LatinNews Daily - 07 January 2021

On 6 January, Ecuador’s electoral disputes tribunal (TCE) dismissed four of the five members of the national electoral council (CNE) after ruling that they had breached electoral law, barely a month before the country’s 7 February general election.

Analysis:

The ruling may provide an unexpected lifeline for aspiring presidential candidate Álvaro Noboa, of right-wing Justicia Social party, who had filed a complaint after the CNE refused to heed an earlier TCE ruling in support of his candidacy. It is not yet clear whether this intervention has come too late for Noboa, with the ballots already being printed and the CNE preparing an appeal, but this affair certainly risks undermining confidence in Ecuador’s electoral process more broadly, with election day fast approaching.

• This hearing had twice been delayed, but TCE judge Ángel Torres finally ruled yesterday that four of the CNE’s five members – including its president, Diana Atamaint, and vice president, Enrique Pita – had “incurred a very serious electoral infraction” by ignoring the 8 December 2020 TCE ruling in support of Noboa’s candidacy. Torres ordered that these officials should be removed from office and fined US$28,000 each, and that the CNE should display the sentence on its website for a period of two months.
• The CNE responded with a statement insisting that “the electoral process will continue, despite attempts to interfere in the general election”, and warning that the ruling “violates democratic stability in Ecuador”. The CNE has committed to appeal against the decision and maintained that the electoral calendar will not be interrupted, with the officials in question set to remain in office until the appeals process is completed.
• Constitutional experts have suggested that the ruling can be appealed before the full TCE, but were clear that there is no court with greater jurisdiction over electoral law. The CNE officials have until 9 January to file an appeal, after which it must be resolved by the TCE within 10 days.
• Noboa and Justicia Social have broadly refrained from commenting while the case is ongoing, but they have been working hard behind the scenes to secure his presidential bid. The head of the human rights treaties subdivision at the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), Ibrahim Salama, published a statement yesterday calling on the Ecuadorean state to guarantee Noboa’s participation in the election, in keeping with the TCE’s earlier ruling.
• However, the ballots started being printed on 5 January, with the official deadline for printing set for today (7 January). Hernán Ulloa, a member of Ecuador’s council of citizen participation and social control (CPCCS), yesterday called on President Lenín Moreno to suspend the printing of ballots until the TCE has reached a final decision – but with an appeal process still to come, it could then prove difficult to circulate ballots around the country in time for 7 February.

Looking Ahead: Regardless of whether or not Noboa joins the 16 names already on the presidential ballot, this affair has undoubtedly stained the reputation of the CNE at a crucial moment and could undermine its authority to arbitrate on any further complications in the electoral process.

* Colombia’s national statistics institute (Dane) has released figures which show that the country saw monthly inflation of 0.38% in December 2020, bringing total annual inflation in 2020 to 1.61%. This represents the lowest figure on record for inflation in Colombia (below the 2.03% registered back in 1955) and falls below the target of 2%-4% set by the country’s central bank (Banrep). Banrep has maintained this target for 2021, voicing optimism that domestic consumption will recover, as Colombia seeks to bounce back from the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

On 6 January, Brazil’s federal health minister Eduardo Pazuello declared that the country is prepared in “financial, organisational, and logistical terms” to execute its national immunisation plan against the coronavirus (Covid-19). 

Analysis:

Pazuello has been coming under growing pressure from state governors and other local-level authorities to present a clear start date and timeline for vaccinations, something which the government’s ‘National Covid-19 Vaccine Operationalisation Plan’, presented with great fanfare on 16 December 2020, does not include. Adding to worries over the government’s lack of preparation are concerns that it has put all of its eggs in one basket, betting solely on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and failed to guarantee a supply of medical equipment such as syringes. Pazuello’s address on national television yesterday, his first since he became health minister, will have done little to allay such concerns.

• “I can assure that all states and municipalities will receive the vaccine in a simultaneous and egalitarian way, proportional to their population”, Pazuello said yesterday, while reaffirming that the vaccine will be free and optional, and refuting concerns that the government has failed to guarantee sufficient stock of vaccines and syringes.
• Pazuello said that Brazil had 354m vaccine doses guaranteed in 2021: 254m doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, to be produced by the Rio de Janeiro-based Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz); and 100m doses of Chinese firm Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine (previously spurned by the federal government), to be produced by the São Paulo-based Instituto Butantan.
• Pazuello added that the health ministry is in discussions with other vaccine providers, including US firms Pfizer and Moderna, Russia’s Gamaleya, and India’s Bharat Biotech.
• No vaccine has yet been licensed in Brazil, however. Shortly after Pazuello’s address, President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree (MP) aimed at speeding up the vaccine-buying process, notably authorising their purchase before they have been licensed by the federal health regulator (Anvisa).

