the electricity generated, which represents over 90% of Paraguay’s energy consumption and about 20% of Brazil’s energy mix.

Under the current treaty, which is set to expire in 2023, Paraguay sells its excess Itaipu electricity to Brazil on terms that are very generous to Brazil while short-changing the Paraguayan people and its economy. Thus, for decades, Paraguayans have regarded the unfavorable terms of the Itaipu Treaty as a source of national shame and as one of the dictatorship’s lasting failures. Paraguay negotiated the terms of the Treaty in 1973 from a position of weakness vis-Ă -vis Brazil, and it is still unclear whether President Abdo Benitez will be able to negotiate from a stronger position than the Stroessner regime. Whatever happens across the table from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, this final year in office will shape the Paraguayan president’s legacy, giving him a unique opportunity at historical redemption of the Abdo Benitez surname in Paraguay.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Yet Freire’s legacy remains a contentious issue in contemporary Brazil. The Brazilian right tends to portray Freire as a dangerous subversive who planned to indoctrinate the youth. The right-wing administration of President Jair Bolsonaro has used this misleading caricature to justify its assault on public education.

In speeches and interviews, Bolsonaro and his allies represent Freire as a kind of leftist boogeyman whose influence needs to be purged from the Brazilian education system. On his campaign trail, Bolsonaro to his supporters that he would “enter the education ministry with a flamethrower to remove Paulo Freire.” Abraham Weintraub, µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s minister of education, Freire for Brazil’s poor education rankings and Freirean pedagogy to “voodoo without scientific proof.” Similarly, Brazilian philosopher Ovalo de Carvalho, who is known as “µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s guru,” Freire as a “pseudo-intellectual militant” who produced “a collection of tricks to reduce education to sectarian indoctrination.”

Leftist Indoctrination

Ultimately, Bolsonaro and his supporters believe that Freire was a deranged revolutionary who deserves to be of his title as Brazil’s patron of education. Yet these insults and accusations are not unique or novel. In fact, members of the Brazilian right have slandered Freire in this manner for over half a century. 

Undoubtedly, Freire played a significant role in the history of Brazilian politics. In 1963, he served in Joao Goulart’s center-left government as the president of the National Commission on Popular Culture. The committee introduced an educational campaign that planned to use Freire’s teaching methods to bring literacy to 5 million Brazilian citizens. At the time, literacy was a requirement for voting, and the Goulart government hoped that Freire’s campaign would increase electoral participation.

Brazilian oligarchs and landowners feared that the campaign would cause peasants to form associations and vote for land reform. The influential newspaper O Globo claimed that Freire’s methods were too subversive because they encouraged people to think about political and cultural change. In short, the Brazilian right sensed that Freire’s adult literacy initiatives posed a threat to traditional hierarchies.  

In 1964, the Brazilian military overthrew the Goulart government in a coup d’état and arrested Freire. According to , the military junta regarded Freire as an “international subversive” and “a traitor to Christ and the Brazilian People.” During Freire’s trial, one of the judges even accused him of plotting to transform Brazil into a communist state. Freire was imprisoned for 70 days before he received political asylum at the Bolivian Embassy in Rio de Janeiro. In exile, Freire held a visiting professorship at Harvard University, worked as a special education adviser to the World Council of Churches and co-founded the Institute for Cultural Action.

When Freire moved back to Brazil in 1980, he became one of the founding members of the Worker’s Party (PT). He supervised many of the PT’s adult literacy projects and served as municipal secretary of education in Sao Paulo between 1989 and 1991. Under the leadership of Freire’s fellow PT co-founder Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, the PT won the 2002 general election. The Brazilian right is keen to stress this connection between Freire and Lula. Bolsonaro and his supporters interpret President Lula’s modest educational reforms, such as funding for underprivileged indigenous and Afro-Brazilian university students, as a continuation of Freire’s supposed plot to transform Brazil into a communist regime.

The Right to Education

Since µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s inauguration in January 2019, his administration has proposed and implemented several policies that aim to tackle the alleged scourge of Freire-inspired “leftist indoctrination” in Brazilian schools and universities. In April 2019, Weintraub threatened to divert funding from sociology and philosophy university departments to disciplines such as engineering and medicine that would offer an “” to the taxpayer. Critics of this policy, such as , claim that Weintraub wants to defund sociology and philosophy departments because he assumes that they are hotbeds for left-wing activism and “cultural Marxism.”    

Several days later, Weintraub declared a 30% budget cut for all federal universities. Commentators point out that these funding cuts are part of a larger campaign to undermine and demoralize resistance to the Bolsonaro regime. Weintraub hopes that these cuts will discourage federal universities from hosting political organizations such as the on their campuses.   

Additionally, Weintraub endorses the witch-hunting tactic of recording “leftist” teachers in classrooms. The right-wing political movement, School Without Party, whose founder Miguel Nagib once described Freire as the “,” popularized the idea of getting students to film teachers who are suspected of promoting leftist ideology. Members of the movement hope that µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s administration will replace this purported “leftist indoctrination” with a “neutral” education that reinforces traditional moral values.

Those who are familiar with “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” will know that Freire believed that education was never neutral. For Freire, education is either a form of emancipatory action or an instrument of domination. In Freire’s terms, the Brazilian right wants schools and universities to convert students into “adapted persons” who will conform to existing hierarchies and refrain from questioning the political order. As Freire writes in the preface to “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” the “rightist sectarian … wants to domesticate men and women.”

Yet Brazilian students and teachers refuse to tolerate Bolsonaro and Weintraub’s efforts to “domesticate” them. In response to Weintraub’s proposed funding cuts, mass protests took place in over across the country, described as “education tsunamis.” Similarly, continues to criticize and oppose the government’s plans to erase the topics of slavery and LGBTQ rights from the curriculum.

Over the past year, more people have become interested in Freire’s work. According to publisher sales of “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” increased by 60% in the first half of 2019 compared to 2018. In a recent , his widow, Ana Maria Freire, quipped that Bolsonaro has inadvertently boosted Freire’s popularity, saying that Bolsonaro “is encouraging the sale of Paulo’s books!” During the protests, countless banners and placards displayed Freire’s name and face. The educational researcher opines that “the defense of Freire’s legacy has become an enduring symbol for defending the right to education.” Despite the Brazilian right’s countless attempts to distort his legacy, Freire’s life and work will continue to inspire and guide those who believe that education should be a critical endeavor that aids the task of liberation.  

*[The  is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Brazil’s first case of COVID-19 was officially reported on February 25, in the metropolis of Sao Paulo. The infected patient had recently returned from a trip to Lombardy, in northern Italy, which soon became the epicenter of the outbreak outside China. As elsewhere, the total number of cases has been growing exponentially. The current testing policy already places Brazil in the with most confirmed cases. At the time of writing, Brazil has over 100,000 confirmed cases and at least 7,000 deaths.

On strategy, Bolsonaro is going down the Swedish route, despite the fact that Stockholm is yet to prove the effectiveness of its approach. When it comes to communication, however, Bolsonaro stands in a league of his own. As Brazil’s death toll crossed the 5,000-threshold last week, Bolsonaro reporters: “So what? I’m sorry. What do you want me to do? I’m Messiah but I can’t perform miracles.” This “humorous” tone dates back from early March, when Bolsonaro, to reporters’ questions on the possibility of a lockdown, said: “I’m sorry, some people will die, they will die, that’s life. You can’t stop a car factory because of traffic deaths.”

Federal Versus Local

Not all Brazilian governors and mayors agree, however. As a federal republic, Brazil grants its states a large degree of autonomy. This autonomy is at the heart of the current political crisis, as federal government initiatives and rhetoric do not always align with measures undertaken on the local level. In Brasilia, the federal government is struggling to find its narrative, and it has been difficult for the president to convince his cabinet of an open policy approach. On April 16, the popular minister of health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, was fired after a disagreement with Bolsonaro over the implementation of the guidelines set by the World Health Organization, transforming a health crisis into a truly political one.

Mandetta had attempted to align national policies with state and city-level initiatives, but the standoff cost him his job. The decision to fire him was by 64% of Brazilians, and Mandetta leaves office with 70% approval rating. Bolsonaro then nominated the oncologist Nelson Teich to the post, who now has the challenge of the century on his desk. The minister of health is to provide a solution that will end social distancing and get the economy back on track, all while containing the pandemic. 

But Bolsonaro — who aligns with Trump on many fronts from political style to policy — has yet to define a clear and comprehensive approach to combat the pandemic. Different from the (albeit belated) US approach, Brazil even the most common restrictions, such as on internal travel, or order mandatory social distancing or the temporary closure of shops.

While the policy of keeping the country open remains the official guideline, governors and mayors launched a myriad of initiatives to tackle the pandemic, from city-wide lockdowns to building temporary hospital facilities and setting $100 fines for the elderly ignoring self-isolation mandates. The governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, announced a lockdown of Brazil’s most populous state and the country’s economic and financial hub.

Sao Paulo’s lockdown was by Bolsonaro on social media. On March 25, the president posted on Twitter a : “If companies do not produce, they won’t pay salaries. If the economy collapses, public workers won’t get paid either.” But his words largely fell on deaf ears in Rio and many other states across the country.

Among his few initiatives, Bolsonaro recently requested congress to declare a state of emergency in order to unlock some additional federal funds to tackle the crisis but changed his stand a week later when he publicly and characterized their lockdown measures as extreme and harmful to the economy. He also announced some financial help to independent workers affected by the crisis, which caused people to in front of banks to withdraw their allowance. Finally, he also started partnerships to produce masks in federal prisons and has so far repatriated 13,000 people.

From Stockholm to Brasilia 

Bolsonaro is not alone. Other leaders around the globe have been prioritizing economic stability over adopting strict lockdowns to contain the virus. In , Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s nationwide strategy relies on each citizen’s responsibility to self-isolate if you exhibit any of the coronavirus symptoms. Sweden did not implement a lockdown as most other European countries have, instead to 50 people on April 24, closing universities and secondary schools to students over 16, and restricting visits to nursing homes.

As of May 3, 2,769 people have died in Sweden due to the coronavirus. This Sweden, which has a population of 10 million, just below Canada — 3,727 deaths in a population of 37 million — or 14^th globally. Sweden has also more deaths than its neighbors both in absolute numbers and in deaths per million (274 in Sweden, against 85 in Denmark, 43 in Finland and 39 in Norway). The , however, is that once countries begin to reopen, those with stricter lockdowns will see a second wave of infections while Sweden would have already surpassed it.

The core argument here is that  are not sustainable in the long run. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, believes that, compared to its neighbors, Sweden will experience  of infections, while other countries will have a second wave that will bring the numbers up. According to Tegnell, since COVID-19 will not be eradicated anytime soon,  on finding “sustainable solutions that keep the virus’s circulation manageable for a long period to come.” Therefore, the few restrictions imposed would be enough to “to slow down the spread of the virus to such an extent that the healthcare system and society won’t collapse.” 

This theory is soon to be tested as Norway started schools on April 27. A new peak in Norway would prove Sweden’s position on the low effectiveness of lockdowns. But if Norway manages to contain the new spread, this would cast shadow to the credibility of Stockholm’s approach.    

Sweden and Brazil seem to align around : Let people voluntarily take measures to protect those around them rather than imposing a total lockdown, coupled with the belief that the health system can take care of those who need the most. Such a combination is believed to do less while at the same time limiting the health crisis.

The key difference between both governments is down to the rhetoric around COVID-19 and the actual ability of their health systems to absorb all patients in need. Tegnell defends the for “a slow spread of infection [in order to] ensure that the health services have a reasonable workload.” The public in Sweden seems to have complete trust in the health-care system to combat the epidemic. This is not the case in Brazil, where the media have shed a light on the risks the pandemic poses to those living in impoverished conditions, especially the .

Although the is universal and free, its limits are to be tested in the case of a spike in new infections. For instance, some of the smaller states already of occupancy of intensive care units, which places doubt on the approach defended by Brasilia and justifies the measures taken by the governors in spite of the federal guidelines. 

Bolsonomics 

The economic concerns raised by President Bolsonaro are valid, but by focusing solely on the financial aspects of the crisis rather than the loss of life, Brazil risks going down a road of uncertainty and potentially even bigger economic problems. Brazil has reason to worry about the impact the virus will have on its fragile economy, which has seen stagnant growth and increased , while the stock markets are crashing and the dollar exchange rate is at its : Today, one US dollar costs 5.57 reais, a from the previous year.

On the financial front, Bolsonaro tried to approve a provisional rule aiming at addressing labor concerns, which caused protests among workers. Its Article 4 would allow employers to freeze job contracts for up to four months while also suspending salaries as long as the employee was provided with some sort of training program in the meantime. This controversial article was later removed, while other key articles were retained. For instance, remote work is now more flexible when it comes to the provision of equipment (such as computers and an internet connection), which before was the employer’s responsibility and now can “be set in agreement between parties.”

Also, the employer can now decide whether to implement remote work or to simply consider the lockdown period as part of the annual paid leave, leaving little choice to employees. The government expects to prevent companies from firing workers with these flexible measures in place.

The Brazilian supreme court also requested the government to suspend the ongoing cuts to social benefits, specifically in the “Bolsa Familia” program inherited from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s presidency. These cuts, which started before the crisis, were justified as an attempt to rebalance public expenses and to reevaluate such benefits as the government believes many of the beneficiaries do not meet the criteria. Bolsonaro later to support independent workers during the crisis, from 200 reais proposed by the government to 600 reais approved by the Congress, or $120, which currently corresponds to about 60% the national minimum wage.

What seems to be lacking in this crisis is effective communication. Although the management of the pandemic has not substantially impacted a recent poll that 51% think the president’s attitude hurts the effort more than helping it. Bolsonaro has also been a strong defender, along with Trump (who has since backtracked on his earlier comments regarding its efficacy following failed trials) of the use of chloroquine against COVID-19. On April 8, Bolsonaro reminded his followers on that he has been preaching for chloroquine for the last 40 days.    

Sweden’s example may give some peace of mind to Brazilians who struggle to understand their president’s approach. The government might seem to be abandoning them, but maybe it is not, as one would not say the government in Sweden is abandoning its citizens. It seems, though, that µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s approach, while relying so much on the economic argument, does not explain the reasoning behind it. This lack of clear communication on the government’s intentions may be the reason why the no-lockdown policy is rejected by his ministers and governors, and also by the media and the population, as have shown.

High Stakes

Bolsonaro still needs to prove to the people of Brazil that he has an actual plan to address the crisis instead of initiating . As in the United States, most initiatives come from the federal states that have enough autonomy and flexibility to act on the necessary fronts to tackle the crisis. Bolsonaro is still to understand that he cannot unilaterally impose an approach he wants and that he will lose supporters if he is seen as the reason for the deepening of the crisis. Furthermore, his most vocal opponent in this health crisis, Governor Joao Doria of Sao Paulo, made little effort to hide his intentions to run in the 2022 election. Bolsonaro will soon understand that the coronavirus and the economic crisis which will follow have kick-started the election campaign.

If Brazil is to follow a policy of slow transmission, like Sweden, recruiting additional health-care workers, buying medical equipment to reinforce its health system and ensuring serious federal support to individual states will be imperative to ensure the country is not brought to its knees. Brasilia could also profit from closer cooperation with Sweden to both find justification locally — by implementing some positive measures instead of simply trying to ignore the problem — and internationally, by following Sweden’s in a more concerted way.

The stakes are high, though. The US example proves that even with serious measures in place, whether timely or not, a country can still become the epicenter of the global pandemic with a fast-growing death toll. Unluckily for Bolsonaro, trying the Swedish model in Brazil — a country 22 times bigger in terms of population — is a bet the governors are not willing to take. Such a bold policy decision would need to be approved by the wider Brazilian public as a result of a broad and comprehensive discussion to assess the economic risks of the lockdowns vis-à-vis the risk of a substantial increase in deaths.

In either case, more discussion is warranted, and, as of now, the president seems to be avoiding any public scrutiny of government policy. µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s new health minister already stated in a press conference held on April 30 that a is not desirable in the current situation. Changing ministers was not sufficient for Bolsonaro to sell his approach, and he might need to find new ways to get public support to his endeavors if he is still willing to defend them. Clearly more democracy, rather than less, seems to be the best way forward to find the way out of this crisis. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Brazil Struggles to Find a Unified Approach to the Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Undeniably, the effects of the COVID-19 on the country are by far the most serious. On April 28, Brazil surpassed . In areas like and , the most populous urban centers of in the north and the Amazon regions, and Brazil’s largest cities like Sao Paulo, and , the health systems are on a verge of collapse. Pictures of bulldozers digging have shocked the country as the number of infections keeps climbing, now at over 67,000.

