Argentina: Making A Comeback

ARGENTINA

Making A Comeback

Argentina’s center-left Peronists celebrated their return to power Monday after a four-year absence, setting off fears that the country could return to its populist ways, the Associated Press reported.

Election returns released Monday gave Alberto Fernandez enough votes to prevent a run-off against conservative incumbent President Mauricio Macri, and saw a swing back to center-left.

The victory also saw the return of former President Cristina Fernandez – no relation to the president-elect – a politician adored by the poor but feared by big business as vice-president.

There is concern that the Peronists’ victory will scare off investors and bring back Cristina Fernandez’s interventionist policies, which have been blamed for the current economic turmoil.

But analysts doubt that the former president’s policies will be revived as the country is not financially flush enough to freely spend as it did in prior decades.

Meanwhile, the former president, who governed from 2007 to 2015, faces charges of corruption, which she has denied.

Argentina has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, 56 percent annually, while a third of the population lives in poverty, reported the Guardian.

Macri was in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to get a record $56 billion bailout in exchange for austerity measures. Now, the markets will watch how the new president, a critic of the plan, will handle the plan. Many Argentines blame the IMF for creating the conditions that led to the economic collapse at the beginning of the century, the AP reported.

G

Chile-Enough!!!!!!

CHILE

Enough!

Truckers recently joined protests in Chile, calling for an end to highway tolls.

Hundreds of trucks drove slowly down a highway near Santiago, the capital, where protesters have clashed with riot police for weeks. At least 20 people have died in the civil unrest, wrote the Associated Press.

The protest has continued to escalate over the past few weeks despite the violence and the crackdown. On Friday, about a million people crammed the streets of downtown Santiago, NPR said. The city’s mayor, Karla Rubilar, tweeted that the protesters “represent the dream of a new Chile.”

Demonstrations initially broke out after bus and subway fare hikes. But anger over the police crackdown on the protests morphed into general outrage over economic inequality in one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries, reported Reuters. Many protesters told the news agency they struggle to meet the daily costs of living.

President Sebastian Pinera has adopted a conciliatory tone, apologizing for years of ignoring problems and promising reforms to correct them. “It’s true – problems have not occurred in recent days,” he said, according to CNN. “They have been accumulating for decades.”

On Monday, Pinera fired eight ministers in a major reshuffle of his cabinet in order to calm the situation. “We have all heard and understood the message of Chileans…,” he tweeted Saturday announcing the change. “We’re working to form a new team that represents change.”

As Foreign Policy magazine explained, Pinera proposed a 20 percent increase in state pensions, a minimum wage, a moratorium on a planned increase in electricity prices, and pay cuts and term limits for lawmakers. But as protests continued, it seemed clear that Chileans doubted those plans would address their many complaints about transportation, education and other issues.

Meanwhile, curfews and troops on the streets of Santiago remind many Chileans of General Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year-long dictatorship in the country that ended in 1990, reported National Public Radio. Pinochet’s regime imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands.

“It was like a slap in the face for all of us,” said 54-year-old protester Paz Lagos. “This history is still alive and we haven’t forgotten what happened when the military took over the streets. It was a very hard time – many died. We do not want the same thing here.”

Pinochet was arguably the architect of today’s Chilean free-market economy, which is prosperous relative to its neighbors but nonetheless has produced a wide income gap that has angered and frustrated ordinary citizens, the Nation, a left-wing magazine, wrote.

Similar discontent is driving people to the streets in Ecuador, India, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, Fareed Zakaria wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.

Chile’s economy grew at 6 percent in the 1990s and 4 percent in the 2000s, Zakaria explained. In the past five years, though, growth averaged 2 percent. The International Monetary Fund now estimates Latin America’s growth this year will be 0.2 percent, down from a 1.4 percent estimate six months ago. People are working harder and getting less.

At the same time, elites appear more in control of governments in democracies and closed societies than ever, the Guardian observed.

If people feel they can’t get ahead, they’ll slowly lose confidence in society, law and order.

Venezuela: Emergency Exit

VENEZUELA

Emergency Exit

The number of Venezuelans fleeing starvation and spiking crime – in the single largest economic collapse outside of war in almost half a century – is nearing five million, alarming officials who say the refugee influx is straining neighbors’ resources to a breaking point, Reuters reported.

“This is the most severe and fastest-growing refugee migrant crisis in Latin American history, at least recent history,” said Walter Stevens, EU ambassador to the UN in Geneva. “There are estimates also that it could further increase if the situation does not change…”

Formerly wealthy, Venezuela saw a socioeconomic and political crisis begin during President Hugo Chávez’s leadership, one that has escalated under his successor, Nicolás Maduro. The economy collapsed into hyperinflation and mass unemployment, while people struggle with shortages of food and medicines, starvation, disease and crime.

Almost a sixth of the country’s population has fled.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s neighbors are buckling under the strain of coping with hundreds of thousands of refugees, particularly Colombia and Peru, the top two destinations, followed by Chile and Ecuador, which are currently experiencing their own political and socio-economic turmoil.

Chile: The Big Gap

CHILE

The Big Gap

Santiago was paralyzed Monday as protesters hit the streets for the fourth consecutive day, shutting stores, banks, and schools.

The unrest sparked last week by a now suspended metro fare hike has turned into a movement against rising inequality in the Andean nation, and killed at least 11, CNN reported.

