In the second of a two part series, Orlando J. Pérez looks at popular protests over corruption in Guatemala’s neighbors, El Salvador and Honduras. He argues that CICIG’s recent successes in Guatemala are precisely why it will never be adopted in El Salvador and Honduras.
The landlocked, Southern Cone country is experiencing the same, if not worse, corruption scandals, social protests, approaching economic stagnation, and rising levels of violence widely reported on as just about every country of Latin America and the Caribbean. So why isn’t anyone paying attention?
Part one of a two-part series, Doctor Perez here looks at the events leading up to the September 6 elections, their implications for the second-round presidential elections and the potential for long-term institutional reform (difficult). The second post will examine the political situation boiling in Guatemala’s neighbors, Honduras and El Salvador.
Brazil’s president is facing protests from both the left and the right, with an approval rating of only 8 percent. The protests are calling for impeachment based on charges of rampant corruption, but politically that isn’t likely to happen. Why? Impeachment requires a two-thirds majority vote from both Houses: unlikely to happen when politicians from all of the major parties are facing corruption charges themselves.
Los resultados de las elecciones primarias, abiertas, simultáneas y obligatorias (PASO) que se realizaron el 9 de agosto en la Argentina, dejaron al candidato único del oficialismo, Daniel Scioli, unos puntos por debajo de las aspiraciones de triunfar luego en la primera vuelta del próximo 25 de octubre. En dos meses la política argentina puede producir muchas novedades. Pero lo que está claro es que el escenario para la primera vuelta presidencial en este momento está abierto.
August marks the beginning in a decisive stage in Venezuela’s electoral process and, quite likely, the future of elections in the polarized country. Three scenarios seem the most likely, with only one of them remotely positive for the country’s vitiated democracy.
Across the hemisphere a majority of citizens support a greater role for the armed forces in domestic security—with over 80 percent of citizens in El Salvador, Honduras and Ecuador supporting the militarization of police duties. The policy, though, comes with huge risks. It also has not worked.
Donald Trump was right on one thing: corruption in Mexico and Latin America is unbelievable. As the series of scandals from Chile to Brazil to Mexico have revealed, the region still has a corruption problem that not only reduces the effectiveness of government but also increases the economic insecurity of its citizens. And those citizens are fed up.
El malestar del gobierno argentino con el poder judicial no es novedad. Desde 2013, cuando impulsó un paquete de leyes con el supuesto objetivo de “democratizar la justicia”, la relación entre el poder ejecutivo y los jueces se ha tensado de manera incesante.
Now that President Nicolás Maduro has fixed the date of the legislative elections, the Venezuelan opposition has a real opportunity to capitalize on the country’s severe economic problems and the government’s low disapproval ratings. The successes of opposition parties in Chile offer a lesson for Venezuelan opposition leaders. Here’s a three-step plan.