Worse to Come

Amidst it all, Jair Bolsonaro has adopted a rhetoric of denial against the virus. From calling it “a fantasy created by the media” to “the little flu” or “little cold,” the president has been the effects of COVID-19 since February. He started a against state governors and mayors who had adopted lockdown measures, calling these an “exaggeration.” On April 16, Bolsonaro his minister of health, the popular Dr. Henrique Mandetta, an advocate of social distancing and isolation measures that Bolsonaro has publicly ignored. The president has chosen a low-profile doctor, Nelson Teich, who has not yet released a plan for containing the pandemic. The new minister has also adopted a dubious position on self-isolation.

But the worse was still to come. By far the most popular minister in Bolosnaro’s cabinet was . Moro was the judge in Operation Car Wash, an anti-corruption task force that uncovered one of the in the country’s history, leading to the arrest of over 80 business people and politicians across Brazil, including the former President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva. Well known for his work against corruption, Moro has accepted the invitation from the newly elected president Bolsonaro in 2018 to be lead the Justice Ministry, giving up his career as a federal judge. 

Moro was often singled out by analysts as the “moral ballast” of the Bolsonaro government. Bolsonaro ran on a promise to eradicate corruption, but since coming to power, scandals involving his have surfaced. These include his three sons, Carlos, a councilman for the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo, a congressman for the state of São Paulo, and Flavio, a senator for Rio de Janeiro state.

˛Ń´Ç°ů´Ç’s was a significant political event, without a mitigating written statement claiming personal issues or need for rest, or any similar common excuses. The departing minister called an open press conference. Considering that Bolsonaro treats the press as an enemy, especially Grupo Globo — the most prominent Brazilian media conglomerate — the way the announcement was delivered was an obvious dig at the president.

The content was explosive: Moro the president of trying to interfere in the federal police inquiries, stating that Bolsonaro wanted to nominate a police supervisor whom he could call up for details on investigations, which is forbidden by the Brazilian Constitution.

The resignation prompted swift reactions, with Bolsonaro the accusations. Surrounded by his cabinet, the president criticized ˛Ń´Ç°ů´Ç’s work leading the Ministry of Justice. But while trying to defend himself against the allegations of interfering in the federal police investigations, Bolsonaro has — consciously or not — to meddling in at least one case, the investigation into the attack he suffered during a 2018 campaign rally that almost cost him his life.

Following the president’s statement, Moro sent of exchanges with the president, in which Bolsonaro talks about reasons to replace the police supervisor, to the most popular national news program, Grupo Globo’s “Jornal Nacional.” It is a signal that the former judge has more material against his former boss.

Arm-Wrestling

Now the two former allies are arm-wrestling on social media. Millions of supporters are now divided, many of them disappointed with the president and others labeling the former judge as a traitor. The following days will be tough for the president. In light of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolsonaro is losing political support. The governors from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have broken with Bolsonaro months ago, and the governor from Goias state, a physician and one of the president’s early supporters, has also his break with the administration.

The president’s most powerful political enemy at this point, however, is the speaker of parliament, Rodrigo Maia. They have been exchanging barbs since the start of last year. In April 2019, Maia called the Bolsonaro government “.” He is the one in position to start the procedures of a possible impeachment process against the president.

In this adverse political scenario, COVID-19 plays a highlighted role. If the virus continues to kill thousands of people, as it has in the last days, the president’s already fragile position could become unsustainable. A decrease in the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths caused by the coronavirus would not necessarily save Bolsonaro, but it could give him more time to rebuild his political base — at least until the next controversy. Meanwhile, Brazil remains caught between the devil and the deep sea.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Despite the fact that Martinez came in first, with 39% of the vote, during the first round in October 2019, managed to rally together a five-party right-wing coalition. Led by Lacalle’s National Party, the right-wing formation was baptized the Multicolor Coalition and successfully squeezed just over 50% of the vote during the second round of the presidential election.

Leftist Legacy

±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s was founded in 1971 through the union of left-wing movements and organizations. The party ruled Uruguay between 2005 and 2020, starting with the first election of Tabara Vazquez in November 2004. Subsequently, in 2009, Jose Mujica was elected to succeed President Vazquez. Mujica’s election, at the age of 74, was unprecedented in Uruguay: He had been a militant with the leftist guerillas during the second half of the 20th century and served several years in prison. In 2015, Vazquez was elected for another term, extending the Broad Front’s presidential tenure to 15 years.

±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s Broad Front governments were moderate members of Latin America’s leftist “” and received political support from regional leaders such as Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez. Nowadays, however, ±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s neighborhood looks somewhat different, particularly in Jair µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s Brazil.

Domestically, the Broad Front presidencies were marked by a very progressive agenda that resulted in the , and the use of marijuana, all of this in the context of a traditionally conservative South American continent.

Who is Luis Lacalle Pou?

Luis Lacalle Pou is 46 years old, and, despite his relatively young age, he is a seasoned politician — 2019 was second presidential bid. Before becoming head of state, Lacalle Pou served as a congressman for two decades, both in the senate and the house of representatives. He is also the son of former Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle de Herrera, who was in office between 1990 and 1995.

Lacalle Pou’s election is also historic because of the ticket’s companion, Vice President Beatriz Argimon, who became the first woman elected to that position in Uruguay’s history. Unfortunately, the first several weeks of the Lacalle-Argimon administration have been overwhelmed by the quickly unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, though recent polling reveals that the president enjoys an approval rating of over 60%.

From the outset of his campaign, Lacalle Pou has his agenda and policies on strong measures to combat insecurity through increased spending in law enforcement, a reduction of government costs deemed non-essential, and pro-business fiscal reforms to tackle unemployment. Simultaneously, over the coming years, Uruguay will have to address the issue of an aging population. The small South American nation has the makeup in the region and will likely have to attract young migrants and workers to maintain long-term economic stability. President Lacalle Pou will also need to refine his negotiation skills in order to keep the Multicolor Coalition alive during the next five years.

On the foreign policy front, Lacalle Pou ushers in a major break with his left-leaning predecessors. For instance, Uruguay is expected to formally break ties with the regime of Nicolas Maduro and recognize Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela. The regional remnants from the pink tide era, including Cuba and Nicaragua, were not invited to Lacalle Pou’s inauguration. Subsequently, Lacalle Pou announced ±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s formal departure from UNASUR, South America’s multilateral organization by leftist leaders in 2008. Uruguay under President Lacalle Pou is ready to prioritize a stronger relationship with the United States and the hemispheric Organization of American States based in Washington, DC.

Uruguayan Exceptionalism

In order to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Uruguay, the current and previous administrations set in place a series of measures aimed at mitigating the spread of the disease. Benefiting from an educated and civically-minded citizenry as well as basic sanitary infrastructure, Uruguay has kept the relatively low without introducing quarantine measures for the general population; self-isolation is only mandatory for those over 65.

On the economic front, the impact is being felt in terms of job creation, tourism and foreign investment, on which ±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s small economy is dependent for accelerated growth. Lacalle Pou has prioritized securing primary services such as water and electricity for the entire country, particularly for its most vulnerable sectors. Similarly, local elections have been until after the health crisis.

It is undeniable that the Broad Front maintained 15 years of economic and constitutional stability in the country. Unlike the rest of South America, Uruguay has not suffered from the recent waves of mass social protests. Nevertheless, the economic slowdown experienced over the last several years, along with changing regional trends, have influenced ±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s small population.

President Lacalle Pou will certainly face opposition from ±«°ůłÜ˛µłÜ˛ą˛â’s progressive intelligentsia, particularly on the economic front, in which his proposed austere policies are now compounded by the COVID-19 crisis. On the social front, a recently reopened national debate around might signal whether the country will remain at the forefront of South America’s progressive policies or if the new agenda of the Multicolor Coalition is here to stay.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Honduras, whose president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, has been navigating troubled waters for several years, is now facing social unrest because of the socioeconomic effects of the quarantine. The Honduran military has been deployed to deliver food and basic necessities to vulnerable sectors of the population for whom staying home represents an immediate pause in any sort of financial income. Approximately 75% of the Honduran population works in the informal economy, and a lockdown creates the risk of widespread malnutrition and hunger in the country.

A Nation in Crisis

Before the global crisis provoked by COVID-19, democracy in Honduras was already undergoing a of its own. In October 2019, Juan Antonio Hernandez, brother of the president, was by a court in New York on charges of drug conspiracy, weapons charges and lying to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Moreover, US prosecutors implicated, in absentia, President Hernandez himself of enabling and covering his brother’s trafficking network.

The conviction of Juan Antonio Hernandez unleashed a wave of reactions in Honduras, from the president coming out to defend his family’s name to the political opposition calling for a judicial process against the president. Hernandez was in November 2013, after serving 15 years as member of Honduras’ national congress, representing the National Party, including as head of legislature. In December 2017, he was reelected amid by the opposition, civil society and international organizations, including the Organization of American States (OAS), but remains is a for Washington’s attempts to stabilize the Northern Triangle. However, it is increasingly evident that President Hernandez is not the leader to create either in his country or the region.

During his first term, JOH, as the president is also known, gained popularity because of the decrease in crime and violence metrics, which have historically plagued Honduras. In 2015, the country’s supreme court the one-term limit that allowed Hernandez to run for reelection — a move unprecedented in modern Honduran democracy that triggered mass protests. Subsequently, in 2016, the Hernandez administration facilitated the creation of a multilateral , the MACCIH, led by the OAS and modeled on Guatemala’s CICIG. Nevertheless, this project came to an end in January 2020 when of MACCIH activities due to with Tegucigalpa — yet another sign of Hernandez’s increasingly contentious presidency and a major flag against the administration’s lack of transparency.

Under Pressure

Over the last few years, President Hernandez’s tenure has become increasingly clouded by growing poverty levels, mass migration and gang violence coupled with recent corruption and drug trafficking allegations against members of the political elite. In this context, Hernandez has set out a framework of decrees and regulations to protect his country against COVID-19, which some fear are also intended to strengthen his executive power for political ends. Currently, the entire country is under curfew, and a ban on international travel is in place in a rigorous attempt to prevent widespread infection.

In June 2009, Honduras witnessed a military coup against then-President Manuel Zelaya. A member of Latin America’s leftist leaders of the so-called pink tide, Zelaya was elected in 2005 representing the Liberal Party and led the implementation of numerous social programs aimed at improving the lives of the working poor. Shortly before a national referendum that would have allowed him to be reelected (despite opposition by the supreme court) was due to be held, Zelaya was forced into an airplane while still wearing his pajamas and .

The ousting of Zelaya — one of Latin America’s first coups since the Cold War — was denounced as a right-wing plot and a major setback for the most vulnerable sectors of Honduran society. This transition led to the interim presidency of Roberto Micheletti who, as acting president of the national congress, was next in the line of presidential succession. In November 2009, Honduras held its scheduled elections, which resulted in a victory for conservative from the National Party. President Lobo’s administration was marked by increased violence at the national level, a struggle for regional legitimacy and international recognition, as well as .

Since Zelaya’s ousting, Honduras hasn’t had an administration focused on and committed to expanding the welfare state within the constraints of a developing country, and these national shortcomings are proving particularly onerous in a time of health crisis. In 2013, , Manuel Zelaya’s wife, ran for president representing the Liberty and Refoundation party but was defeated by Hernandez.

General elections in Honduras are set to be held next year. In the midst of great uncertainty, Juan Orlando Hernandez will either be reelected or pass the presidential sash. The COVID-19 crisis, which underscores Honduras’ need for a steadier food infrastructure, a more robust health-care system, and a strengthened formal economy will hopefully lead to a consensus of national priorities between the traditional National and Liberal parties, as well as the newer Liberty and Refoundation party.

For a country plagued by violence, drug trafficking and corruption, the ongoing socioeconomic crisis triggered by COVID-19 should be a wake-up call for the Honduran political class that business as usual is no longer sustainable and that a minimum level of policy consensus is indeed in the national interest. Similarly, policymakers in the region and the United States would be wise to support Honduran leaders seeking to advance formal and legal economic development as a way to combat violence and poverty.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Republic of Colombia and the People’s Republic of China officially established diplomatic relations in 1980 when Colombia ended the diplomatic relationship with Taiwan (Republic of China). This October, both of an important bilateral relationship that has flourished and continues to grow, particularly in terms of trade.

In recent years, Chinese consumer goods have flooded the Colombian market, throwing domestic manufacturers into dire financial straits. These mass imports to were a result of governments and private sector firms spending decades developing a local industrial base that would allow the continent to diversify beyond commodity exports. South American nations like Colombia must now look into new economic policies that ensure sustainable industrial development domestically and advantageous trade growth if they expect to further increase their strategic relevance in the global economy.

Colombia-China Trade Relations

In 2017, aggregate imports into Colombia were dominated by refined petroleum, broadcasting equipment and cars. That same year, Colombia’s main were the United States, representing 26% of all goods that entered the country, and China, accounting for 19% of all imports coming into Colombia. Meanwhile, Colombia’s chief export products in 2017 were crude petroleum, coal and coffee. Within the , Colombia’s main customers are the US, Panama and China, representing, respectively, 28%, 6.6% and 5.2% of all the Colombian goods sold internationally.

At the end of 2017, Colombia’s was in the red by $5.18 billion, with a total of $39.1 billion in exports and $44.3 billion in imports. That year, Colombia exported approximately $11.1 billion worth of goods to the , $2.6 billion to and over $2 billion to . Simultaneously, in 2017, Colombia imported some $11.7 billion from the US and another $8.6 billion from China. A macroanalysis of this commercial scenario stands in stark contrast with the year 2000, when the US purchased 49% of , while China was the destination of less than 0.25% of all the goods the South American nation sold internationally. Similarly, in 2000, of merely 2.9% of all goods imported into Colombia.

Nearly two decades later, Colombia’s trade changed significantly. In 2017, Colombia’s main export to China was , valued at $1.8 billion, which represented 79% of Colombia’s exports to China that year. Nevertheless, this represents a decrease from 2014, when crude petroleum of the value of Colombia’s exports to China, with a total of $5.2 billion. Likewise, in 2013, 84% of Colombia’s from China was from crude petroleum, totaling $4.3 billion. Amongst the key takeaways from this dataset is that, currently, one of China’s main interests in Colombia is the purchase of energy resources and fossil fuels like petroleum.

Even though it might seem as if China purchased much less petroleum in 2017 than it did in 2014 and 2013, another takeaway is that China’s trade balance with Colombia is dependent upon international petroleum prices. In reality, China imported between 32 million and 50 million barrels of crude petroleum annually from Colombia between 2013 and 2017. However, the in 2013 was $100 and approximately $95 in 2014. Meanwhile, by 2017, the price per oil barrel had decreased to an average of less than $60.

A Macroeconomic Dilemma

Since independence from European colonialism, South American nations like Colombia have struggled to develop a robust local economy. Historically, the region’s new republics relied heavily on the export of commodities to Europe and North America while importing most of their manufactured goods. To reverse their dependency on commodity exports, the region’s leading industrialists and policymakers spent most of the 20^th century developing domestic manufacturing and regional industries.

This economic agenda was championed by South American economists preaching import substitution industrialization, also known as the ISI development model. These initiatives had different degrees of success throughout South America, with some economies developing larger and more significant industries than others. Overall, countries like Argentina, Brazil and Colombia achieved an unprecedented level of industrialization, even if large sectors of some national economies still relied on the export of agricultural and mineral commodities.

ISI’s success was limited because it sought to commercialize domestic value-added goods in regional markets that were not yet fully developed, lacking the purchasing power to sustain significant growth. Even though a country like Colombia still relies on imports to get most of its high-end manufactured goods, particularly in the digital age, some progress has indeed been achieved toward the development of local expertise and the establishment of industries that can compete both domestically and internationally.

The Middle Kingdom’s Farthest Periphery

Today, however, China’s aggressive policies toward the region and its intent to re-route the global value-added chain to Eurasia are undoing decades of progress, driving developing countries into deeper reliance on commodity exports, and pushing South America to a peripheral role within the global supply chain.

