All posts tagged Elections

Costa Rica: Losing Faith in Democratic Institutions?

By Fulton Armstrong

Supreme Elections Tribunal President Luis Antonio Sobrado / Photo credit: izahorsky / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Supreme Elections Tribunal President Luis Antonio Sobrado / Photo credit: izahorsky / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Costa Rica is approaching February’s presidential and legislative elections with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, if not with dread.  Most international surveys present Costa Rica as the “world’s happiest country” (the Happy Planet Index), or in the elite club of the world’s “full democracies” (ahead of Japan and Belgium in The Economist’s list), or as the 48th least-corrupt country (out of 174 reviewed by Transparency International).  The economy is expected to grow about 3 percent this year, and the country’s access to foreign direct investment is blunting the impact of the government’s fiscal deficit of about 5 percent of GDP.  Crime is on the rise, but Ticos know that their pain is small compared to that wreaked by the narcos and maras in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Reputable polls show, however, that Costa Ricans are gloomy about the state of their political institutions and specifically about their upcoming elections.  According to polls, about 32 percent of the country’s 3 million eligible voters say they plan to abstain, citing corruption, a lack of leadership, insensitivity to the average citizen, and unemployment as reasons to reject not just the candidates but also the political elite in general.  The President of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Luis Antonio Sobrado, acknowledged last month that the election was taking place in the context of “citizen uneasiness … and a lot of anger with politics and politicians.”  Abstentionism was high in 2006 (35 percent) and 2010 (32 percent), but commentators sense a much deeper and darker alienation this time around.  A columnist lamented that the “multiparty” system has been replaced by “atomization,” and another said the political parties have “disconnected themselves from the national reality.”

Further reflecting the malaise, President Chinchilla’s support has nosedived – a July poll showed only 9 percent of voters said she was “good” and none said “very good” – and pundits cite her ineffectiveness as the cause of collapsed highways, dengue outbreaks, and other calamities.  The nominee of her Partido de Liberación Nacional (PLN), Johnny Araya, is widely thought to have an edge in February, but his 12 years as mayor of San José have coincided with a deterioration in the city’s infrastructure and security, and his personal lifestyle (including five marriages) may be a factor in popular skepticism.  The government’s recent announcement that it will contract the services of 4,125 new employees in 2014, mostly in the education sector, drew immediate criticism as yet another example of political patronage to influence the race.

The self-doubt seems at this point indicative of concerns about Chinchilla and the crop of candidates, rather than a rejection of democracy.  Costa Ricans comparing themselves with the rest of Central America still feel good about themselves, and the green image that eco-tourists reinforce is comforting.  But crumbling infrastructure – including collapsing bridges and the exorbitant cost of repeated repairs – and shocking crimes, such as the recent assassination of an environmentalist protecting turtles on a Caribbean beach, fuel the sort of doubts that only effective political and economic leadership can quell. 

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by clalsstaff on November 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Costa Rica
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Posted by clalsstaff on November 11, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/11/11/costa-rica-losing-faith-in-democratic-institutions/

Colombia: President Santos’s Challenges

By Maribel Vasquez

President Santos Calderón / Photo credit: Agência Brasil, Creative Commons

President Santos Calderón / Photo credit: Agência Brasil, Creative Commons License

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has yet to announce whether he will seek a second four-year term in May, but with the November deadline fast approaching for him to declare his candidacy, many Colombians are expressing dissatisfaction with his performance. Three years after taking office, and after a protracted honeymoon period, Santos’s approval ratings dropped to a dismal 21 percent several weeks ago. (A more recent poll surged to 41 percent but the rollercoaster ride appears likely to continue.) Colombia has experienced a wave of strikes and protests – perhaps reflecting a phenomenon evident from Brazil to Chile to Peru by which popular sentiment nosedives despite steady economic growth because much of the population is left out and institutions fail to respond to needs. The Santos administration has governed more democratically than his predecessor and shown greater commitment to the rule of law and accountability. Unlike the Clintonian dictum that “It’s the economy, stupid,” Colombia’s long-standing adage has been that “La economía va bien, el país va mal.”