Looking Ahead: Pazuello once again failed to give a vaccination start date, although he insisted that the country is ready to start vaccinating its population in January and said that Brazil would “soon” be exporting vaccines to neighbouring countries.

* The Brazilian government has zeroed the import tax on syringes and needles, effective until 30 June. These products were previously subject to a 16% import tax. This brings the number of products on which import taxes have been temporarily zeroed in the context of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic to 303. The chamber of foreign trade (Camex), responsible for this decision, has also suspended a surcharge (part of anti-dumping measures) on disposable syringes imported from China for the same duration. These measures are part of the government’s efforts to guarantee a supply of syringes and needles as it prepares to vaccinate the population against Covid-19, which have included restricting the export of these products.

On 6 January Haitian opposition figures such as Paul Dénis, a former justice minister, criticised remarks made by Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), in reference to the electoral process which President Jovenel Moïse has announced for this year.

Analysis:

Almagro yesterday tweeted that he had attended a “fruitful” meeting with Haiti’s foreign minister, Claude Joseph, regarding a “comprehensive electoral process in 2021”, which would result in the “peaceful transition of power the following year”. This followed remarks made by President Moïse in his 1 January state of the nation address that elections would take place this year, along with a referendum on the constitution. With legislative elections long overdue, and Moïse’s five-year term set to expire in 2022, the international community has repeatedly called for elections to take place. The opposition, however, is demanding that a transitional government oversee any electoral process, arguing that the deeply unpopular president lacks the legitimacy to preside over elections. Moïse has been ruling by decree for the past year, following the lapse of legislators’ terms after elections failed to take place in October 2019, and the opposition rejects his intention of holding a referendum on the constitution, which is illegal.

• Excerpts from a letter dated 2 January to Almagro and United Nations (UN) Secretary General António Guterres, from leading opposition groups including Organisation du peuple en lutte (OPL); Ayiti an aksyon (AAA); Fusion des sociaux-démocrates; Inité; and Secteur Democratique et Populaire, accuse the OAS and the UN of lending tacit support to President Moise and his contentious plans for the referendum on the constitution.
• In September 2020 Moïse appointed a provisional electoral council (CEP), but this proved controversial due to its representation and mandate, which included organising the referendum on a new constitution. Such was the controversy that the supreme court opted against swearing in the new CEP members, whom Moïse then installed regardless. In October 2020 he named an advisory committee to draw up a new constitution, which on 7 December 2020 said that the first draft would be ready on 26 February.

Looking Ahead: Demands for Moïse to step down and for a transitional government to take over featured in the repeated anti-government protests which took place last year. These look set to continue: speaking on national TV on 5 January, opposition leader André Michel said that the public would again be called upon to “defend the constitution”.

* Costa Rica’s finance ministry has confirmed that formal conversations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will begin on 11 January regarding an agreement for an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to address the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. According to the finance ministry, the conversations will “address policies that the country needs to guarantee the sustainability of its public finances in the medium and long term, and support inclusive and sustainable growth”. In September 2020, Costa Rica’s President Carlos Alvarado presented the government’s first proposal to begin negotiating a US$1.75bn three-year financial assistance programme with the IMF. However, this proved hugely contentious due to the inclusion of proposed tax rises. After nationwide protests, the government was forced to rescind this proposal and come up with alternatives. In its latest (1 December 2020) report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecast that Costa Rica’s GDP would contract by 5.6% in 2020. The OECD noted that this contraction has led to a significant loss of government revenue, exacerbating an “already vulnerable fiscal situation”. It expected the fiscal deficit to widen to around 9.5% GDP in 2020.

On 6 January, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that Mexico’s 2021 health sector budget is insufficient to address the challenges posed by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and urged the government to increase it.