In 2019, President Ivan Duque’s administration began to implement a new strategy toward the second largest economy in the world. To this end, in July of last year, Duque made an aiming to increase cooperation and trade between the two nations. The last official visit from a Colombian president occurred in 2012, during the tenure of President Juan Manuel Santos. The attempt at a more hands-on approach from Colombia is without a doubt an effort to increase value-added Chinese investments in the country and the region, as well as to reaffirm their commitment to diplomatic and economic relations.

Colombia will be wise to monitor how increased trade with China has led to a return toward the massive export of agricultural and mineral commodities, particularly in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Peru and Bolivia. If Colombia, and South America as a whole, wishes to grow nascent domestic manufacturing and not become a distant supplier of commodities for the BRI supply chain, it must put a check on Chinese-made consumer goods with significant value added, such as clothing, computers, appliances and cars currently flooding the national market.

With a Colombia-China free trade agreement on the horizon, the effects of Chinese ambitions on Colombia’s future could burden the country for generations, and policymakers would be wise to look beyond an ephemeral victory lap.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On February 9, President Bukele marched alongside into El Salvador’s legislative assembly demanding an emergency vote. Bukele’s administration argues that, because the loan being negotiated is needed to upgrade the equipment of the country’s military and police forces in their fight against organized crime, the legislative bill must be reviewed in an expedited process.

Troubled History

Despite the fact that the emergency vote did not take place because the majority of legislators did not show up, the action highlights both Bukele’s priorities and the challenges that his administration faces. Accused by his detractors and members of the international community of orchestrating a coup, President Bukele’s overplayed sense of urgency underscores how much his success hinges on security policy. On February 15, defending his actions, underlying his commitment to El Salvador’s Constitution and rebuking his detractors in harsh terms, stating that his agenda targets “terrorist organizations financed by members of the National Assembly.”

Between 1979 and 1992, El Salvador faught a that left 80,000 dead and 8,000 missing, bringing social devastation and oversized debt. The conflict started because of heightened sociopolitical polarization in a region that was heavily marked by proxy wars in the context of the Cold War. At the time, successive Carter and Reagan administrations in the US followed a policy of containment, particularly in Central and South America.

The US government maintained strong ties with right-wing and center-right political formations in El Salvador to prevent the country from following along the path of Nicaragua or Cuba. In 1979, a coup against President Carlos Humberto Romero led to the de facto government by a revolutionary junta and marked the genesis of the civil war. In this context, Bukele’s march on the national assembly brings back the dark specter of a not-so-distant past.  

Who Is Nayib Bukele?

An entrepreneur who studied law at the Jesuit University of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele began his political career affiliated with the country’s establishment left-wing party, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), under whose insignia he was elected mayor of a small town of Nuevo Cusclatan in 2012. He went on to become the mayor of the capital, , in 2015, but was from the FMLN in 2017 for violating party principles, prompting his presidential bid.

Bukele was elected in February 2019 with an of the vote. Aged 38 and a son of Palestinian immigrants, he is the youngest president in El Salvador’s history and, currently, Latin America’s youngest sitting head of state. His election was a big surprise for the region, as Bukele shunned the Salvadoran political establishment choosing instead to run as a centrist, representing the Grand Alliance of National Unity (GANA) that came into being as recently as 2010. Bukele was sworn in on June 1, 2019, with a reputation of being entrepreneurial, business-friendly and innovative.

Since assuming the presidency, Bukele has been on a policy blitz focused on two main points: security and economic development. Last year, President Bukele visited Beijing after recognizing the People’s Republic of China and cutting diplomatic ties with Taiwan. In China, the Bukele administration signed , mainly focused on infrastructure development. El Salvador’s recognition of Beijing over Taipei came in the footsteps of similar moves by Panama and the Dominican Republic, highlighting mainland China’s ongoing diplomatic campaign in Central America and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the United States continues to be El Salvador’s most important strategic ally, given the large Salvadoran community in the US, a strong trade relationship between the two countries, El Salvador’s dependence on remittances from its diaspora in North America, and the country’s in 2001.

Bukele’s other foreign policy victory was the announcement of an agreement with Guatemala that El Salvador the right to develop a port on Guatemala’s Atlantic coast, thus giving the smallest country in Central America access to not one, but two oceans.

Domestic Priorities

On the domestic front, a key issue that President Bukele has quickly addressed is security, which in turn is tied to the of Salvadorans to the US. These two social issues have stemmed from gang violence, drug trafficking and unemployment that have plagued El Salvador since the end of the civil war. Since taking office, Bukele’s strong security policies have resulted in a in the levels of violent crime and homicide in El Salvador.

Another domestic issue that Bukele is tackling is corruption. While neighboring governments have resisted international assistance in the fight against corruption, most notably Guatemala’s hostility to the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, President Bukele urged the creation of a commission led by the Organization of American States to investigate and root out .

But even more difficult than eradicating domestic violence — El Salvador has one of the highest  in the world — President Bukele’s main domestic challenge might be reforming the establishment, which so far refuses to transform. Currently, Bukele’s administration does not have the necessary majority in the legislature to secure lasting change. With the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) right-wing party holding 42% of the national assembly and opposing Bukele’s agenda, the president is forced to seek compromise and alliances to pass legislation. Otherwise, he is bound to rule by executive orders, which are increasingly denounced as executive overreach. Marching troops into the national assembly hardly helped his cause.

On February 10, the supreme court of El Salvador President Bukele not to pressure the legislative branch as it deliberates on the approval of the $109-million dollar loan that the executive is seeking to enhance law enforcement’s resources to persecute organized crime. Though Nayib Bukele has a popular backing that far surpasses that of the legislative assembly — his — the president stated that he will be patient and abide by the judiciary’s decision. Nevertheless, President Bukele’s term will last until 2024, and, if his popularity holds up for another year, he will have a chance to secure a friendlier legislative majority during the .

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Interviewed by the Spanish-language network Telemundo in Las Vegas, some of the Democratic presidential candidates have revealed serious gaps in their grasp of international affairs. Their ignorance of the political reality of distant nations includes countries even as far away as Mexico. Considering that the current president, Donald Trump, has been obsessed by US relations with Mexico ever since the day he launched his candidacy in 2015, this ignorance tells us something about these Democratic candidates’ preparedness to govern.

When asked individually by Telemundo to name the current president of Mexico, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and billionaire Tom Steyer both drew a complete blank. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, playing the role of the bright kid in class who studies harder than his classmates and thinks he might know the right answer to the teacher’s question, responded, “Lopez Obrador, I hope.” As the 18^th-century poet Alexander Pope generations of schoolchildren: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” And sometimes it pays off when, in spite of yourself, you come up with the right answer.

Newsweek the setting of the event where this questioning took place: “The three candidates took part in the town hall to discuss issues relevant to Hispanic and Latino voters, who make up over 30 percent of the population in the city. People with Mexican ancestry are said to constitute more than 20 percent of the city’s population.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Relevant:

In politics, an adjective to describe issues that nobody other than a specific segment of the population is particularly sensitive to, which often provokes embarrassingly insincere, fawning behavior on the part of candidates seeking votes.

Contextual Note

Klobuchar’s knowledge of Latin American heads of state appears particularly shaky for someone with the status of US senator. Like almost every national legislator present at Trump’s recent State of the Union address, she appears to believe that Juan Guaido is the president of Venezuela. In this case, she probably does know his name and has made it clear that the name of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, whom Guaido hopes to overthrow with help from the United States.

There should be nothing shocking about this shared ignorance about Mexican politics, since for most Americans a wall of ignorance about everything to do with Mexico other than tacos, enchiladas and guacamole long preceded Trump’s initiative of building a physical wall. Trump’s strategy of demonizing Mexicans couldn’t have worked if Mexico wasn’t already widely considered by many Americans to be unworthy of their attention, unless they were running a company or a farm that desperately needed cheap labor. And even so, they needn’t waste a thought on how Mexico was governed or by whom. So long as Mexico stays where it is and lays no ancestral claim to California or Texas, there isn’t much to pay attention to south of the border.

US culture has always regarded Mexico as having the charm of a less than civilized place that has a few exciting spots to spend a holiday. Many Americans maintain an ingrained belief in Mexican inferiority validated by the visible racial contrast of its people, compounded by the persistent desire of an entire population to speak a language that — despite Miguel de Cervantes, Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda — lacks, in their eyes, the exquisite finesse of American English. 

Nevertheless, for a presidential candidate to be totally or even partially in the dark about the identity of the chief executive of Mexico is objectively startling. Not only is Mexico an important country, with an economy closely linked to that of the US, but the current president stands out not only in Mexico’s history but also for what he represents in the overall balance of ideological power on the American continent at a critical moment of its history. Recent US foreign policy has succeeded in pushing back what was known in the previous decade as the “” throughout much of Latin America. The election of the left-wing president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO) in 2018 represents a major shift in Mexican history, with special significance for the delicate game of political influence across the continent.

AMLO has been called the . When AMLO was elected in July 2018, Sanders his congratulations and even made some quick suggestions about future collaboration. Because no one had referred to AMLO as the Amy Klobuchar of Mexico, Klobuchar probably had no reason to pay attention to his remarkable campaign and successful election. As a billionaire looking after his fortune, Tom Steyer had more important things to think about. Pete Buttigieg, however, may at the time have seen a mentioning Lopez Obrador’s success and hoped that if ever asked about it in the future he might still remember the name.

Historical Note

Though Americans may choose to ignore it, Mexico has a history that includes various phases of colonization by the Spanish and the French, the seizing of much of its northern territory by the US, a populist revolution in the early 20^th century, the subsequent development of a powerful oil industry, some prominent economic crashes, a permanently uncomfortable relationship with the United States and a fairly recent loosening of the decades-long despotic grip on political power of the aptly named Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

The PRI was created in 1929 as an officially left-wing movement that quickly morphed into an autocratic oligarchic system of government built on the foundations of institutional corruption. Through 71 years of uninterrupted reign, it was what Peruvian writer a “perfect dictatorship.”

AMLO is the first non-institutional left-wing president in Mexico’s history. As most presidential candidates have done in the past, he promised to root out corruption. Since his election, he has been active at it, though he certainly has a long way to go before rooting a certain form of corruption out of the national culture.

Here are two of Saturday’s headlines from Mexico Daily News revealing some interesting examples of AMLO’s fight against corruption: “Audits uncover 544bn pesos misspent by EPN” (Mexico’s previous right-wing president Enrique Pena Nieto) and “Ex-Pemex head was in on systematic looting of country: attorney general.”

Concerning the misspent billions of pesos, the journal that “the amount of resources in question is greater than the entire federal budget allocated annually for education and health, which receive more funds than any other areas.” This was not your everyday “mordida.”

The other story concerns the former CEO of Mexico’s nationalized oil producer under Pena Nieto. Emilio Lozoya was arrested in Spain last week for massive fraud. Reporting on his arrest, Bloomberg with the former president: “He was appointed by Pena Nieto, who considered him a confidant.” Thanks to AMLO’s actions, both men have been exposed not merely as confidants, but as confidence men.

Bloomberg, however, hedges its bets and appears to come to the defense of Pena Nieto when it states that “Political pundits … cautioned that AMLO’s campaign is often seen as one-sided because it so far has focused on opponents.” But Pena Nieto is the former president, presumably accountable for his historical actions. Calling him an opponent of AMLO makes no more sense than calling Barack Obama an opponent of Donald Trump. Pena Nieto’s actions now belong to the history of Mexico. 

When we look into who the pundits cited by Bloomberg are, things become clearer. The article describes the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute as “a Washington-based think tank.” A bit of research reveals that its Board of Directors includes Trump’s ineffably ignorant education secretary, billionaire Betsy DeVos, alongside Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (schooled in lying and cheating, as ), as well top executives of insurance companies and finance and a powerful Mexican corporate conglomerate (media, finance and consumer products), .

Ignorance of everything that happens in Mexico other than the murderous activity of drug cartels has become a feature of the American way of life. In 2014, Time Magazine fawningly to president Pena Nieto with the caption, “Saving Mexico,” followed by the explanation “How Enrique Peña Nieto’s sweeping reforms have changed the narrative in his narco-stained nation.” This may remind some readers of Thomas Friedman’s of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman a year before having to recognize, following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, that MBS was an unprincipled thug as well as an economic reformer.

In both cases, US media adulated leaders who were “reforming” things in ways that appeared to be in conformity with US geopolitical and economic objectives, whether or not they corresponded to the interests of their own people. It’s funny how easy it is for presidential candidates in the US to forget the names of leaders who don’t engage in reforms favorable to the US economy.

[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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This fiscal measure was part of public spending cuts that Moreno’s administration had negotiated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a loan that would allow over three years. In recent weeks, Moreno held a meeting with the IMF in Davos in order to discuss the loan terms and review the relationship between the country and the organization.

By eliminating the fuel subsidies, which are no longer affordable, the Ecuadorian economy expected to ease its debt burden and reduce the fiscal deficit incremented during previous administrations. Nonetheless, the fuel subsidies are only one component of the so-called package of economic and labor reforms that Lenin Moreno pretended to implement in order to obtain IMF funds. The reforms also include labor reform and pension adjustments.

The Government Buckles

In previous decades, Ecuador witnessed the dramatic end of more than one presidential tenure. In 2000, , elected in 1998 and responsible for the dollarization of the country, was ousted when the armed forces withdrew their support and mass protest engulfed the country. Similarly, , democratically elected in 2002, was displaced in 2005 due to unpopular political measures that devolved into mass protests.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that President Moreno was overly cautious in responding to the 2019 mobilization, which included provisionally moving the seat of his government out of Quito to the city of Guayaquil. Moreno’s predecessor and former political ally, Rafael Correa, also had to deal with major public discontent.

The social spark that started with the withdrawal of fuel subsidies quickly turned into a long list of grievances ranging from indigenous rights and rural reform to corruption and social welfare. Ultimately, the Moreno administration backtracked on its elimination of the fuel subsidy and announced that it would seek alternative ways to overcome the budget deficit. Once the demonstrations subsided toward the end of 2019 following a compromise with the protesters, President Moreno appointed new officers to the country’s top military posts after allegations that the armed forces had abused the in order to suppress public dissent.

A Structural Issue

Currently, Ecuador’s socioeconomic predicament is due mainly to its historic reliance on income from fossil fuels and other commodities, as well as the failure of previous administrations to maintain a rainy-day fund during times of economic boom. Additionally, the protests have had a severe economic impact (similar to Chile’s case), having brought the country to a standstill until the UN and the Catholic Church stepped in to broker an agreement.

Moving forward, President Moreno will need a new strategy that is more gradual and less socially traumatic to pursue macroeconomic and fiscal reform. Simultaneously, the government needs to enact institutional changes to facilitate a leaner administration and reshape the national economic model to reduce its dependency on the export of commodities.

Lastly, Ecuador needs to comprehensively address the issue of the now living within its borders, putting a strain on the small nation’s economy. The global reduction in commodity prices, coupled with the onerous social spending programs that Moreno inherited, has created a fiscal conundrum that his government is tasked with solving.

Correa’s Opposition

Underlying the social and economic issues Moreno faces is a strong political tension within Ecuador. The rift is between the president’s right-wing supporters, including the country’s economic elites and, on the other hand, the partisans and supporters of former President Rafael Correa (in office between 2007 and 2017), who is still very popular with constituents both in and outside the country.

Having served as Correa’s vice president between 2007 and 2013, Moreno was elected to the presidency as the heir of Correa’s left-wing, progressive agenda. However, shortly after his ascension to the presidency, Moreno broke with the and, nowadays, Moreno and Correa exchange nothing but blows.

At the end of 2019, Ecuador’s national court of justice ratified the preventive detention against Correa’s ally and former vice president, , on charges of alleged bribery, illicit association and influence peddling. Correa himself, who has settled in Belgium since leaving office, has been with similar crimes and misdemeanors. The former president and his numerous allies the charges as political prosecution and write Lenin Moreno off as a who deceived Ecuador by running his campaign under the Correa brand, but who governs as a right-wing technocrat.

For his part, Moreno also denounces the and his “pink tide” , including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, have in the protests and other plots that have disrupted his administration and cost millions of dollars for the commerce and transportation industries.

As Ecuador prepares for presidential elections in February 2021, right-wing figures, like and Guillermo Lasso, are seeking to return the country toward proper conservative and market-friendly governance. However, these traditional right-wing parties are finding that Lenin Moreno has shifted to occupy the center right of the political spectrum and already incarnates many of the policies that the right champions. Simultaneously, serious mobilization and debate are ongoing among Ecuador’s populist and progressive parties, including talks of Rafael Correa’s potential return from exile.