The stalled peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are also to blame for Santos’s dwindling public support. On October 13th, the 15th round of negotiations concluded in Havana without visible progress towards an agreement. (Talks are set to resume next week.) The agenda has six major points agreed to by both sides: land reform, political participation, disarmament, illicit drugs, rights of the victims, and implementation of an eventual peace accord. To date, agreement has been reached on only land reform and rural development. A number of thorny issues persist, including the FARC’s demand that a constituent assembly be convened to incorporate the peace deals into the country’s constitution – which the government has rejected.  In the latest development, the government also turned down the FARC’s call to have civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson act as mediator in the release of Kevin Scott Sutay, a former U.S. marine abducted by the FARC earlier this year. Criticism of Santos’s handling of the talks is due in part to perennial public concern that the FARC is stalling the peace talks to regroup and rebuild its capabilities.

President Santos has staked his political legacy on ending Latin America’s longest-running armed conflict. Success or failure of the peace talks will define his presidency for many Colombians, and failure to reach an accord would cast a cloud over his political future. While he has talked tough – saying FARC stalling is wearing out the government and the Colombian people’s patience – President Santos appears in every bit of a hurry to see these negotiations come to a conclusion before the end of the year. Former President Alvaro Uribe and his loyalists in the Centro Democrático (CD) have already blasted what they claim is excessive leniency on the President’s part.  Santos is in a bind: if he rushes the peace talks, he risks making too many concessions and playing into the Uribistas’ hand, while canceling the talks would strip him of the desired distinction of being Colombia’s peace president. The easy road to reelection – effective conclusion of the peace process and greater responsiveness to the country’s widespread malaise – seems remote.  A strong opposition candidate has yet to emerge, however, giving Santos time to rebuild public support. CD frontrunner Francisco Santos’s recent threat to leave the party hints at a split within Uribismo.  The failure of an organized opposition may be the only advantage Santos has at the moment.

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by clalsstaff on October 24, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 24, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/10/24/colombia-president-santoss-challenges/

Argentina’s Mid-term Elections: The Beginning of the End for Cristina?

By Santiago Anria and Federico Fuchs *

Cristina Fernández mural Photo credit: CateIncBA / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Cristina Fernández mural Photo credit: CateIncBA / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Rising inflation, loss of confidence by the private sector, and lack of access to international credit markets make victory in Argentina’s mid-term elections on October 27 especially important for President Cristina Fernández – or else she will face the prospect of two years as a lame duck.  Her governing Front for Victory (FPV) faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ) seeks to protect its legislative majority.  (Half the seats of the lower chamber and a third of those in the upper chamber are at stake.)  Based on the results of the Open, Simultaneous and Obligatory Primaries (PASO) held on August 11, the FPV appears likely to lose some seats but still maintain a slight majority, considering that a number of the seats in dispute in the lower chamber correspond to districts in which it fared poorly in the 2009 elections.  Before her unexpected surgery last week, Fernández had been central to the electoral campaign, hand-picking and endorsing Lomas de Zamora Mayor Martín Insaurralde as the first deputy on the FPV’s list.  According to some surveys, previous adjustments to her communications strategy increased her approval ratings, and with her recovery from surgery expected to take a month, there is speculation that the FPV may win some additional “sympathy” votes.

The PASO primaries showed that the FPV lost in key electoral districts, including the city of Buenos Aires, and the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Mendoza, but that it continues to be the only political force with national reach.  The opposition remains fragmented, but Sergio Massa, a former government ally and current mayor of Tigre (elected on the FPV ticket), has emerged as the key opponent in Buenos Aires province and as a likely presidential candidate for the 2015 elections.  He may challenge Daniel Scioli, who is the current governor of Buenos Aires and is, at least until now, backed by Fernández as her potential successor despite resistance from some factions within the FPV).  Massa’s Frente Renovador still has limited territorial reach, but he enjoys the support of the mainstream media, a branch of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the Church and, perhaps most importantly, a prominent group of mayors in Buenos Aires province.  He is trying to capture a more centrist vote, promising the “end of confrontational politics” and focusing on what he claims are the “real issues” affecting Argentines – corruption, citizen security and crime prevention, and inflation.

