President Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party won more than two-thirds of the votes in El Salvador’s February 28 legislative elections. The consolidation of power puts democratic processes and counterbalances to the country’s executive branch at risk.
Among the first critical tests of the Biden administration will be the November 2021 presidential elections in Honduras and Nicaragua. Both countries are facing difficult elections mired by corruption, authoritarianism, and weak oppositions.
After the Centro Democrático party sought to interfere in the United States presidential elections, there have been further efforts to interject themselves into the domestic politics of other countries including Peru, Argentina, and now Ecuador.
While this democratic crisis unfolds, the Haitian people also find themselves in a humanitarian crisis. Schools have closed not just due to COVID-19, but to safeguard students and teachers from rampant violent crimes and kidnappings. In addition, 40 percent of the population is food insecure.
Prior governments have failed to make Suriname’s economic system more efficient and publicly accountable. The new administration not only needs to resolve the current financial crisis, but rebuild national and international economic partnerships, regain the public’s trust in key institutions, and fight corruption.
Data from the AmericasBarometer survey shows that Latin Americans’ faith in the U.S. government and democracy has declined while their trust in the Chinese government has risen along with regional concern over insecurity and corruption.
Repression and fraud by the Maduro regime made this month’s electoral defeat all but inevitable. But, sitting out the next elections will only make the situation worse.
A more nuanced understanding of Latino voters in South Florida could provide the new administration with the opportunity to recalibrate U.S.-Latin American policy.
System dynamics involves the representation and analysis of chains of causal relationships between physical, political, social, and commercial interactions that may help to understand how a number of complex forces will affect Latin America during 2021.
Brazil’s “fake news” bill aims to create transparency on social media and private messaging apps to combat the rampant spread of disinformation that influenced the 2018 and 2020 elections, but carries its own risks to freedom of speech.