As Ecuador celebrates 20 years since it as its official currency, the country’s economy — and its relationship with the United States and organizations like the IMF — remain contentious issues that will mark its political future during the upcoming year.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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This diagnosis was ridiculed by many Cubans, all too aware of the decade-long crisis known as the Special Period that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union â€” a geopolitical shift that decimated the Cuban economy. With more and more symptoms of another lasting economic hardship today, the word “coyuntural” strikes many as an ironic description of a situation that may not be as temporary as it seems.

Cuban Thaw

Upon taking office in 2017, US President Donald Trump immediately vowed to reverse the policies of the Obama-era Cuban thaw, a period which saw the 44th US president become the first to visit Cuba in almost a century, along with the easing of the decades-old embargo, looser travel restrictions and the reopening of embassies in Washington and Havana. “Since December 2014, the Treasury Department and our partners across the Administration have progressively reshaped our regulations in order to empower the Cuban people and enable economic advancements for Cubans and Americans,” secretary of the treasury under Barack Obama, in a statement announcing the continued easing of sanctions, which were in effect until early 2017.

The Obama-era changes had marked a new potential for economic growth in a country in need of foreign investment to develop its economy. Tourism boomed as a result of these policies, along with in 2019 that expanded the private sector. became the “fastest growing country on Airbnb ever in the history of our platform,” its founder said in 2016. The number of annually rose from 63,046 in 2010 to 162,927 in 2015, then nearly doubled in both 2016 and 2017, before plateauing at 637,907 a year into Donald Trump’s presidency. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of Americans visiting Cuba rose by a mere 19,561, compared to a 333,749 increase the previous year.

It was on June 16, 2017, that Trump issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) on “Strengthening the Policy of the United States Toward Cuba,” outlining his hard-line stance. on financial transactions, trade and commerce were announced in November of 2017 by the Departments of State, Commerce and the Treasury to implement the NSPM. The Trump administration has continued laying on sanctions, releasing new travel bans, including restrictions on vessels entering Cuba, in June last year.

This affected vessels transporting oil to the island from Venezuela. Cuba depends heavily on oil exports from Venezuela, which have slowed down in recent years as a result of the latter’s own economic crisis. Up until 2015, Venezuela supplied Cuba with 90,000 barrels of crude and fuel per day, the majority of the island’s 145,000 bpd consumption, . However, sanctions placed by the US on PDVSA, Venezuela’s national oil company, have led to a significant decline in its output in recent years, with an estimated in proceeds from exports in 2019. For Cuba, which as of 2017 only produces 51,000 bpd, these sanctions have had an extreme impact on daily life.

For the People

The Trump administration’s policy on Cuba, like that of his predecessor, claims to be in support of the people of Cuba. “We are taking additional steps to financially isolate the Cuban regime. The United States holds the Cuban regime accountable for its oppression of the Cuban people and support of other dictatorships throughout the region, such as the illegitimate Maduro regime,” said in September 2019. “Through these regulatory amendments, Treasury is denying Cuba access to hard currency, and we are curbing the Cuban government’s bad behavior while continuing to support the long-suffering people of Cuba.”

Although these sanctions claim to be a response to government suppression, such as the arrest of an independent journalist, , in September, they do little to achieve their intended purpose of supporting the people of Cuba. In reality, the economic impact of the sanctions is felt most by ordinary Cubans struggling to make ends meet.

The petroleum shortages have caused a large-scale transportation crisis, leading to severely overcrowded public transportation and constant delays. Long lines of cars could be seen outside of gas stations, and some taxi drivers resorted to sleeping in their cabs overnight while waiting for gas, in order to continue working the next day. The University of Havana was forced to shorten the school day by two hours to allow more time for students to commute to class, and the National Library, among other national institutions, turned off its lights and closed its doors early as a way to reduce energy consumption.

In many neighborhoods, power outages have also become increasingly common. During the Special Period in the 1990s, when Cuba faced more extreme oil shortages, the government was forced to implement scheduled power outages across the country. Although the current power cuts tend to be sporadic and temporary, they are a dark reminder of that difficult time, and some fear that the hardships of this so-called “coyuntural period” may become the norm.   

Trump’s approach to Cuba has been a policy failure at best, and at worst another chapter in the United States’ long history of exerting its grip on the country under the guise of defending its people. The latest US sanctions reversed the progress made by the Obama administration in reopening diplomatic ties with Cuba and, more than anything, the brunt of their force is being felt by the very people the sanctions claim to support.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Cubans Feel the Blow of US Sanctions appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Their presence was fierce and determined, yet modest — protesters focused on the women’s cause were only a small part of the thousands of citizens, women and men, that have paralyzed the main urban centers of the country since the protests erupted on November 21, defending, among other causes, the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

360˚ Insight: Scandinavia’s #MeToo Problem

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While a historic step was recently made with the election of the first female mayor of Bogota, , who also happens to be a lesbian, there is still a long way to go. In today’s Colombia, the growing movement for the protection of women’s rights lacks force and is still overshadowed by other more prominent but equally important social issues. Nevertheless, the question remains: Will Colombia ever experience a #MeToo revolution?

An Ongoing Tragedy

Data show that the cause of women is a critical issue in Colombia. According to the , 33% of Colombian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime. In the latest , which measures inequality in reproductive health, empowerment and the labor market, Colombia is ranked 98 out of 187. Despite recent efforts by government agencies, such as by the Medicina Legal, 90% of the nearly 34,600 cases that it considers as femicide have .

There is a human face and a family story behind each case. Every month, a casual reader of Colombia’s press encounters several cases of gender violence, often involving minors. The cases of Yuliana Samboni, Natalia Ponce and Rosa Elvira Cely are some of the most infamous in recent years and have become national symbols of the fight for women’s rights. Yuliana, a 7-year-old girl from one of Bogota’s marginal neighborhoods, was kidnapped and killed by Rafael Uribe Noguera, a wealthy and accomplished architect, now serving a 51-year sentence. In Natalia’s case, she was attacked by a stalker, who on her face, causing a tragic disfiguration.

Rosa was 35 years old back in 2012 when she was found raped, stabbed and impaled in Bogota’s national park. After her death, some called for the death penalty for her killer, Javier Velasco, who was later sentenced to 48 years in prison. But some, including Bogota’s secretary of government, blamed the victim. In a that has since been retracted, the secretary suggested that it was Rosa’s decision to go out with Velasco for drinks. Victim-blaming is not uncommon in Colombian society, but the fact that a government official was openly taking part in it caused outrage.

All of the crimes inflicted on these women sparked national debates and had repercussions in Colombia’s legislation. Yuliana’s smiling face is a recurrent sight at every protest, including the recent ones. The 2016 is named after Natalia Ponce and has made acid attacks a special type of crime carrying a harsher penalty. And, in Rosa’s name, in 2015 congress passed a historic but controversial , by which the criminal charge for femicide was created. For the first time in Colombia’s history, femicides are measured and made visible.

Despite these advances, it is still difficult to speak of a Colombian #MeToo movement. Female-oriented activism is still a minority voice among the demonstrators, even if in the last few weeks more and more Colombians from all political fronts and causes have been . No concrete demands were made of President Iván Duque regarding women’s rights, maybe also because feminism is a controversial topic in a country that has profound Catholic roots, remnants of machismo and few women in the political and cultural sphere. For instance, there are only 56 (22%) in the 258-strong body.

Social Change and Accountability

Unfortunately, in Colombia, the defense of women’s rights among the general public is often limited to cyberspace. Hashtags like #YoTambiĂ©n (“MeToo”), #LibresDeViolencias (“FreeFromViolence”) and #NiUnaMenos (“NotOneLess”) have been in the spotlight of social media channels like Twitter in recent years, with dozens of women telling their stories. Likewise, the “El violador eres tĂş” (“You are the rapist”) has become widely popular.

The increasing number of women engaged in the trend is encouraging, but by itself insufficient. Unlike the cases of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and others, Colombia has not yet seen major consequences for allegations made against high-profile men. For instance, in 2018, journalist Claudia Morales claimed that she was once sexually abused by a boss whose name she for fear of retaliation, although it is strongly suspected that she meant ex-President �lvaro Uribe. Most people questioned the timing, not the nature of the announcement. In the end, nothing happened.

Likewise, the sexual harassment charges made when he was running for mayor of Bogota had little to no impact in his campaign, despite his stand as a leftist, progressive candidate.

All in all, the fight for women’s rights has become increasingly prevalent in today’s Colombia, as demonstrated by advances in matters such as legislation. Nevertheless, it is also an ongoing battle with plenty of unresolved social and political issues that need a grassroots shake-up. A widespread, powerful Colombian #MeToo movement — which seems to be slowly underway — will require a deep questioning of what it means to be a woman in a traditional South American society.

It will also need to involve more citizens, both men and women, in ways that transcend the web and have a transformative societal impact. Only then, when reading about Yuliana, Natalia and Rosa, will Colombians not have to say, #MeToo.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will Colombia See a #MeToo Revolution? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The IMF truly has progressed since the heyday of the in the 1990s.  Combatting inequality has been incorporated into its and is now one of its own criteria for success, at least . Capital controls, previously frowned upon by many mainstream economists as an impediment to globalization, are now as a potentially useful tool for developing countries. And concerted, if , efforts have been made to reduce the burden of conditions attached to IMF loans.

These are real improvements, and commendations are due to those inside and outside the organization who fought for them. But beneath these much-publicized reforms, the fundamental structure of the IMF’s approach remains the same. Today, as before, the organization privileges the interests of businesses and investors over the needs of the people it purports to help.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Ecuador, where President Lenin Moreno’s implementation of a $4.2-billion IMF loan agreement sparked a wave of mass protests led by a coalition of students, workers and indigenous groups.

Flexibilization

Moreno came to power in 2017, after the left-leaning former President Rafael Correa’s occasionally but generally successful decade in office. From 2006 to 2016, per capita GDP growth rates on average, and inequality fell considerably. The percentage of people living in extreme poverty — defined as those earning roughly $48 per month or less in today’s dollars — was cut almost by half, in part due to significant increases in social spending on health, education and housing.

Much of these gains were enabled by an extractive development model and windfall from high international oil prices. But when those prices plummeted in 2014, Correa’s administration weathered the storm better than many other oil-exporting countries, in some measure due to Ecuador’s on $3.2 billion of historical debt that Correa criticized as .

After winning an election campaign during which he promised to Correa’s policies, Moreno unexpectedly broke from his predecessor and shifted the country sharply rightward. The IMF agreement, signed in March, solidified this shift — and reveals how little the IMF has really changed.

First and foremost, the agreement is a classic , mandating dramatic cuts in public spending on the order of 6% of GDP over three years. Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, estimates that this budget tightening will “firing tens of thousands of public sector employees, raising taxes that fall disproportionately on poor people, and making cuts to public investment.” This, in turn, will higher unemployment, an increase in poverty and an economic downturn that will be longer and deeper than even the IMF’s own projected recession. The country’s current unrest was sparked by one piece of this austerity program — a sudden and significant cut to fuel subsidies.

Second, the agreement calls for the of labor rights. In addition to the firing of public workers, the IMF package mandates reduced public sector benefits and a decrease in the public sector minimum wage. The agreement’s “flexibilization” reforms, which apply to the private sector as well, include looser restrictions on worker dismissals, weaker regulations on hours and overtime pay and fewer protections for contracted workers.

Third, the agreement pushes for a reduction in capital controls. In doing so, it contravenes even the IMF’s own supposed on the topic, and makes Ecuador susceptible to the same volatile “hot money” flows that in numerous catastrophic financial crises during the 1990s.

The agreement also makes more regressive, moves toward the privatization of publicly owned enterprises like airlines and utilities, and undermines Ecuador’s state-led development model by weakening the role of the development planning ministry in the budget process. Beyond its specific provisions, the agreement as a whole has been by Ecuadorian civil society groups for what they claim to be an unconstitutional circumventing of the legislature.

IMF Equals Hunger

Ecuador is not alone. Egypt, under the authoritarian, hand of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, recently implemented austerity policies mandated by the IMF that have led to , deepening inequality and the slashing of social benefits. In 2018, the prime minister of Jordan was forced to following mass protests against a similar IMF program. And in Argentina, anti-austerity demonstrators have adopted the potent slogan of “” — IMF equals hunger.

Austerity, suppression of labor, capital liberalization, regressive taxation, privatization, by-passing of the democratically elected representatives of the people and the use of state force to — to those who endured the IMF programs of the 1980s and 90s, this all surely sounds familiar.

Fortunately, this may not be Ecuador’s future. After weeks of unrest, Moreno was recently , promising to cancel at least part of the package and work with indigenous leaders on a negotiated alternative. Whether this promise is kept, and what the compromise looks like, remain to be seen. For now, though, the people have fought back, and won. But their very need to do so exposes how little the IMF has changed. The IMF’s agreement with Ecuador would likely have been even worse a few decades prior. But to those forced to suffer under austerity today, that is likely cold comfort.

*[Young Professionals in Foreign Policy is a of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Meet the New IMF, Same as the Old IMF appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

360° Context: The Me Too Movement — Changing the Rules of the Game

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While the major onset of women’s activism is often to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when women in the US and Europe organized around issues of equality in mass numbers, there are numerous examples of over the centuries. The movement of women in the 1960s, often referred to as the — the first being the push for suffrage and other opportunities for women at the turn of the 20^th century — is important because it represented a wide-spread, mass-based movement. But it is imperative that we have knowledge and understanding of the larger historical context of women’s activism so we can better understand both what hinders as well as facilitates activism.

Putting the Stereotypes to Work

When and why do women’s movements emerge? emerge for many of the same reasons that any emerges. There are often numerous reasons for people to organize for change, and yet not that many people do. Among the conditions that help enable social movement emergence are: an event that seriously disrupts life, such as an economic depression, a war, an environmental catastrophe; the presence of in terms of leaders, money and supplies; a sense of relative deprivation — that your group has less relative to another group that you see as your equal; and the existence of that open up a space for your grievance to be heard.

Throughout history, across the globe, these conditions have coalesced at times to help foster movements of women seeking to change their own lives, those of their families and of their communities. For example, in 1929, thousands of women in the provinces of Calabar and Owerri in southeastern Nigeria, organized and led a protest against colonialism, an event which came to be known as the . The colonial administrators had imposed a tax on Igbo market women that the women feared would make selling unfeasible, which in turn would disrupt the food supply. The women utilized traditional practices of all-night song and dance, as well non-traditional practices such as attacking European-owned stores and Barclays Bank.

The tax — on top of other colonial injustices — which threatened the food supply, the presence of a women’s network created by the tight bonds these women in the community shared, and the opportunity to utilize traditional protest all help explain this important, early example of feminist and anti-colonial mobilization. So, what makes women’s movements different from other social movements? Can we even talk about a “women’s movement”?

Can we define women’s movements? The answer is both yes and no. There is no worldwide women’s movement, per se. Cultural, religious, ethnic and class differences result in too many varied interests, concerns and needs. Even within countries like the US we cannot speak of a unified women’s movement. There are women on the side of the political spectrum who organize, as well as women on the left, and they do not often see eye to eye. That said, worldwide do tend to mobilize around issues important to women, and though some may not necessarily challenge broader societal impediments to women’s equality, the issues they mobilize around are focused on women, have female leadership and are organized and developed by women.

Thus, in this way we can think about women’s movements across class, culture, ethnicity and ideology, all in the same breath. Additionally, women’s movements have a few commonalities. Many issues are across cultures, ethnicities and ideologies, thus prompting women to join movements for similar reasons, such as sexual violence, unequal pay, unequal treatment in the workplace and the home, and more.

Further, women have a tactic at their disposal that is not available to men: The preconceived notions and stereotypes about their sex allow them to do things that men cannot. For example, one afternoon in 1977, during the brutal military dictatorship in Argentina, women organized in the Plaza Del Mayo to protest the mass disappearances of their children, grandchildren and husbands. This group came to be known as the . The dictatorship was stymied by the women’s actions — it did not feel it could stop them. The women were mourning the loss of members of their family every afternoon for months, years, then decades (the organization is today) in the Plaza de Mayo, and the government could do little to end something that was seen as a traditional display of womanhood.