The results of the upcoming elections will define the options for the Fernández administration.  If the FPV fails to keep a solid majority in Congress, the issue of constitutional reform that would allow for reelection will be off the table, and Fernández will not be able to run for a third term.  In policy terms, negative results will increase pressure for economic adjustment and pro-business policies. Fernández and her predecessor, deceased husband Néstor Kirchner, have both proven their capacity to revamp their administrations after electoral defeat by defying such pressures and raising the stakes. But with defeat in the polls, and with a diminished force in Congress, it will be harder for her to maintain party discipline as the prospects for 2015 grow bleaker.  A lot also depends on how the opposition fares: a clear winner among them (most likely Massa) will become a clear challenger for 2015 and probably put even greater limits on any government strategy, whereas a still atomized opposition may give Fernández more leeway. The task ahead for the FPV will be to define and support a presidential candidate that can continue the Kirchnerista project. Performing well in the congressional elections will give Fernández more room to define this, or to at least block non-desired candidates.  We may be witnessing the beginning of the end for Cristina, but it is not clear whether any of the opposition candidates can force her to steer the Kirchnerista project in a new direction.  Not even the most plausible contender in the opposition (Massa) or the most likely successor in the FPV (Scioli) seems to have any meaningful change to offer. If both of them represent anything, it is Peronism’s ability to adapt in adverse times to stay in power. But that is nothing new in the history of Peronism.

* Santiago Anria and Federico Fuchs are graduate students in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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by clalsstaff on October 15, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 15, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/10/15/argentinas-mid-term-elections-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-cristina/

Honduras Elections: Serious Challenges Ahead

Honduras coat of arms / public domain

Honduras coat of arms / public domain

Honduras faces an enormous challenge in the next two months:  ensuring that elections in November – when Hondurans go to the polls to elect their next president, 128 National Assembly deputies, and municipal authorities – are clean and transparent.  The elections are especially important because they are the first conducted outside the framework of the coup of 2009.  The elections that year, held five months after the coup, were conducted under the black cloud of the break in constitutional order and gave rise to the transition government headed by President Porfirio Lobo.  This year, nine parties are participating – a clear signal that the country’s traditional two-party system is ending.  The Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), with a base among supporters of ousted President Mel Zelaya, has nominated his wife, Xiomara Castro, as its Presidential candidate, and the Anticorruption Party, led by sports journalist Salvador Nasrala, represent a true challenge to the traditional political elite.

All of the polls give the edge to Xiomara Castro, with a lead ranging anywhere from two to eight percentage points, over the candidate of the National Party, Juan Orlando Hernández, who is President of the Congress.  The polls also show that a majority of the population, having witnessed multiple accusations of fraud during the primaries held by the two traditional parties (including Hernández’s), expect the elections to be marred by fraud.  Casting further doubt on the credibility of the outcome is the narrow representation of the parties and lack of professionalism of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which is charged with organizing and supervising the elections.  Only the three traditional parties have representatives serving on the TSE and, unlike in other countries, they are distinguished as militants of their parties rather than independents or experts in electoral processes.

Should the results of the election not be seen as legitimate, the potential for conflict is worrisome, and there are ample grounds for concern that the security forces that have proliferated under the Lobo government could be deployed to suppress protest.  Only strong international pressure and strong citizen pressure can guarantee that the elections will be clean and open the possibility for Honduras to overcome the political crisis that has now been damaging the country for several years. 

A number of events – including the firing of Supreme Court justices last December and the National Congress’s intervention in matters far outside its jurisdiction – underscore the continuing tendency toward authoritarian and illegal actions to suit ambitious politicians’ pursuit of power, with potentially dire consequences for the elections. An ongoing economic crisis, including a nearly 50 percent unemployment rate, and a serious deterioration of government finances, also contributes to political fragility. Against this backdrop, the United States and the rest of the international community can play a positive role in promoting elections that are fair and impartial and taking proactive measures to ensure that security forces ill-suited to managing social unrest not be deployed to suppress political dissent.  Failing to do so would waste an opportunity to help effect a truly democratic outcome in Honduras, and invite a further deterioration of a political, economic and social climate that is the most worrisome in Central America.

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by clalsstaff on September 19, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 19, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/09/19/honduras-elections-serious-challenges-ahead/

Chilean Watershed?