The chaos forced conservative President Sebastian Pinera to send soldiers and tanks into the city over the weekend for the first time since 1990, when Chile brought back democracy after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. On Monday, more than 10,500 soldiers and police were deployed.

Pinera condemned the riots saying that the country is “at war against a powerful enemy.”

The protests have exposed the divisions in the nation with many Chileans demanding reforms over the rising cost of public services and the decline in living standards, according to the Washington Post.

Former Chilean president and current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for an investigation into the deaths Monday.

Meanwhile, workers at Chile’s Escondida copper mine – the world’s largest – said that they would hold a strike Tuesday in solidarity with protesters, Reuters reported.

Uruguay: Draconian Set Of Criminal Justice Reforms

URUGUAY

30 Years of Solitude

More than the presidency is at stake in Uruguay on Oct. 27.

In addition to choosing between presidential candidates Daniel Martinez and upstart challenger Luis Lacalle Pou, voters will also cast ballots on a draconian set of criminal reforms.

The mayor of the capital city of Montevideo, Martinez, 62, is leading in the polls, according to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. He is the head of the Broad Front, the party that has controlled the South American country for 15 years.

The Broad Front came to power on a wave of enthusiasm for leftist policies but has avoided the “autocracy or unbridled ambition” of socialist regimes in Venezuela and elsewhere, two Latin American studies scholars argued in the Conversation.

Martinez can’t be too careful, however. Support for the Broad Front, is still significant but has waned in recent years. His chief rival, National Party leader Lacalle Pou, 46, has created plenty of buzz as a popular, young newcomer running a tough campaign amid widespread disappointment with the status quo, Americas Quarterly explained.

Critics accuse the Broad Front of pursuing some progressive policies but failing to deliver on deeper changes that have stalled the Uruguayan economy and allowed society to descend into violence, political theorist Mabel Thwaites Rey said in an interview with the North American Congress on Latin America, a respected journalism group with a left-wing bent.

Homicides grew by nearly half in 2018, to a rate of 11.8 per 100,000 people, the Associated Press reported. The murder rate in the US that year was around five per 100,000 people, the New York Times reported.

Meanwhile, Reuters described the country’s economy as “sluggish.” Mainstream leaders can’t seem to solve the problem, though. And, as the Buenos Aires Times wrote, neighboring Argentina’s economic woes are also playing a big role in fears of a downturn.

In the Oct. 27 election, voters will also consider a proposal that would grant police broad powers to raid suspects’ houses, create a national militia and impose harsh punishments on convicted criminals, like life without parole and 30 years of solitary confinement, for serious crimes.

The official press agency of Cuba, Prensa Latina, covered a march against the law. Demonstrators carried placards reading “Living without fear” to protest what they worried would become an Orwellian police state if the ballot measure passed. Similarly, World Politics Review asked if success for the referendum question would indicate that Uruguay was embracing populist, right-wing policies like Brazil.

If people opt for police raids, they just might get them.

Bolivia: Overstaying His Welcome

BOLIVIA

Overstaying His Welcome

Rain finally extinguished the massive wildfires that burned through almost 10 million acres of the Bolivian rainforest since August, the BBC reported recently.

President Evo Morales isn’t likely to receive a similar respite. Latin America’s longest-serving head of state – he first took office in 2006 – faces his biggest re-election challenge when voters go to the polls Oct. 20.

Critics blasted Morales for letting farmers clear more land in the Amazon region of the South American country, then refusing to declare a national emergency or to seek international aid to combat the fires once they started. Argentina and Chile were willing to help but, as indigenous groups and others protested Morales’ inaction, the president refused to accept their assistance.

The first indigenous leader of Bolivia, Morales is a leftist. But he claimed that asking for foreign help would undercut Bolivia’s sovereignty, the same argument Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro used to snub international help to put out fires in his country, World Politics Review noted.

Morales’ rigid stance on the fires hints at the authoritarianism in his government that concerns many voters.

In a 2016 referendum on whether to allow the president to seek a fourth term in office, a majority of Bolivians voted no. But Morales asked the country’s top constitutional court to overturn the vote. It did, so now he’s on the ballot.

Since then, he hasn’t done much to assuage his critics. The same tribunal that annulled the referendum, for example, recently threatened to sanction a university that published poll results unfavorable to Morales. The poll found that the president would receive only 31 percent of the vote, or less than the 40 percent minimum necessary to avoid a December runoff, reported Reuters.

Morales’ main opponent, Carlos Mesa, a former president, said the court’s decision showed how the president kept government officials on a tight leash that was likely to get tighter if he won a fourth term. “If we continue with Señor Morales as president, we will go from authoritarianism to dictatorship,” Mesa told the Financial Times.

An economic slowdown is also taking the shine off Morales’ image. For much of his tenure, Bolivia has enjoyed annual economic growth of about 4.5 percent, the Associated Press wrote. He’s spent lavishly on infrastructure projects with that extra money, building new roads, schools and stadiums. But the International Monetary Fund recently predicted that growth would slow.

Many Bolivians once supported Morales, whom they viewed as a man of the people. But even such a man can overstay his welcome.

Bail Ordered For Ex-Peruvian President

https://www.sfchronicle.com/world/article/Judge-OKs-bail-for-jailed-former-Peruvian-leader-14510349.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headlines&utm_campaign=sfc_morningfix&sid=53b99920a256ab0848000710#