The dictatorship did abduct, and presumably kill, a few of the group’s founders, but it did no more. The junta feared the public backlash that would come from harming women en masse.

This display, undertaken intentionally by women, drew worldwide attention to the issues in Argentina and helped affect change. Women have smuggled bombs and munitions, held “knitting circles” where they plotted and planned protest and were never suspected for a moment because of societal stereotypes about women. These are just a few examples of tactics available to women that are not available to men, and which unite women in their attempts to affect change.

Why Join?

Why do women join women’s movements? While there are many reasons that women, or anyone, for that matter, a social movement, there are a few key ones that explain most calls to activism. One key reason is that a trauma or disaster has occurred in their life, has “woken” them up. Encouragement from friends, relatives or one’s church can also spur someone to take a step that they may not otherwise take. The removal of barriers to participation — having time, money, free time, etc. — can also enable participation. Feelings of solidarity, of comradery that may come from working together also help motivate someone to join and remain committed. Purposive benefits, that feeling of doing the right thing, also help encourage people to action.  

Finally, material benefits matter. If joining can help protect or improve one’s economic well-being, this is a powerful incentive to join, to overcome the fear of stepping forward. While women join social movements for reasons similar to men, often their gendered identities further define what issues mobilize them. And often the main reason for mobilizing as women, especially in the developing world, is because their practical gender needs have been threatened. Thus, historically, movements in the developing world have been focused around interests traditionally associated with women’s realm: health, education, children, access to food and water — practical gender interests.

In South Africa, the group organized, in part, to protect seeds, soil and indigenous ways of life. The vast majority of farming throughout much of Africa is done by women. Thus, women see first hand the impacts of the destruction of the environment and often organize around interests that have practical impacts on their lives.

On the other hand, women in the advanced industrial world often organize around those interests related to women’s subordination and gender inequities: equal rights, reproductive choice, sexual violence and access to decision-making — strategic gender interests. This helps explain why #MeToo movements in the developing world may struggle at times, as ±ő˛Ô»ĺľ±˛ąâ€™s has, for example. Where women’s access to power and resources is narrow, their ability to act on strategic gender interests will be more difficult.

Impact on Society

Women’s movements . Just 75 years ago, and sometimes even more recently, women in much of the advanced industrial world, including the United States, Europe and Australia, did not have: equal pay legislation, access to equal credit, no-fault divorce, access to abortion, access to birth control, equal access to higher education, and more. Up until 2015, women in Saudi Arabia were not allowed to vote. Women’s movements have led to the passage of that directly benefits women, not just in the US, but across the , from equal pay laws to laws regarding sexual harassment, quotas in legislatures, and . And while one might argue that legislation doesn’t always have teeth, it is an imperative first step.

Women’s organizing has also led to women’s ministries and bureaus at the national and international level. Public officials cater to women more, actively seeking their . Women’s movements have created a cadre of motivated, skilled and politically active women in their wake. Women who can alter the way politics, business, education and more are done. Research has clearly shown the importance of the in legislatures. Women legislators are more likely to introduce women’s issue legislation (bills about women, children, health, education, the elderly), women’s issue bills are more likely to pass than similar bills introduced by male legislators, women legislators are more likely to work across party lines, are less likely to interrupt witnesses during legislative hearings and are more consensus oriented.

Finally, women’s movements worldwide have had a transformational effect — they have altered how societies view women. Women were once commonly seen as having less intellectual capacity than men, incapable of voting or engaging in politics, seen as physically weaker, easily frightened and in need of the protection of men. While there are certainly still people today who may hold those views, by and large in advanced industrial societies today it is accepted that women have the same intellectual potential as men, do not need to be protected from the “nasty” world of politics, can serve in the military and do not need to be the property of men. While there is clearly room for growth, especially in the developing world, this transformation cannot be ignored.

Where does #MeToo fit in to this larger picture? The #MeToo movement is consistent with the types of movements traditionally seen in the advanced industrial world, organized around strategic gender interests. Women — and men — joined the #MeToo movement because they had experienced a traumatic event, and there were leaders like Tarana Burke, Alyssa Milano and other celebrities who stepped forward and encouraged women to take action. There was a collective sense that something could be done and had to be done, and the was ripe.

Women and men were incensed that a president of the United States had blatantly talked about violating women, that powerful men like Harvey Weinstein have been assaulting women unpunished, there was a cadre of educated and trained women who could lead the charge. Enforceable legislation existed, and there were material incentives to join — a chance to change the environment in many industries, an environment that has held women back from access to power, leadership and jobs. The #MeToo movement fits into a rich and deep history of women organizing worldwide, women taking control of their lives, women not waiting for someone else to fix it — women taking charge.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Me Too Movement: A History of Women Taking Charge appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

#BalanceTonPorc in France, in Russia, #ArewaMeToo in Nigeria and #NiUnaManos in Latin America have all worked toward raising awareness of sexual assault and harassment as experienced across different cultures and socioeconomic environments.

Scroll down to read more in this 360° series

Critics of the movement, who include women, have argued that #MeToo has in its zealous pursuits, dispersing vengeful character assassinations at will. While few rape accusations are false, and men are statistically to be raped than falsely accused, in cases of sexual harassment that often come down to subjective interpretation of events, there is a danger of unconditionally believing the accuser. The actor and comedian and US are, perhaps, a case in point.

Others still that this new rhetoric has taken the fun out of flirtation and sex, politicizing relationships to a degree of professional stiffness. The story of the #MeToo movement is, therefore, anything but straightforward.

The Story of #MeToo

“You are not alone.” This is the ethos of the “me too” movement that was , borne of her experience of working with young black women and girls from low-income communities. The goal of the movement is to “reframe and expand the global conversation around sexual violence” to include those most often left out of the public eye — communities of color, sexual minorities, those living with disabilities and young people.

But the movement, which, as Burke writes, “started in the deepest, darkest place in my soul,” only burst onto the global stage when the American actor used the phrase that has now become a viral hashtag, #MeToo, in a 2017 tweet calling on women to share their experiences of sexual assault and harassment. Catching like a wildfire across social media, #MeToo showed women around the world that they were indeed not alone. The sheer magnitude of revelations caught many by surprise. According to , within the first year of Milano’s tweet, the hashtag was used more than 19 million times on Twitter alone.

A tide of high-profile allegations followed. The Hollywood bastion fell first, with accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein rolling in faster than one could count. Many now infamous names were added swiftly to the : Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman, James Franco, Dustin Hoffman, Louis C.K. Then came the media industry, with #MeToo deposing airtime stars like Charlie Rose, Bill O’Reilly and Matt Lauer, as well as the chief executive of CBS, Les Moonves.

The wave rolled on, catching the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, the Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, Senator Franken, former UK Defense Secretary , the singer R. Kelly, judge Brett Kavanaugh and even the president of the United States, sweeping up university professors, orchestra conductors and renowned photographers the world over.

The #MeToo movement has put the accusers — the women historically silenced by countless levels of sexist oppression as well as the male victims who have been largely ignored when it comes to sexual and domestic violence — center stage. “Believe women” became the simple idea that shifted the balance of social power.

In November 2017, Los Angeles County launched a special task force to address the spike in allegations. The number of victims of rape and sexual assault reported in the US was up from 23% in 2016 to 40% in 2017, according to the . In the UK, figures show that the number of rapes reported to the police increased from close to 36,000 in 2015-16 to nearly 58,000 in 2018-19, by the #MeToo revelations.

Why Does #MeToo Matter?

But it’s an uphill struggle. #MeToo may have opened doors for victims to report abuse but, according to the same Home Office statistics, charges or summons for rape have fallen from one in seven in 2015-16 to just one in 65 in 2018-19. The LA task force is still to officially charge someone. Many of the #MeToo-inspired accusations are historic, and prosecutors face obstacles such as expired statutes of limitations and obtaining hard evidence. Yet more states across America are now moving toward either expanding or completely removing the statutes of limitation for sex crimes.

While Weinstein has pleaded not guilty , many of the accused perpetrators have made a recovery — and even a comeback. Two cases against Spacey have been dropped by the prosecution. Ronaldo’s career is still in full swing after a ruling that against him could not be “proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” Louis C.K. is back on the comedy circuit. Daniele Gatti and Charles Dutoit are still . Epstein, charged with sex trafficking, committed suicide before he could face justice. Kavanaugh is presiding on the US Supreme Court, and Donald Trump is still in office. Only Cosby is serving his sentence at a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania, to other political martyrs like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

According to the UN, experience physical or sexual violence globally. India remains the worst country in the world to be a woman, with a rape occurring at least once . In China, the budding #MeToo movement has claimed some high-profile victories, but activists find themselves fighting a double-edged sword of . In Japan, a pop singer was forced to for her assault, and South Korea is only starting to of its own dark underbelly. Nigeria’s fledgling movement is facing a backlash.

In 2018, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights that some 60% of women surveyed have experienced sexual harassment. In Russia, the government has decriminalized types of domestic violence under the guise of keeping families together, disregarding an estimated in their homes and a further 36,000 being abused daily across the country. In Britain, a poll that a third of men and a fifth of women thought that if a woman flirted on a date without explicitly consenting to sex, “it generally would not count as rape” — nor would in a long-term relationship for a quarter of respondents.

There is an obvious danger of equalizing various degrees of sexual harassment and assault. Where do we draw the line between inappropriate sexual behavior and malicious, even criminal, intent? Social media is hardly an appropriate forum to try sexual abuse allegations. But in what is often the absence of other viable avenues, women have sharpened #MeToo into an Amazon’s sword in a fight to change the rules of the game. At the moment, as the new revolution is trying to find its footing, the lines are being drawn on shifting sands.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Me Too Movement: Changing the Rules of the Game appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

After all, there are powerful reasons for social disturbance in larger countries like Brazil, Argentina or Peru, not to speak of Venezuela, but so far none of them show signs of deep social unrest. This is not to say that the protests are unimportant or that one should ignore regional waves, such as the turn to the left in Latin American politics at the beginning of the century. After all, Latin America has been historically prone to cyclical trends that have spread throughout the entire region in the past. This doesn’t seem to be the case today. Rather, the protests should be assessed for their individual value, one case at a time.

A second temptation is to identify protests with a common motive. A cherished topic in Latin America is the resistance to cold-hearted neoliberalism, where the continent’s version of the wretched of the earth regain their spirit in the face of powerful — and often foreign — economic interests, or falling prey to conspiracy theories like arguing that behind the protests in most right-leaning countries is the dark hand of the Maduro regime, or even Russia.

A grain of truth can exist in some of these speculations, and they may certainly capture the interest of the mainstream international media, but we should know better. So, what’s been happening?

Ecuador: Turbulence in a Protest-Prone Nation

The initial protests took place in Ecuador in early October after the administration of President Lenin Moreno decreed a hike in fuel prices. The response was angry, violent and widespread — including a strike from transportation organizations nationwide and mobs carrying out destruction, mainly in the capital, Quito. The government responded with a twofold strategy. On the one hand, it sought to negotiate with transport organizations to stop the strike; on the other, it brought the army to the streets.

Despite the stick-and-carrot approach, violence spread, especially in Quito, where government buildings were set on fire. The protests reached a peak when the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities put its weight behind the protests. Bear in mind that this organization, known as CONAIE, was instrumental in bringing down several governments at the turn of the 21^st century.

The protests rapidly gained a political angle in the highly politicized climate of Ecuador. In the last few years, President Moreno applied himself to dismantling the tight political network built in the last decade by his predecessor, Rafael Correa, through control over most state institutions. The former president was investigated on amounting to between $30 and $70 billion during the time he was head of state. In the past few days, a local court ratified an against him for “alleged bribery, racketeering, and peddling of political favors.”

Correa rapidly became the main culprit of the country’s many woes. There is a high probability that he seized the opportunity to mobilize his weakened forces, perhaps with international help — allegedly from Venezuelan pro-Maduro organizations — to bring down the government and promote a restoration that would allow him a political comeback. But to what extent this is true has not been substantiated so far.

Despite the transport strike coming to a halt and President Moreno reconsidering the fuel prices measures, leading the CONAIE to call for a truce and accept conversations with the government, the protests continued with increased violence. The seat of government had to be moved to Guayaquil, the largest commercial city on the coast. But after a that lasted several weeks and claimed eight lives, the country returned to normal.

Chile: An Economic Miracle Catches Fire

As protests were waning in Ecuador, violence erupted in Chile, spreading from the capital Santiago to other cities like Valparaiso and Concepcion. Similar to Ecuador, protests began when the authorities augmented the rates of the Santiago subway system by a few percentage points. Also similar to Ecuador, the protests that ensued were highly violent, with buses set on fire, metro stations, banks, supermarkets and even the offices of an electrical utility company destroyed. But, different to earlier protests taking place a decade ago throughout the country, these were not exclusively student-led and involve a wider social spectrum, including workers, part of the middle class and urban mobs.

Protests in Chile caught everyone in the country and elsewhere by surprise. After all, Chile has seen a steady growth record and the most impressive social and economic gains, except for inequality, in the region. In 2010, the country was admitted to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development club of rich nations and was getting ready to host a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November and the United Nations’ COP25 climate summit in December. Understandably, the government declined to host both events. But it is probably the timing and violence of the protests that still has most analysts on their toes.

Initially, Sebastian Pinera, a businessman-turned-politician now in his second term as president, responded aggressively, declaring a and calling on the army to contain the protests, which brought back dark memories of the Pinochet dictatorship. But instead of curbing what had now become a mass movement, it only , bringing a string of 23 deaths and losses near to $1.4 billion. The violence has been particularly ferocious, including the most recent setting on fire of a private university and even the looting of churches.

Facing what could evolve into an insoluble crisis, Pinera rapidly moderated his tone, recognizing the government’s fault and promising wide policy changes. Currently, the country is in the process of digesting the impact of the protests. President Pinera has offered a change in the constitution that could perhaps contribute to the ruling elite — including both the conservatives and the moderate left parties â€” regaining its footing over the future of the political system.

Haiti: Black Hole of Chronic Suffering

“We are in misery and we are starving,” protester Claude Jean told . “We cannot stand it anymore.” These two phrases summarize the ultimate rationale behind the most recent protests that exploded in Haiti and have continued to this day. Starting in September, day after day and week after week, people from all walks of life have taken to the streets en masse to protest against a deadly combination of an enduring social drama — including fuel shortages, spiraling inflation, a lack of safe drinking water and food scarcities — and rampant corruption. So far, severe clashes have wrought havoc, with at least 18 dead, but compared to the protests in Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, sheer violence and destruction have not been the predominant note.

Unrest in Haiti is as chronic as the accumulation of social distress. But over the , it acquired a new tone when allegations of corruption within the government of President Jovenel Moise regarding the misuse of resources from Petrocaribe, Venezuela’s flagship international economic aid program, came into the open. The protests rapidly took a stronger political bent, pointing directly to Moise and demanding his resignation.

In the background is also the deep dissatisfaction among a majority of Haitians with the of the massive amount of economic aid that entered Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake, which failed to translate into infrastructure, schools or even sanitation improvement. Also, different to the chronic social malaise, on this occasion the middle class, especially intellectuals and professionals, has also taken to the streets, providing a stronger voice to the demands of the population.

Bolivia: Enough Is Enough

The image couldn’t be more gruesome: Patricia Arce, the mayor of Vinto, with her hair cut and her body covered in red paint, was dragged through the streets after in the city. She is a member of Evo Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party and, after the city hall of her town was set in fire, she was captured by a mob. The scene reflects the level of violence achieved by the political confrontation taking place in Bolivia in the aftermath of the recent presidential election where the opposition and independent observers alleged fraud on the part of the Morales-dominated electoral authorities.

In 2016, Evo Morales was defeated in a referendum that put to a national vote his decision to run for reelection for a fourth time, in an attempt to redraw the constitution that set a limit of two presidential terms. After his defeat, Morales brought the issue to the constitutional court, which in 2017 decided that his “human rights” had been demoted, even if he had called for the referendum himself. Another presidential election was scheduled for October 20, 2019. After the official results contradicted the initial count, the opposition refused to recognize his triumph and took to the streets, first rejecting the result and later calling for his resignation.