 

Michelle Bachelet / Photo credit: OEA - OAS / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Michelle Bachelet / Photo credit: OEA – OAS / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Sunday’s presidential primaries in Chile – the country’s first ever –reaffirmed former President Michelle Bachelet’s leadership of Concertación and cleared the way for a faceoff in November between herself and the Conservative candidate, Economy Minister Pablo Longueira.  Bachelet trounced challengers within her center-left coalition, winning 74 percent of the primary vote, and seems poised to build on the astounding 81 percent approval rating she had in 2010 when her first term ended.  (Current President Sebastián Piñera’s approval rating now hovers around 40 percent, a two-year high for him.)  Conservative Longueira will have the advantage of Piñera’s incumbency, but his party’s somewhat weaker performance on Sunday – with about 27 percent of all votes cast – and his slim 3 percent margin within the coalition suggest a tough campaign ahead for him.  Most observers deem Longueira’s performance in Piñera’s cabinet to have been competent but unexciting, and they predict an easy Bachelet victory in November.

Whichever candidate wins, Chile faces an evolving set of challenges.  Its commodities-driven economy is slowing down, and a stubborn gap between rich and poor is fueling demands for tax and education reforms.  Chile is ranked the most unequal country of the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  Widespread demonstrations by students, teachers and professors have been demanding free tuition from preschool through university, and key labor unions are increasingly joining these mobilizations for reform.  Accepting her primary victory on Sunday night, Bachelet said voters were motivated by a desire for tax and education reform as well as a new constitution to replace the one created under dictator Pinochet in 1980.  She has also said that if elected she will halt the controversial HydroAysén project, which would build five mega-dams on two of Chilean Patagonia’s rivers.  Despite this rhetorical shift leftward and her role as the leader of the Socialist Party, such statements are not expected to lead to significant policy shifts; Chilean observers say she will continue to hew closely to the market-friendly policies that helped make Chile one of the region’s most stable countries during her first term.

Bachelet’s and Longueira’s competition may fail to excite the electorate in November, when voting will not be obligatory for the first time, and low turnout could deprive the victor of the mandate needed to lead thorough change, an arguable requisite  to increase the credibility of democratic institutions.  Empowered by two years of protests, student leaders are not leaving things entirely up to political elites.  Many are also running for office and aspire to bring a new perspective and direction to reforms in Chile.  International attention has focused in recent weeks on popular mobilizations in Brazil, but as recently as last week, tens of thousands of Chileans marched through the streets of Santiago and other major cities, challenging the credibility of the existing political order.  Bachelet has made deals with some of the protest leaders – agreeing, for example, not to run a Concertación candidate against one of them in a congressional race – but their demands are unremitting and strategic, and the winner of the upcoming election faces  a real challenge in trying to satisfy them. 

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by clalsstaff on July 2, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 2, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/07/02/chilean-watershed/

Brazil Protests: Amorphous Causes, Unpredictable Consequences

By Matthew M. Taylor

Protestors in Brazil / Photo credit: Izaias Buson / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Protestors in Brazil / Photo credit: Izaias Buson / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians hit the streets of a dozen state capitals this past week.  The initial trigger was a proposed hike in São Paulo bus fares, already among the world’s most expensive, but news media soon reported that the protests reflected anger with the rising cost of living, crime, corruption, impunity, and the high costs of hosting the World Cup. Lackluster public services haven’t helped, and widely televised police violence last week provided another rallying cry.  Polling by Datafolha shows that the protest is a middle class phenomenon, with 77 percent of the marchers in São Paulo claiming a university degree.  This growing demographic group is turning against President Dilma Roussef’s Worker’s Party (PT) but it is also weary of the opposition PSDB, especially in São Paulo state.

So far, the protests have been difficult for political parties to harness for their own ends.  Partisans who showed up at the marches on Monday waving party flags were reportedly forced to pull them down by indignant protestors.  Dilma’s popularity has been falling – she was recently booed at the opening match of the Confederations Cup – but the marchers don’t seem collectively exercised about her policies or those of any single party or politician.  Aecio Neves, Marina Silva and Eduardo Paes, her potential opponents in elections scheduled for late 2014, have yet to capitalize on her vulnerabilities, as the protestors seem to be casting “a pox on all their houses.”  An outside candidacy is a rising possibility, but Brazilians have been wary of supposed political saviors after the rapid rise and fall of Fernando Collor in 1990‑92.  Anger is directed at the political class as a whole because it is incapable of responding to public disgust with Brazil’s unsatisfactory public services.