Analysis:

PAHO’s observations raise further concerns that the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is still not doing all that is necessary to overcome the pandemic. The López Obrador administration’s handling of the pandemic has already been heavily criticised by the political opposition and by some local public health experts, who consider it to be highly deficient given the country’s high death toll and infection rate, putting the government under pressure to adjust its approach.

• Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Cristian Morales Fuhrimann, the PAHO representative in Mexico, criticised the government for allocating less than 3% of GDP to the health sector in its 2021 budget. Morales warned that “this may not be enough to tackle the challenges we face… to continue fighting Covid-19, to progress towards universal healthcare provision, and to develop healthcare systems that are resilient against this disease and other pandemics”. Morales urged the government to increase the health budget and to invest in the national health system, to make it more effective and sustainable.
• Morales’s warnings came as Mexico’s health authorities reported that 13,345 new Covid-19 infections and 1,165 deaths had been recorded in the previous 24 hours, the highest daily infection and death figures recorded in Mexico since the start of the pandemic. All of this suggests that the virus continues to spread rapidly in a country that already has the fourth highest Covid-19 death toll in the world (now numbering 129,987). 
• The warnings also came as some Mexican doctors complained that they have yet to be informed when they will be vaccinated against Covid-19. The government launched its vaccination campaign last month, and said that it aimed to vaccinate all 700,000 frontline healthcare workers by the end of January. But official figures show that only 53,185 people have been vaccinated to date.

Looking Ahead: This international criticism increases the pressure on the government to adjust its pandemic strategy. Failure to do so could lead to it being punished by the Mexican electorate in the June midterm federal legislative elections.

* Mexico’s national statistics institute (Inegi) has released new figures which show that 105,135 new cars were sold in the country in December 2020, up from 95,485 in November. The figures also show that December was the month with the highest car sales in 2020, although sales still failed to reach December 2019 levels, when 130,460 new cars were sold. In total, 949,353 new cars were sold in 2020, down 28% on 2019 - indicative of the economic impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. This total figure for car sales in 2020 is the lowest since 2011, when 905,983 cars were sold.

On 6 January, Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera announced yet another series of changes to his cabinet, as two ministers stepped down so as to be able to run as candidates in the 11 April election for the constituent convention which will be tasked with drafting a new constitution.

Analysis:

Ministerial departures had been widely expected this week, as the 11 January deadline to register as a candidate in the election for the constituent convention approaches. Seeking to present lists with well-known names, the parties which form the ruling right-of-centre Chile Vamos coalition had reportedly been putting pressure on their members in government to resign in order to run for the constituent assembly. With yesterday’s announcement coming so soon after the previous cabinet reshuffle – on 18 December 2020 Piñera replaced his defence minister Mario Desbordes and the president of state-run bank Banco Estado Sebastián Sichel – the opposition has, however, seized on the latest ministerial changes as yet a further sign of the Piñera executive’s weakness.

• Putting paid to several days of speculation, Piñera yesterday announced that the secretary general to the presidency (Segpres, responsible for the executive’s relationship with the legislature), Cristián Monckeberg, and the agriculture minister, Antonio Walker, were leaving government. They are expected to register as constituent convention candidates for their respective parties, Renovación Nacional (RN) and Evópoli.   
• Several lower-ranking government officials have also resigned this week for the same reason, including the undersecretaries for childhood, fishing, and mining.
• “We know that some of the ministers and undersecretaries, whose resignations I have accepted, will face electoral challenges related to the constituent convention”, Piñera said during the ceremony marking the cabinet changes yesterday.
• Members of RN and Evópoli welcomed the latest changes, but the reaction from the opposition was unenthusiastic. “This is a government that is very weak, and I think this cabinet reshuffle weakens it even further”, Iván Flores, a deputy for the opposition Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC), said.

Looking Ahead: The Segpres’ number two, Juan José Ossa, has been appointed to replace Monckeberg, while María Emilia Undurraga is the new agriculture minister.

* Uruguay’s President Luis Lacalle Pou has announced that the country’s borders will remain closed for a further 20 days, until 30 January, to stop the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) although this measure will be re-evaluated in 10 days. However, Lacalle Pou said that cultural shows would be permitted with limited capacity, sporting events would resume without live audiences, and departmental authorities would be able to decide whether to permit bars and restaurants to open until 2:00am. This represents an easing of restrictions announced last month to address a rise in infections.