Different to Ecuador, Chile and Haiti, where social dissatisfaction is the prime mover, in Bolivia the protests were 100% political. So far, the balance of Evo Morales’ decade-long social and economic policies has been favorable, including stable growth with low inflation, a drastic reduction of poverty and a historic recognition of indigenous communities as part of a plurinational state. But his attempts to remain in power at any cost seemed, to a growing portion of Bolivians, increasingly akin to the likes of Nicolas Maduro, the standard bearer of the new dictatorial trend in the region.

When the crisis erupted, the signs of a drastic evolution toward stark authoritarian rule were still in the making and nowhere near the current levels of the Venezuelan tragedy. But, if one were to judge by precedents like Nicaragua, the future looked gloomy. On this occasion, however, and different to earlier electoral confrontations, the opposition forces were more disciplined and after the first electoral round presented a united front, disputing the electoral results legally and openly in the streets.

The demise of Evo Morales, who resigned on November 10 after a string of violent protests nationwide, echoes Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, “A Chronicle of a Death Foretold.” Morales could have retained his stature had he not run for president again or accepted defeat in the October 20 election. But he bet on his popularity to push for a fourth term in office.

Before election day, all opinion polls showed Morales leading, but with less than the necessary 10-point difference to avoid a runoff. After the election took place, the trends very closely replicated the predictions. Even the first bulletins released by the supreme electoral tribunal pointed in that direction.

Then, the count was suspended for a day, after which the next bulletin claimed Morales had passed the finish line with slightly more votes than he needed to avoid a second round. Then, all hell broke loose. His close contender and former president, Carlos Mesa, accused Morales and the vice president of fraud. Soon after, the company contracted by the electoral authority to make an audit of the election results stated it was full of inconsistencies and refused to grant a legitimate result.

The president’s tone was defiant. He declared himself the winner and challenged his opponents to a rebuttal. As a result, protests in several provinces became more violent, with the burning of MAS officials’ houses, while the president’s supporters burned down buildings in other provinces. Overall, however, the protests were peaceful. But by Saturday, November 9, discontent had reached the police forces, with rank and file in some cases defending the protesters and joining the demonstrations.

By Sunday, once the Organization of American States observation group also declared foul play and called for new elections, Morales went public, agreeing to a new vote. But it was too late. He had lost control. Shortly after, the head of the armed forces asked the president for his resignation. The situation remains unclear, with the succession line in the absence of the president interrupted by a string of resignations. To date, Bolivia’s constitutional court has approved a senator from the opposition, Jeanine Anez, for the post of .

In the end, the demotion of Morales and the violence spearheaded by his manipulation of the electoral process were a reflection of a significant portion of the nation feeling cornered into a growingly personal and authoritarian rule. On Monday, November 11, Morales was granted asylum and escorted to Mexico City.

Making Sense of the Protests

The current wave of protests is not the first in a region which, for a couple of decades since the mid-1990s until a few years ago, seemed to have overcome a century-long string of economic failures and social upheaval. During those years, a combination of significant, though by no means flamboyant, economic growth combined with a vast process of democratization took place in most countries in the region. When a wave of protests erupted in Chile in 2009-10 and Brazil in 2012-13, observers were rattled. The two countries symbolized by far the best of two worlds: robust democracy and prosperity.

Chile had experienced the stronger and more prolonged economic performance of the region, while Brazil’s path out of the doldrums of high debt and inflation, together with an assertive social policy, brought some 60 million Brazilians out of poverty. Moreover, public opinion surveys held since late 20^th century showed high support for democracy.

Then, again, just before the 2016 Olympic Games held in Brazil, a massive wave of peaceful protests erupted, bringing millions of people to the streets, complaining against vastly inefficient public services and other public investment, combined with massive corruption scandals that incriminated the top of the political hierarchy, both in congress and in the executive. Why host the Olympics if hospitals didn’t work or infrastructure was collapsing?

In Chile, the protests were far more limited, essentially an awakening of the student movement demanding better education and protesting against a skewed system where the most affluent always obtained the best places in the best public schools. The protest movement lasted for a long time — until the wind of reform proved strong enough, forcing an initial transformation of the system.

Expectations Revolution

What was apparently taking place in both Brazil and Chile was an expectations revolution. As more people were leaving the ranks of poverty behind and joining the middle class, they no longer conformed to the status quo of bad services and poor education. Thus, the peaceful protests pushed against a lack of progress and corruption, especially in Brazil, where the Carwash and the Odebrecht corruption scandals were undermining the credibility of the political class. Corruption charges reached the top of government and led to the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in April 2016.

The expectations revolution may have been taking place in as well. Paradoxically, Evo Morales’ success might have worked as a backlash. Bolivia, as well as Chile, had high growth rates for more than a decade, and millions of Bolivians have been brought out of poverty. Having achieved better living standards, a part of those entering the middle class may have joined those demanding more from the political system and from the president himself. And, most probably, this change of mind was not in President Morales’ calculations.

Overall, the situation in the region today is different to those golden times in several respects. There has been a clear backlash against democratic rule while economic performance has been meager, even if it has not faltered altogether as it has elsewhere. A combination of factors seems to have propelled the more violent protests. First, the overall perceptions about democracy vs. authoritarian rule have shifted. According to , the overall preference for democracy as a political system has dropped from 79% in 2013 to 65% in 2018 in the region as a whole, while it dropped to 68% in Ecuador, 66% in Bolivia and 65% in Chile. In turn, the number of people calling the regimes in their countries undemocratic went up from 9% in 2013 to 14% in 2018. At the same time, the younger segments of the population have a lower preference for democracy (44% between the ages of 16 and 25) as compared to the older (52% for those over 61), while the preference for authoritarian rule is higher for the young (16%) compared to the old (13%).

Second, the perception that the political system works in favor of a few powerful groups has increased consistently from a minimum of 61% in 2009 to the current 79% — a massive 18 percentage points — with numbers as high as 60% in Bolivia, 74% in Chile and 81% in Ecuador. What these numbers are saying is that no matter the advances in economic terms, the overall perception is that the system is skewed against you.

Thirdly, except for Bolivia, where political parties seemingly continue to be the main vehicle for representation, in most other countries this essential feature of political stability has weakened over the years. Even in Chile, a country with strong political party traditions and a clear distinction between the left and the right, the overall representation of political parties has become lackluster. This may explain why protests gave way to sheer violence.

Clearly, the worst case is Haiti, where traditionally political parties have been either weak or non-existent. In Ecuador, weak parties are a typical feature of the political system. It was only during the Correa era when his newly created party, despite accommodating to the needs of the populist leader, was able to overcome the traditional solitude of Ecuadorian rulers. But the recent friction between Lenin Moreno and Rafael Correa has brought weakness back as a defining part of Ecuador’s political life.

What Now?

Christopher Sabatini and Anar Bata, writing in , argue forcefully that protests don’t seem to be leading anywhere and that it is highly likely they won’t deliver the type of change they were intended for. This is clearly not the case in Bolivia. Evo Morales was forced to resign, and, in the aftermath, members of the electoral tribunal were imprisoned for orchestrating an electoral sham. Having inherited a highly polarized country — mostly of his own making — it would seem that the times of prosperity and overall peace that Morales granted Bolivia are over. What will come now is unclear — a full return to democracy or continued unrest and unstable governments.

In the rest of cases discussed here, things may not turn out as desired by those staging the revolt. Haiti will continue to suffer its chronic disease of political instability and the utter impossibility of finding even a modest path to overcoming its tragic drama of poverty and destitution.

In Chile, there might be some reshuffling of how policies are designed and put in practice, but given the representation crisis the country has been suffering for quite some time, it is unlikely that the channels for smooth democratic politics will be restored and people’s feedback will be given greater credence. Despite President Pinera’s call for a new constitution, if Martians were to descend in Chile today, they would be astonished to see how the current political landscape has changed so little from the times of Salvador Allende.

Finally, after the era of strong leadership and concentration of power under Rafael Correa, Ecuador is in a difficult transition to greater political openness and transparency, which may succeed if Ecuadorians give Lenin Moreno a new opportunity. Judging by the recent upheaval, it would seem that microeconomics beats attempts at re-democratization. In addition, his efforts to dismantle the populist edifice Correa built with such care might inevitably open the door to the ghosts of instability and uncertainty.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post What Is Driving the Protests in Latin America? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In recent weeks, the Chilean government has suffered the raucous consequences of announcing unpopular economic measures intended to rein in government debt and spending by increasing the cost of public services. In what has become a regional trend, protests in the capital Santiago began with a relatively small in early October. But the movement has since morphed into a widespread upheaval against neoliberal economic policies and social inequality in South America’s most prosperous nation.

Festering Grievances

Protests are nothing new for the Chilean people, and the grievances being revendicated — such as the lack of accessible basic social services, the discrimination against indigenous peoples and growing inequality — are legitimate. However, the level of coordination amongst some of the fringe elements and the main instigators of the last few weeks has left many wondering how truly spontaneous this movement is. Whether orchestrated, organic or both, the socioeconomic frustration felt by many Chileans has been accumulating for years as two presidents, and , alternated over four terms while dismantling much of the welfare state in order to attract foreign investment and positive credit ratings.

The seemingly excessive liberalization of the Chilean state economy has not been an issue as long as all social classes have shared, for the most part, in the country’s prosperity and growth. However, feeling increasingly burdened and , the working and middle classes of Chile were ripe for a social uprising, unbeknownst to the country’s economic elite, political class and foreign creditors.

Amid , the government of Sebastian Pinera was forced to decree a state of emergency, which translated to curfews and martial law in several regions of the country. Perhaps a political miscalculation, for many Chileans who lived through the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet the state of emergency only fired up their desire to protest.

Santiago has been the epicenter of demonstrations, including one that attracted more than a million people on October 25. Moreover, the protests have not been limited to the capital but have spread across other major cities such as Concepcion, Temuco, La Serena and Valparaiso. According to the , at least 20 have been killed and around 1,600 injured in the violence so far.

Like a Wildfire

Due to the sustained nature of the demonstrations, the has begun to feel their effects. In that sense, international gatherings, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the , as well as cultural and sporting events, have either been canceled or relocated away from Chile. Similarly, domestic consumption, private business and public government infrastructure have all been dealt a severe blow by the unrelenting nature of this social wave.

Chile has not seen protests or public order mobilizations of this magnitude since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1990. Moreover, given the country’s high level of institutional and socioeconomic development, the events of the last several weeks are even more shocking, having prompted calls for a to be sent to Chile. Ironically, the UN’s current high commissioner for human rights is the former Chilean president, .

While it would be unwise of global investors to flee from one of the world’s most attractive emerging markets, it would also be foolish of international capital not to protect itself against this regional tide of political risk. Instead of skyrocketing premiums, international brokers should seek to expand the pool by making political risk insurance more accessible and commonplace.

Political risk underwriters should be smarter as to the inputs that they consider when quantifying risk. For instance, a key consideration throughout Latin American should be the GINI coefficient, which indicates wealth inequality in a country, and the average increase in the standard of living of the middle and working classes over the last five years, particularly as these correlate to the impact on the middle and working classes of new economic policies and reforms.

With the possibility of a global economic slowdown on the horizon and the need to reduce high levels of public debt, right-wing governments throughout Latin America are implementing economic policies that hit the working and middle classes hardest, such as cutting subsidies, increasing the costs of public services and rolling back social welfare. For a region where the bulk of the population has seen an increase in its standard of living over the last two decades due to a commodities boom and the excessive spending by left-wing governments, any policy that threatens to worsen the average lifestyle of the population will meet fierce resistance.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Chile Protests and the Rise of Political Risk in Latin America appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Elected in 2006, Morales is, alongside Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, one of the last remnants of the so-called “pink tide” that catapulted leftist leaders to power all over Latin America during the early 2000s. President Morales’ first election was historic, both for Bolivia and for the region, as were his first few years as head of state, which brought attention to indigenous peoples’ rights as well as progress in the fight against income and social inequality. However, Morales’ quasi-cult of personality and his close ties to Caracas have eroded Bolivia’s democracy over the long term.

Pushing Constitutional Boundaries

One of the fundamental presuppositions of democracy is that all citizens, regardless of social status or education, will choose to support those candidates who make their lives socioeconomically better. However, in Latin America, political tribalism, the proliferation of social media echo-chambers and other ideological factors have led voters to support political leaders even at their own detriment.

In his three terms in office, Morales already undermined Bolivia’s Constitution, which states that presidents cannot serve more than two consecutive terms, by getting the country’s high court to that the limitation did not apply to his first term because he had been elected in 2006 — three years before the new constitution was approved. In 2016, to approve a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run for reelection indefinitely, Evo Morales went to the country’s highest court, and a majority of judges — appointed by him — ruled it constitutional for him to run for a fourth term.

With the October 20 election already questionable in terms of legitimacy, Morales was well aware that a he couldn’t afford to go into a second round in which the opposition would rally around one candidate. Therefore, it became imperative for Morales to win during the first electoral round either by securing at least 50% of the vote — which is extremely challenging given the president’s shrinking base and declining approval — or by securing more than over his closest contender in order to be declared president without automatically triggering a runoff.

This second scenario, though still challenging, seemed the most applicable to President Morales’ political machine that has a solid base among about a third of the country’s voters. Nevertheless, as the results started coming in and it became apparent that the opposition candidate and former president, , was coming neck-in-neck with President Morales at around the 40% mark, the government and the electoral authorities seemed to have taken matters into their own hands. Taking a 24-hour break in the counting of the votes, officials then declared a 47.08% — the coveted 10-point advantage that secured a Morales victory.

Heat of the Street

The apparent corruption of the Morales administration has led to mass protests organized by the opposition and others social movements, which the president dismissed as a “.” Demands for a second round are growing amid and the resignation of the vice president of the electoral council, Antonio Costas — a story all too familiar in the region. The protests, which began the day after the election, have spread all across the country throughout major cities, including Santa Cruz, La Paz, Sucre and Cochabamba. Many of the recent protests across Bolivia are yet another rejection of Morales’ reluctance to accept the results of the 2016 referendum, when 51.3% of the voters said no to a possibility of him running for another term. The support that once secured the Morales presidencies is now crumbling.

Attempting to counter popular discontent, Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party has organized rallies in support of the president that, on occasion, have led to Meanwhile, regional allies like President Maduro have denounced the opposition for attempting to follow the Venezuelan script. Nonetheless, in addition to Morales’ narrow victory, his political party has secured a majority in both houses of Bolivia’s legislative branch.

Bolivia’s opposition parties are demanding the annulment of the electoral results and calling for a new ballot. Likewise, the Organization of American States and the European Union are publicly calling for a runoff round and election audits. But President Morales remains unmoved. Regardless of his achievements in infrastructure development and social advancement, as well as his solid , Evo Morales is currently traversing one of his most challenging times as he finds himself isolated in the region and with a country that is both divided and polarized.

As protests persist throughout Bolivia, both sides remain committed to sticking through the standoff. Morales enjoys strong backing in the rural areas and has summoned his supporters to descend upon urban centers. Meanwhile, opposition leader Carlos Mesa faces the uphill challenge of rallying the international community to a point that it pressures Morales to backtrack and replay the election. However, in this case, time and the status quo favor President Morales.

While Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno are blaming Caracas’ and Havana’s proxies for their domestic troubles, Bolivia’s government and its allies in the region are blaming the “dark forces of capitalist imperialism” for the protests contending the legitimacy of Morales’ reelection. Nevertheless, regardless of political ideology, Evo Morales, the longest serving head of state in Latin America, is doing a great disservice to both his legacy as the first indigenous president and to his country’s democracy by insisting on continuing with a presidency that would last at least two decades — at the expense of Bolivia’s democratic institutions.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Protests Continue Across Bolivia After Evo Morales’ Controversial Reelection appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Over the past decade, several academics and journalists have studied the role of the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory within various radical-right movements. Yet the scope of their analyses remains confined to Anglophone examples. Although John E. Richardson and Jérôme Jamin strive to theorize cultural Marxism as a “” or “,” they overlook the use of this conspiracy theory in Latin America, especially in Brazil.

Liberating Brazil

In his inauguration speech, President Jair Bolsonaro announced that he planned to from “socialism, inverted values, the bloated state, and political correctness.” During his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro that cultural Marxism and its “derivatives like Gramsci-ism joined with the corrupt oligarchs to undermine national and Brazilian family values.” He casts cultural Marxism as the antagonist in his narrative of supposed cultural decline and portrays himself as the savior of traditional Brazilian identity and society.