It is quite possible that the protests may peter out on their own, especially if the renewed violence seen in São Paulo on Tuesday night alienates supporters.  If the protests continue and remain peaceful, they may result in increased social solidarity and a shared sense of patriotism in the face of an unsatisfactory political system.  Something similar happened during other mass protests in the past, especially the Diretas Já marches of 1985.  A renewed consensus in favor of a more robust and effective democracy would be salutary, but the concrete results arising from the protestors’ demands are difficult to predict.  One thing to be sure of: withdrawing the proposed bus fare increase proposal is too little, too late.

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by clalsstaff on June 20, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 20, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/06/20/brazil-protests-amorphous-causes-unpredictable-consequences/

Venezuela Update: Confusion in Caracas…and Washington

Photo credit: INTERNATIONAL REALTOR / Foter.com / CC BY

Photo credit: INTERNATIONAL REALTOR | Foter.com | CC-BY

Three weeks after elections to choose Hugo Chávez’s successor, confusion still reigns in both Caracas and Washington.  The Venezuelan opposition has rejected the results of the election, which the electoral tribunal says Chávez’s handpicked man – Nicolás Maduro – won by only 1.8 percent.  Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles originally asked only for a vote recount – considered reasonable by many because of the narrow margin – but his lawyers upped the ante on 2 May when they officially demanded that the vote be invalidated and new elections be held.  Isolated incidents of political violence turned up the heat in Caracas, although the Götterdämmerung scenarios in the streets that some analysts predicted have not yet materialized.

Every major country of the hemisphere has recognized Maduro as President – except the United States.  (Canada wavered at first but seems to have moved on.)  Washington has invested millions of dollars in “democracy promotion” programs over the years and has provided Capriles and the opposition enduring political support in their efforts to beat Chávez at the polls and later to beat Maduro as his hand-picked successor.  Since the April election, the U.S. government has endorsed the opposition’s call for a vote recount.  So has the OAS, which offered experts to assist in the process.  But only Washington has said that while it is “working with” the Maduro Government, it doesn’t recognize its legitimacy.  The State Department spokesman dodged the issue repeatedly last week, and in an interview with Univisión broadcast at the conclusion of his visit to Mexico last Friday, President Obama himself refused to say whether his Administration officially recognized Maduro as President.  He left little doubt as to his real position, however, when he said that basic principles of human rights, democracy, press freedom and freedom of assembly were not observed in Venezuela following the election.

As AULABLOG pointed out on 23 April, the irony of the United States demanding a hand-count of the ballots is not lost on millions of Latin Americans who remember Washington’s performance in the 2000 Bush-Gore vote – and that it was a politically divided Supreme Court that made the final decision.  The tightness of the vote, Venezuelan electoral realities (past and present), and President Maduro’s over-the-top rhetoric – last week he again accused Washington of backing “neo-Nazis” allegedly trying to overthrow his government and accused a filmmaker of being a spy – make it hard for observers to argue that the elections are legitimate.  President Obama’s statements, including his remark that the spying charge was “ridiculous,” have been measured and continue a noteworthy shift since the near-hysteria about Venezuela during the Bush Administration.  But the fact remains that the U.S. Government’s posture on Venezuela – perhaps unique in its bilateral relations with Latin America since the Cold War – has made it once again the outrider and, among people who remember the Bush-Gore decision, the butt of many jokes.  Importantly, Capriles may be reading Washington’s stance as an endorsement of his own increasingly puzzling demands.  As our 23 April post suggested, Capriles ought to see himself as having a historic chance to lead, poised to challenge Chavismo easily at the polls the next time around.  Yet, like Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2006, he may be squandering an opportunity to present himself to the Venezuelan electorate as the responsible grownup in the room.

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by clalsstaff on May 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in United States, Venezuela
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 6, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/05/06/venezuela-update-confusion-in-caracasand-washington/

Chavismo Wins a Battle But the Tide May Have Turned

By Eric Hershberg

Inauguration of Nicolás Maduro | Photo credit: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Inauguration of Nicolás Maduro | Photo credit: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

President Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration last Friday marked a new stage in the contest between chavistas and the Venezuelan opposition.  Maduro’s surprisingly weak showing at the polls – winning by a meager 1.8 percent margin despite the huge (and abused) advantages of incumbency – plus tensions within his party and his own rhetorical excesses, suggest that chavismo without Chávez confronts challenging odds.  Chávez attracted more votes alive than he could in death, as his hand-picked successor could not match his patron’s appeal at the ballot box.  Looking forward, Maduro and the Partido Unido Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV) will be judged on the basis of their performance.  The road ahead will not be easy for Maduro, as the government  confronts growing economic and security problems, and his ineffective campaign may energize potential competitors from within Chavismo.