In this way, µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s rhetoric fits Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyon’s as a “narrative form of scapegoating that frame the enemy as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good, while it valorizes the scapegoater as a hero for sounding the alarm.” Yet Bolsonaro was not the first right-wing Brazilian scapegoater to sound the cultural Marxism alarm.

In 2002, the media polemicist Ovalo de Carvalho published an titled “Do marxismo cultural” in the conservative Brazilian newspaper O Globo, in which he describes “cultural Marxism” as “the predominant influence in Western universities, media, show business, and publishing.” Carvalho proclaims that the Frankfurt School used its “macabre dogmas” to classify Western culture as a “disease” and spread an “atmosphere of suspicion, confusion, and hatred.” Carvalho’s scaremongering polemic casts progressives as agents of a secret plot to destroy Brazilian culture, language and religious faith.

Later that year, the left-wing Worker’s Party (PT) under the leadership of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known popularly as “Lula”) won the general election. Carvalho regarded Lula’s social welfare policies as an inexcusable expansion of state power and warned that PT would transform Brazil into a totalitarian socialist state. Subsequently, the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory became a weapon to demonize Lula and the PT.

Despite the PT’s impressive election victories between 2002 and 2014, their popularity started to wane from 2010 onward. Several corruption scandals, such as Operation Car Wash, led to general disillusionment. Bolsonaro, Carvalho and other Brazilian right-wing figures took advantage of these widespread feelings of antipetismo (anti-PT sentiment) to perpetuate the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory.

Deadly Threat

In a for the paleoconservative literary magazine The New Criterion, Brazil’s foreign minister Ernesto AraĂşjo declares that µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s electoral victory represents the downfall of Lula’s regime of cultural Marxism. According to AraĂşjo, the PT enforced a “globalist” agenda that led to “the promotion of gender ideology,” “the humiliation of Christians” and “the displacement of parents by the government as the provider of â€�values’ to children.” AraĂşjo interprets the PT’s legislative and judicial efforts to end discrimination against LGBTQ as a deliberate assault on traditional Christian “family values.”

Additionally, his remarks on the government’s alleged displacement of parental authority appear to be a veiled attack on Lula’s popular and effective Bolsa Familia(family allowance) program. Under the policy, impoverished families received a monthly grant for each of their children — up to a maximum of three — to attend school and get proper vaccinations. The policy benefitted some 52 million people. AraĂşjo’s article demonstrates that members of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s administration perceive increased social mobility and access to education as deadly threats to the traditional hierarchies of Brazilian society.   

Education is a core theme of the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. Just as Weyrich and Buchanan claim that the Frankfurt School infected American college campuses with the virus of political correctness, µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s administration asserts that Brazilian universities have become infested with “cultural Marxism” and “gender ideology.” Whereas Weyrich and Buchanan blame Herbert Marcuse, Bolsonaro incriminates the late Brazilian radical educator Paolo Freire.

According to the Brazilian radical right, Freire injected Marxist ideology into the public schooling system during his stint as municipal secretary of education in Sao Paulo between 1989 and 1992. Consequently, Bolsonaro insinuates that Lula’s modest educational reforms, such as funding for underprivileged Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian university students, are part of a secret plot to convert young students to Marxism.  

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In µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s administration, the cultural Marxism conspiracy motivates policy. Earlier this year, Brazil’s Minister of Education Abraham Weintraub threatened to withdraw funding from sociology and philosophy departments in universities. Several days later, he announced 30% cuts to funding for federal universities. Weintraub’s policies are part of a strategy to bully professors and students into quiescence and conformity. Incidentally, Weintraub endorses the witch-hunting tactic of recording the lectures of “cultural Marxist” professors.

The Brazilian people objected to these unjustifiable budget cuts. In response to Weintraub’s pronouncements, an estimated 1.5 million people attended countrywide protests. Widespread resistance to µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s regime demonstrates that many Brazilians do not believe that social welfare policies and progressive ideas are part of a malignant Marxist conspiracy. The cultural Marxism conspiracy is fundamentally anti-egalitarian, because it portrays any form of social progress or economic equality as evil and poisonous. Moments of resistance like these intimate that the radical right, and its patently flawed conspiracy theories, may be losing its allure.

*[The  is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The DC protests were part of a that involved an estimated 6.6 million people. In New Zealand, 3.5% of the population participated. Melbourne, Berlin and London  of 100,000 people. In Seattle, over 1,000 workers  of Amazon headquarters, demanding that the company reduce its carbon emissions to zero.

It wasn’t just the children of the privileged in the industrialized world who were out on the streets. Protests took place in , including 15 cities in the Philippines,  and  Africa.

Around the World

The global climate strike is just the latest mass protest this year. Demonstrations have roiled Hong Kong since the beginning of the summer. Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets in Moscow through the fall to protest restrictions on local elections. Thousands of Brazilians  major cities to condemn their president’s handling of the Amazon fires, and the same outrage prompted people to gather with placards  all over the world. Protests against Venezuela’s leadership that broke out on January 1 have recently dwindled even as demonstrations to remove Haiti’s president  and security forces  on Iraqis protesting the corruption and inefficiency of their government.

Anti-government rallies in Serbia became some of the  in Europe this summer. Elsewhere in Europe, the yellow vests continued to target the government of Emmanuel Macron into 2019. In the UK, thousands gathered to protest Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament in September.

Protesters marched last month in South Africa  rising violence against women. At the beginning of the year, the Women’s March 2019 again focused anger at Donald Trump and his administration’s record on women’s issues, while gun control supporters held “recess rallies” around the United States in August to push for stricter limits on firearms. After massive protests helped oust the previous prime minister in 2016, candlelight this last weekend as 800,000 people gathered to support an embattled justice minister and his reform agenda.

Analysts almost daily bemoan the erosion of democratic values that has accompanied the rise of autocratic politicians. Indeed, recourse to the streets can be a sign that people no longer believe that the ordinary mechanisms of democracy are working. Viewed another way, however, the sheer number of protests and their geographic spread prove that 2019 was a banner year for engagement, for participation, for democracy. As protesters like to chant, this is what democracy looks like.

Ahead to the Past?

Fifty years ago, young people also declared that they were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. In Warsaw in 1968, Polish students demonstrated in defense of free speech and against police brutality. It was part of a larger rebellion in the Soviet bloc, led by Alexander Dubcek’s “socialism with a human face” reforms in Czechoslovakia. Students in Germany  their rebellious counterparts on the other side of the Iron Curtain as part of their own campus actions. In Paris, meanwhile, French students took over the streets with slogans like “Be realistic, demand the impossible.”

It was a worldwide phenomenon. Students mobilized in Mexico, Pakistan and Japan. The first protests against the military dictatorship began in Brazil. And, of course, huge anti-Vietnam War demonstrations convulsed the United States. Then as now, young people were upset with government repression, grievous policies of war and environmental destruction, and systemic sclerosis. They were critical of an imposed political consensus — by military juntas, communist governments and the joint efforts of liberal and conservative politicians in the democratic world.

But there was also hope. Young people believed in 1968 that they could create new societies — at the micro-level in communes, in newly radicalized city councils and even at a national level like Dubcek’s experiment in Czechoslovakia. “Beneath the paving stones — the beach!” French students wrote on the walls of Paris that year.

Alas, many of the protests of 1968 ended in tragedy. The Polish government threw the students in jail. The Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and ended Dubcek’s experiment. The Mexican government killed untold number of students. Richard Nixon was reelected in the United States, and the Vietnam War dragged on for another seven years. Today, young people are operating under a sky full of ominous clouds. They aren’t filling the streets to create a new world so much as to save the old, imperfect one. If 1968 was a year of utopian protest, 2019 has been one long effort to prevent a dystopian future.

The Clampdown

The protests of 2019, so far at least, have not produced much change. In some countries, the pushback has been terrifying. During a summer of escalating protests, Russian authorities detained 2,000 people, most of them young. The vast majority of the detainees were subsequently released. But several were convicted of various offenses, including inciting a riot, and sentenced to several years in prison. “I can say with certainty that Russia is striving inevitably towards freedom,” 21-year-old protester Egor Zhukov . “I don’t know whether I will be freed, but Russia certainly will be.” He is currently  and has been put on a government blacklist of terrorists. This week,  to the streets in Moscow to demand the release of all those arrested over the summer.

As China celebrated its 70th year of Communist Party rule, protesters in Hong Kong tried to upstage the proceedings. For the first time, police fired live ammunition at the crowds. One high school student was . Of the 51 people who went to the hospital, two are in critical condition. The protests, which have been going on for over 100 days, have not been entirely nonviolent. Protesters have thrown gasoline bombs and beaten police with metal pipes. The policy, too, have been increasingly aggressive. An air of desperation is settling over the scene.

In the United States, a few scattered protests have taken place in support of the impeachment of Donald Trump. The president’s wrath, meanwhile, has been focused closer to home. Trump has lashed out at the person who blew the whistle on his conduct with foreign leaders, which precipitated the Democratic Party’s decision to press ahead with an impeachment inquiry. Trump  the CIA whistleblower “close to a spy” — well, duh, the person does work for the CIA — and a “traitor.” Trump publicly lamented that the United States no longer treats traitors the way it once did (presumably by imposing the death penalty). Given his willingness to put his own interests — and occasionally the interests of other countries — above the national interest, Trump may one day soon be relieved that the United States has changed its policy toward traitors.

Even worse, Trump has  pastor Robert Jeffress’ contention that the United States could descend into a “civil war” if the president is impeached. This is the closest that a president has come to a call to arms within the country since the 1850s. It’s one thing for an autocrat like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping to use the apparatus of the state to suppress protests. It’s quite another for a democratically elected leader to threaten to call on his well-armed supporters to rise up against the state itself.

As in 1968, the protesters can’t expect immediate results. It took 20 more years before the student protesters in Poland and Czechoslovakia would oust the governments that suppressed them. Mexico is no longer a one-party state, and Pakistan is more or less a democracy. Despite Jair µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s best efforts, Brazil has not returned to the days of military dictatorship.

Patience, however, is not the best strategy when it comes to climate change. The ice continues to melt. The temperatures continue to rise. Extreme weather events continue to happen. As the old advertising jingle used to go, you can’t fool Mother Nature. The #FridaysForFuture movement isn’t really a bunch of rebellious students. If they had one unified message last month, it was: Please, for the sake of the planet, listen to your Mother!

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The New Age of Protest appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

On April 30, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł for the people and military of Venezuela to rise up and oust embattled President Nicolás Maduro. This action came after months of pressure from international leaders — especially US President Donald Trump — for Maduro to yield power to the opposition. This pressure came in the form of on oil exports and threats of . By the time łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł had called for the uprising, over 50 other countries had recognized that Maduro was no longer the rightful leader of the country.

Yet the uprising has failed to dislodge Maduro from power; the sanctions and threats have failed to disrupt his power base. All of these efforts have failed — and will continue to fail — to produce regime change because they have not deterred two influential actors dead-set on Maduro’s survival: Russia and Cuba.

Russian Support

Moscow has no interest in seeing a change of power in Venezuela. The South American county has been a close partner for Russia since the Hugo Chávez era — Venezuela substantial financial assistance from Russia, conducts joint with the Russians and has been a major of Russian arms.

For Moscow, Venezuela presents a rare opportunity to project power abroad, particularly in what is considered the backyard of the United States. Russia has begun efforts to permanently solidify its gains in the Americas by an outpost to host strategic bomber aircraft in Venezuelan territory — a development that could dramatically change the security situation in South America and the Caribbean. If Maduro’s regime were to collapse, the gains Moscow has experienced in the last decade would likely collapse alongside it.

Russia has refused to recognize łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł and has American efforts to remove Maduro. More recently, Russia 100 military personnel outside of Caracas, ostensibly to maintain the continuity of the military cooperation between the two states, but skeptics have suggested the Russian military is there to help deter a military intervention and to prop up the government.

Cuban Penetration

But even Russia would be hard-pressed to prevent Maduro’s fall if Venezuela’s military were to turn on the president. Both and made overtures to Venezuela’s military prior to the uprising in the hope to effect a relatively peaceful regime change. łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺó’s offers of amnesty for military officers could go a long way toward making them less fearful of a post-Maduro Venezuela.

But amnesty fails to address the key reason Maduro maintains the backing of the military: the tireless efforts of Cuba. Havana is in keeping Venezuela in its orbit — Cuba has received a critical supply of oil from Venezuela since the early 2000s. Without this oil, Cuba risks seeing its own unsteady economy collapse, and some analysts that Cuba would run out of oil in less than two months if Venezuela stopped imports.

To ensure that the status quo holds in Caracas, Cuba has in a decades-long effort of penetrating the Venezuelan government, dating back to the Chávez era when Cuban advisers entered key agencies to influence critical decisions. Cuban officers restructured the Venezuelan military, promoting and rewarding those closely allied to Cuban interests while were either imprisoned, exiled or executed.

Even the security services surrounding Maduro these days is to consist entirely of Cuban bodyguards loyal to Havana. Those few remaining officers who would consider defecting from their posts or organizing a coup would be attempting to organize in the face of and threats to their personal safety and the safety of their families. No offers of amnesty — endorsed by either łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł or Trump — can protect defectors from these threats.

A Way Forward

So, what options are left for those seeking to effect a peaceful regime change in Venezuela? While efforts should continue to convince the military to support the Venezuelan people, policymakers must consider if Russia and Cuba can be persuaded to stop propping up Maduro. Unfortunately, there are few remaining tools that can be used against Russia and Cuba to force compliance. Both countries have already endured harsh sanctions from the international community for their foreign policy, leaving few meaningful coercive options left in the policy toolbox.

Instead, Trump and łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł may need to consider offering assurances to these foreign powers that their interests in Venezuela will not be compromised by a change in regime. Promises to allow Russia to continue its joint exercises or even move forward with establishing its bomber base may satisfy Moscow, while guarantees by the Venezuelan opposition to honor existing oil commitments to Cuba may convince Havana that Maduro is not integral to their strategy for Venezuela.

However, the political costs of appeasing Cuba and Russia may be a bridge too far for łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł, who has vowed to end Cuban influence in Caracas. While there are some signs that support for Venezuela is in Moscow is , both countries still seem committed to the incumbent regime.

And as long as Havana and Moscow are ready and willing to prop up Maduro, there may be no clean way out of the mess in Venezuela for Trump, łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł and the Venezuelan people — as the failure of the April 30 uprising demonstrates.

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Venezuela is in the midst of a severe socio-economic and political crisis. President Nicolás Maduro faces growing pressure, both domestically and internationally, to step down. The current crisis in has been mounting since May 2018, when President Maduro was re-elected in a highly disputed election to lead the country for a second six-year term. The opposition-controlled national assembly didn’t recognize the results, claiming electoral fraud and vote rigging. A year on, more than 50 countries across the globe recognize the national assembly majority leader, Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł, as Venezuela’s interim president.

Hyperinflation, which reached an astronomical this year, violence, and food and medicine shortages have produced Latin America’s largest migration wave in recent years, with a 3.4 million Venezuelans leaving the country. It is that the crisis is the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the Western hemisphere today, and the UN that there will be 5.3 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants by the end of 2019, threatening to overtake the Syrian refugee crisis in scale.

The secretary general of the Organization of American States last year that “newborns in Syria have a better chance of survival than those born in Venezuela today.” According to a recent report by the United Nations, 3.7 million Venezuelans are undernourished, and 3 million children are all or some of their schooling. Food insecurity, inadequacy of health care, lack of access to water and sanitation, and the rise of human trafficking shape the realities of a country that once boasted a flourishing economy thanks to the in the world.

The US government has been endeavoring for months to remove Maduro from power and supports Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺó’s claim to the presidency. Officials in the Trump administration have voiced the option of military intervention to topple the government in Caracas, something President Donald Trump is himself opposed to.

In this edition of , 51łÔąĎ talks to Robert Patman, professor of international relations at the University of Otago, New Zealand, about the crisis in Venezuela, and the country’s economic and political prospects.

The text has been lightly edited for clarity.

Kourosh Ziabari: Can you give us a picture of what’s happening in Venezuela? What are the causes of the socio-economic and political crisis in the country? It’s said that everything started during the presidency of Hugo Chávez. Why has the crisis continued for so long, and why has the government failed to address it effectively?

Robert Patman: Today, Venezuela is experiencing a multifaceted crisis. A socio-economic and political crisis that had its roots in the presidency of Hugo Chávez has escalated during the presidency of Nicolás Maduro. It is characterized by rampant inflation, rising levels of hunger, disease, crime and an exodus of large numbers people from the country.