Henrique Capriles’s strong showing in the election bodes well for the opposition.  However, athough Maduro’s blanket reference to them as “fascists” is absurd, their apparent eagerness to use the vote recount – reluctantly agreed to by the electoral council hours before Maduro’s inauguration – to remove him from office could breathe life into his allegation that the opposition consists of  golpistas obsessed with taking power.  Overreaching could be their undoing, as it has been in the past.

Latin American presidents, through a UNASUR statement of support and participation in the inauguration, have endorsed Maduro’s ascendance to the Presidency.  Their strong interest, for a variety of reasons, is in a balance between continuity and change in Venezuela. Although there are signs that both Chile and Colombia wavered momentarily, South American governments overall were united in their preference for a chavista government, as this would favor both  internal and regional stability.The United States, on the other hand, has appeared timid.  Maduro’s accusations of U.S. attacks on him and the presence of Iranian leader Ahmadinejad at the inauguration made it impossible for Washington to send a senior emissary to the swearing-in.  Yet the evident absence of the United States, even after the UNASUR endorsement, was petty.  Through statements calling for a recount of 100 percent of the votes both the State Department and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations came across as unable to outgrow a grudge match with Chávez or to grasp that the American position would isolate Washington once again from prevailing sentiment in South America.

There were two winners in the Venezuelan election:  Maduro, who is now the elected President, and Capriles, who managed to secure nearly half the votes in the face of overwhelming odds.  The latter comes out ahead in the long run, but only if he manages his cards wisely.  Washington, meanwhile, seems still not to understand two things:  First, after Bush v. Gore, it will be at least another generation until Americans can say anything about how to count votes.  It was legitimate and appropriate for the OAS to demand a recount, as its record in election monitoring is impeccable.  Secretary General Insulza achieved the core objective of the Organization and should be recognized for having done so.  For the American government to have taken the position that it did suggests an inability to understand the consequences of the 2000 election in Florida for its credibility in election-related issues in the region.  Second, democratic change in Latin America is typically an evolutionary process.  This may be less satisfying to some policymakers who would prefer to see a foe’s outright defeat, but it may be better, for Chavismo’s enemies in both Washington and Caracas, than having their favorite step in at this particular time of high tensions.  If Capriles and his coalition can brand themselves as democratic reformists rather than golpistas, they have a good chance of coming to power when Maduro’s six-year term is exhausted, or even before, and if they convey a message of responsible opposition, key South American governments might well approve of an alternation in power the next time around.

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by clalsstaff on April 23, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in South America, Venezuela
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Posted by clalsstaff on April 23, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/04/23/chavismo-wins-a-battle-but-the-tide-may-have-turned/

The Overlooked Dimension of U.S. Immigration Reform

By Eric Hershberg

Immigration reform rally | by Anuska Sampedro | Flickr | Creative Commons

Immigration reform rally | by Anuska Sampedro | Flickr | Creative Commons

The 2012 U.S. presidential elections brought national attention to the Latino vote and, with it, immigration reform.  Embarking on his second term, President Obama immediately labeled the matter a priority, and some but not all of the Republican leadership is eager to reach a deal.  Beyond electoral calculations, there are many good reasons for Washington to finally resolve the status of roughly 11 million people living in the United States without legal documentation.  The border with Mexico has become increasingly impermeable, stripping critics of reform of one of their principal talking points.  Virtually all credible studies demonstrate that immigrants contribute more to the tax base than they receive from public expenditures, and they are a crucial source of community revitalization in some of the nation’s depressed cities and towns.  Meanwhile, a generation of youth brought to the country as young children – the “Dreamers” – languishes without recognition of their de facto status as Americans.  There are also humanitarian issues: families and neighborhoods are torn apart by the more than 400,000 deportations in each of the past several years.