In many ways, the dire situation in Venezuela is the result of economic mismanagement and an unreformed, energy dependent economy. During the first decade of Chavez’s leadership after 1999, Venezuela benefited from high oil prices on the global market and introduced an ambitious range of public services that were designed to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of many Venezuelans. But those policies proved to be unsustainable. By 2010, global oil prices began to fall, and economic growth faltered in Venezuela. The Chávez leadership had missed the chance during the years of high oil prices to diversify country’s economy. With continued downward pressure on oil prices, Venezuela’s economy since 2013 has significantly contracted.

While Maduro inherited a fast-declining economy from Chávez in 2013, his policies made an already bad situation worse. The Maduro regime resorted to repressive measures to counter large public protests against food shortages in the country. The 2018 presidential election, which produced a victory for Maduro, was widely condemned for blatant electoral irregularities, including ballot rigging.

Such circumstances have led to an extraordinary situation in Venezuela where the legitimacy of Maduro’s presidency is openly challenged by Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł, a key figure in the opposition People’s Will party and president of the country’s national assembly. łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł declared himself president in January 2019. The Trump administration and 54 other states quickly recognized łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺó’s claim, but to date Maduro has managed — largely thanks to the support of the Venezuelan military — to face down łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺó’s attempts to oust him from power.

Ziabari: What is at stake for the United States in the Venezuelan saga? Why is the Trump administration so adamant in calling for the ouster of Nicolás Maduro?

Patman: The stakes for the US in Venezuela have risen with the arrival of the Trump administration in Washington in January 2017. Relations between the two states had been strained during the Bush and Obama years. But Trump’s uncompromising opposition to Maduro’s left-wing authoritarian regime seems to be linked to a reinvigorated nationalist determination to “Make America Great Again” and project American power against its perceived enemies, particularly if they happen to be in the US’ neighborhood.

On January 28, 2019, the Trump administration announced tough sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA. This measure effectively phased out American imports of oil from Venezuela. At the same time, President Trump in February 2019 described US military force as an option if the Maduro regime did not step down. And John Bolton, President Trump’s national security adviser, has publicly invoked the idea of the Monroe Doctrine in the context of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. In short, the Trump administration appears determined to accelerate efforts to achieve regime change in Caracas.

Ziabari: Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺĂł has called on the Trump administration to support his efforts to overthrow the Maduro government. Should Trump launch a military intervention in Venezuela?

Patman: The answer is an emphatic no. Juan łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺó’s public request for American military support was not particularly smart in political terms. Given America’s history of interference in Latin America during the Cold War era, it is likely any attempt by the Trump administration to use force to back łŇłÜ˛ąľ±»ĺó’s presidential aspirations runs the risk of rallying Venezuelans behind a Maduro regime playing the nationalist card. After all, Maduro has been claiming all along the current crisis in Venezuela is the result of Yankee imperialism, and direct intervention by the Trump administration would seem only to reinforce that narrative.

Besides, for other liberal democracies, it is important that the Trump administration conducts itself in a manner consistent with respect for an international rules-based system. To date, Trump has shown little regard for the multilateral system. The American withdrawal from agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal has been interpreted by many other liberal democracies as a form of unilateralism that diminishes America’s role as global leader. It is important that Trump does not strengthen that impression by launching an intervention that could bolster what is a failing regime in Caracas. Ultimately, it is the Venezuelan people that must decide the political destiny of their own country.

Ziabari: The European Union called the 2018 presidential election in Venezuela “neither free, nor fair” and stated that Maduro has started a new mandate “on the basis of non-democratic elections.” Are there indications of irregularities in the last year’s elections? Did Maduro manipulate the vote?

Patman: The US, the EU and the 14 Latin American states that comprise the Lima Group have all condemned the May 2018 presidential election in Venezuela as neither fair nor free.

Ziabari: Inflation rate had hit 1.35 million percent in Venezuela last year. What does this staggering figure tell us about the state of Venezuela’s economy?

Patman: According to the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela’s inflation rate is expected to reach 10 million percent later this year. The staggeringly high inflation rate has made it virtually impossible for people to obtain cash, and for many citizens the barter economy has become a reality of daily life. The IMF [International Monetary Fund] has also predicted Venezuela’s economy will shrink by at least 5% in 2019. In short, the economic and social outlook for many Venezuelans is pretty disastrous.

Ziabari: Proponents of the Venezuelan government say the current crisis should be blamed on the international sanctions imposed on Venezuela. However, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights reported in 2018 that the crisis had been in the offing several years before the imposition of the sanctions. What’s your take on the impact of sanctions on the current situation in Venezuela?

Patman: I think the impact of the Trump administration’s economic sanctions has been very significant. These have targeted Venezuela’s oil sector and effectively shut down the prospect of the Maduro regime negotiating loans from US banks. There is a parallel here with the US application of sanctions against the Allende regime before the military coup of 1973 when President Nixon threatened to “make the Chilean economy scream.”

However, I think there is an awareness in the US and the international community of the humanitarian consequences that these economic sanctions can have. Humanitarian aid could mitigate some of the negative consequences on the Venezuelan people, but unless the Maduro regime truly opens up the country to humanitarian assistance, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the situation is likely to get much worse for many people in Venezuela in the near future.

Ziabari: Researchers have documented a significant rise in the homicide rate in Venezuela, which has plunged the nation into a public health crisis. It’s said that one of the causes is the government’s policy of providing its supporters with arms to suppress protests. What do you think about the spike of violence in Venezuela, which was once one of the most peaceful countries in the world, and its connections with the ongoing crisis?

Patman: The Maduro regime’s tactic of arming its supporters to help suppress protesters may prolong regime survival in the short term by further polarizing and dividing Venezuela, but it will do nothing in the long term to reduce the number of people that see the regime as corrupt, incompetent and brutal.

Ziabari: Will Maduro be able to weather the current storm by forging closer alliances with countries such as China, Russia, Turkey and Iran? Will these partnerships help him retain power and move past the crisis he is going through?

Patman: A number of authoritarian regimes like China and Russia have expressed, in strong terms, solidarity with the Maduro regime. They don’t seem to have any reservations about the political and economic political direction of the repressive Maduro regime. China has invested substantially in the Venezuelan oil sector. And while Beijing has emerged as an important economic actor in Latin America, it does not have a political track record of intervening in the region to protect particular governments or regimes.

Russia may feel more exposed by the Venezuelan crisis. The Putin regime has some military advisers on the ground in the country, and has invested over $17 billion in the country’s military and oil industry. It could stand to lose substantially if the Maduro regime is overthrown or displaced by a popular uprising. Some observers have spoken of the possibility of a US-Russian Cold War over Venezuela. But such claims are exaggerated. The Trump administration and the Putin regime may be backing different political sides in the Venezuelan crisis, but such alignments seem to be based on diverging interests rather than ideology per se.

Developments in Venezuela could strain US-Russian relations, but Presidents Trump and Putin are unlikely to allow this crisis to undermine what has been a close relationship between these two leaders.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Education was not a central subject for the presidential hopeful. µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s promoted children’s education “without indoctrination” — a stab at what µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s first education minister, Ricardo VĂ©lez RodrĂ­guez, referred to as enforcing “” in schools. After beginning his term, the president has reaffirmed the priority he placed on primary education. Now, a set of budget freezes to the country’s federally funded universities has provoked the first mass protests against the newly elected government.

Shambles

VĂ©lez RodrĂ­guez, a Colombian philosopher and professor, did not last long in office. He assumed his post with the intention to focus on , adopting the motto “More Brazil, Less Brasilia,” referring to the country’s capital. Access to higher education is a big issue across the country, as Brazil has of secondary schooling compared to its neighbors like Argentina and Chile, for example. However, following a string of controversies — such as that schools should film students during the singing of the national anthem or that “Not everyone should go to university” — and failing to produce any significant results, VĂ©lez RodrĂ­guez was dismissed just three months into his tenure.

As his replacement, the president has brought in Abraham Weintraub, an economist and professor at the Federal University of SĂŁo Paulo. In his first speech, the new minister that “it is time to calm the moods” and “respect different opinions.” But despite the initial conciliatory tone, Weintraub did not take long to produce a controversy of his own. On April 30, the minister said that universities with low performance ratings are in “” and would have their federal budgets cut. When questioned about what he understands as a “shambles,” the minister was : “Landless Workers’ Movement [a social group which advocates for agrarian reform], inside the campuses, people naked inside the campuses.”

Initially, the 30% budget freeze affected three of the most prominent federal universities: the University of Brasilia (UnB), Bahia Federal University (UFBA) and Fluminense Federal University (UFF). The minister has said that it is essential to focus on academic publications and rankings. However, according to The Times World University Rankings, and have improved their performance compared to the previous year, and has maintained the same position. The rankings by Brazil’s leading newspaper, the Folha de São Paolo, shows the three institutions cited by the minister are among the in the country since 2012. Based on these controversial criteria, within two days of the initial announcement the cuts were extended to all government funded higher education institutions in Brazil: 69 federal universities and 39 federal institutes. The minister of education was called to the parliament to explain the cuts, that “the priority is preschool, elementary school and technical school.” However, federal institutes, of which Brazil has some 640 and which offer mainly technical courses, were also affected by the measure.

The reduction of $1.8 billion corresponds to 3.4% of the total budget, but considering only the discretionary costs, universities will have around 30% less money for expenses like water, electricity, internet and other services. Weintraub has clarified that the measure did not constitute a cut, but rather a budget freeze. According to the minister, the institutions could receive the full amount if the government financial accounts improve.

Weintraub has blamed previous administrations, calling them “,” and has linked a possible reversion on the , which the opposition called a “blackmail tactic.”

“Useful Idiots”

The announcement was received with fear from the Brazilian educational community, primarily because in the last four years, the amount invested in the sector by 54%. During the tenure of Presidents and , there have also been cuts, especially in 2015, when Rousseff slashed R$9.4 billion (around $2.3 billion) from the education budget. Based on the current and previous cuts, the deans of federal universities and institutes affirm that there is no way to further decrease the expenses. Some institutions like , , , , among others, say they have enough money to .

On May 15, of more than around the country, protesting against the cuts. The country has not seen national demonstrations on this scale since the 2016 impeachment protests against Rousseff. Bolsonaro predictably did not react well to the first wave of mass protest against him, calling the “useful idiots” and “imbeciles.”

The president went on to defend the cuts as necessary, given that his government is making a broader effort to . In the last weeks, Bolsonaro has shared on Twitter his intention to cut public funding to . The postgraduate research agency, Capes, also declared a to masters and PhD students.

Additionally to the cuts, Bolsonaro has been one of the biggest supporters of the — a conservative movement aimed against what it considers the spreading left-leaning thinking in schools and universities. Educators, on the other side, consider the initiative as censorship and an attempt to pit students against teachers. Due to its controversial nature, the project, which has been put to the country’s parliament as a policy proposal in 2015, has been abandoned. However, the government rhetoric, combined with its latest actions, creates an impression that education and those who provide it are enemies of the Bolsonaro administration.

A War Without Winners

These contentious education reforms will without doubt contribute to a further slide in µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s popularity. In March, he had the lowest for the first three months in office for a newly elected president since the mid-1990s. More than that, the freezing of the education budget has brought condemnation from some of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s allies, like the deputy of Ceará state, .

The proposals have met with widespread criticism. First of all, federal universities have budget autonomy mandated by the Brazilian Constitution. It is a fact that Brazil needs to , whether primary, secondary or higher. Some of µţ´Ç±ô˛ő´Ç˛Ô˛ą°ů´Ç’s ideas on education do have supporters, like to boost achievements. Even though controversial, the approach to to the detriment of higher education also has many defenders.

It is true that previous presidents have also made cuts or frozen education budgets. However, cutting funding and creating an open war with public institutions, which are responsible for in the country, doesn’t seem a right way to improve the education system.

In the midst of such attacks and decreasing investment, millions of Brazilian students are concerned about the effects of this political wrangling. The messages coming from the president and minister of education do not currently raise hope among the education community.

The protests were subsidized by students and education associations. Although there were leftists flags during the demonstrations — a fact exploited by Bolsonaro and his supporters — the majority of the crowd was not connected to any political parties. If there is an ideologically proximity between the education sector and the left, the strike movements faced by former leftists presidents Lula da Silva in and , and Dilma Rousseff in , show that the affinity it is not as strong as Bolsonaro makes it out to be.

The Bolsonaro government has upheld the cuts, even given the protests and internal dissatisfaction. For both the students and educators across Brazil, the scenario so far suggests hard days ahead.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On April 12, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a week of travel to several Latin American countries, where he did not fail to warn of the dangers of a close relationship with China. This message came on the heels of strong US pressure on the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to its annual general assembly from Chengdu, China, just one week before the event was scheduled to take place.

Although the Trump administration was able to sway decision-makers in this instance, China continues to make commercial and diplomatic inroads in Latin America that are quickly eroding the United States’ historical foothold in the region. Instead of attempting to undermine China’s Latin America plan, the US needs to construct one of its own.

China is aggressively seeking to deepen its commercial relationships with Latin America, courting 12 countries to join its global infrastructure investment project, commonly known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This has resulted in a yearly average of over $10 billion in annual in the region over the last five years. Even going back to 2005, China’s Export-Import Bank and Development Bank has lent a cumulative $150 billion to Latin American countries, exceeding amounts provided by the World Bank, IDB and the Andean Development Corporation combined.

Debt Trap

Most of Washington’s criticisms of China’s involvement in the region are based on its checkered lending record. Dubbed “,” China’s lending practices often compound a country’s financial distress, with governments pressured into putting natural resources on the chopping block as collateral. The best known case of debt trap diplomacy in Latin America is Venezuela, which owes China some $20 billion in loans that is now being paid back in oil. Ecuador is also on the hook, now surrendering 80% percent of its oil exports to China to settle its outstanding debt of $6.5 billion.

Although most Latin American governments align closely with the US on many diplomatic issues, most notably on , many have shown they can compartmentalize their relationship with China, especially when it comes to money.

Since the Trump administration took over in 2017, US policy toward Latin America has been disinterested at best, and hostile at worst. President Donald Trump postponed visits to the region for nearly two years before appearing at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires at the end of 2018, and his frequent and antagonizing comments regarding immigrants and trade have caused a rift in Washington’s relationship with Mexico and other Central American states.

The United States must reinvigorate its Latin America policy by first re-establishing diplomatic presence in the region. While senior diplomatic posts in regionally influential countries such as Brazil and Mexico remain , the White House chose to top diplomats from El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Panama over those governments’ decisions to cut ties with Taiwan. Actions like these only serve to isolate and push these countries into a closer relationship with China.

The United States benefits from having predominantly democratic governments south of its border to build consensus on humanitarian, political and diplomatic issues that may arise across the region. There are already instances of China exporting its repressive tactics, with employing surveillance methods against its citizens using Chinese software. It is also conceivable that Latin American countries will be swayed to vote more closely with China at the United Nations and other international forums as Beijing propels its diplomatic relationship with the region forward, further eroding US influence on a global scale. Filling senior diplomatic posts in Latin America will put the US in a stronger position to counter these maneuvers.

Nosedive or Resurge

Eager to attract foreign investment, many countries in the region have made a concerted effort to improve their business environments by simplifying tax regimes, establishing trade zones and seeking trade agreements. US companies have benefited from these arrangements, but as the of the United States among the region’s citizens continues to fall, China will quickly become the main benefactor of these opportunities.

The Trump administration’s continued efforts to slash and, more recently, foreign aid to Central America also makes Chinese financing much more attractive. Rather, the United States should seek to double down on its economic aid programs to rival China’s offers. Pursuing trade agreements, such as joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or negotiating a free trade agreement with Brazil, will also help cement strong relationships in the future.

With a promise to increase investment to $250 billion and trade flows to $500 billion in the next six years, China is actively seeking to increase its influence in Latin America. The United States can no longer comfortably rely on its historic clout in the region. In an era where China is becoming a major player on all global fronts, it has never been more vital for the US to have a strong relationship with the states in its own backyard. Whether or not Washington continues to nosedive or resurge will depend entirely on the Trump administration’s implementation of a strong diplomatic and economic regional strategy.

*[Young Professionals in Foreign Policy is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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