Immigration reform matters to Latin America as well.  With millions of Latin Americans residing in the United States, several of the region’s economies are highly dependent on a steady flow of remittances, which are destined to increase if undocumented workers come out of the shadows.  In 2012, Mexico and Central America received more than $35 billion from migrants in the U.S.  Particularly striking is the case of El Salvador, a U.S. ally.  Nearly a third of its population lives in the U.S., and remittances surpass all other sources of revenue – now 16 percent of GDP.  For several Central American governments the welfare of migrants working in the U.S. is not only a humanitarian concern: these citizens are a crucial foundation for economic viability – and thus nothing less than a national security priority.

Yet remarkably absent from the U.S. immigration debate are the implications of a comprehensive reform for the eroded credibility of the U.S. in Latin America.  Virtually alone among senior officials, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged soon before leaving her post that creating a pathway to citizenship “will be a huge benefit to us in the region, not just in Mexico, but further south.”  The point merits emphasis.  The failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform, the result of domestic policy shortcomings, has serious consequences for U.S. standing in the region – as serious as other policy failures such as Washington’s continued inability to normalize relations with Cuba, to stop illicit gun exports, or to stem the demand for illicit drugs that is fueling violence and corruption across the region.  If the new administration wishes to avoid a replay of the open rebellion by Latin American governments against U.S. policy that emerged at last year’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, it would do well to show the region that it is willing and able to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

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by clalsstaff on March 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 4, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/03/04/the-overlooked-dimension-of-u-s-immigration-reform/

Correa’s Second Term

By Rob Albro, CLALS Faculty Affiliate

President Rafael Correa, Ecuador | by: "el quinto infierno" | Flickr | Creative Commons

President Rafael Correa, Ecuador | by: “el quinto infierno” | Flickr | Creative Commons

Little drama accompanied results of the February 17 election in Ecuador, where center-left incumbent Rafael Correa retained the presidency by a wide margin. Correa enjoys the highest approval rating – nearly 80% late last year – of any Latin American head of state. He will be the first Ecuadoran president to complete his term since 1996, and his resounding victory at the polls will in principle keep him in office until 2017. Most pre-election polls had projected Correa to win decisively, and he did just that with 56.7% of the popular vote. The opposition is fractured, with seven different candidates running against him. His nearest rival, banker Guillermo Lasso, garnered only 23.3% of the vote. A testament to Correa’s dominance is that the right-leaning Lasso offered a vision little different from the president’s own policies and even adopted key elements of Correa’s discourse. The title of Lasso’s recent book, Another Ecuador is Possible, references the World Social Forum.

Correa’s political base was consolidated during the anti-neoliberal protests of 2005, and his “citizen’s revolution” represents an unorthodox combination of nationalist populism, robust social welfare spending and rhetorical flourishes in defense of Ecuador’s national sovereignty. Correa’s social spending – increasing the health budget, minimum wage, pensions, and access to medical care; offering micro-credit and free school lunches; providing new housing and anti-poverty subsidies –is highly popular, especially with the urban poor. These programs, dependent upon a commodity-led export strategy, have enabled Correa to marginalize once important political actors of the left and right. Organized labor and indigenous movements on the left, like economic and media elites on the right, have picked fights with Correa, objecting to his authoritarian style, attacks on the press, petroleum policies in the Amazon, poor record on crime, and outbursts directed toward foreign investors. But this has made little dent in his popularity.

If Correa is certain to face resistance to his agenda in his new term, the political fragmentation and lack of dramatic choices evident during the campaign suggest that it will not necessarily be effective.  Despite potential fiscal headwinds, redistributive social welfare policies are likely to continue to expand. Questions do remain: regular social investment has been enabled by ramping up an extraction-based economy dependent on oil, which has also generated some social conflict.  But there is mounting evidence that aside from being popular these policies are also measurably successful. Ecuador’s election comes on the heels of Venezuela’s, where opposition candidates also found it necessary to tout redistributive policies. If the economy turns south, a splintered opposition might find common cause. But as in a number of other South American countries, the redistributive politics of an incipient social welfare state will inform the agenda of Correa’s eventual successor. The long-term management of these policies, and whether the President will seek to alter the Constitution to permit indefinite re-election, are matters that could prove vexing during the coming years.

1 Comment
by clalsstaff on February 18, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Ecuador
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Posted by clalsstaff on February 18, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/02/18/correas-second-term/

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