Weekly Report - 18 March 2021 (WR-21-11)

Bolivia’s prevailing political polarisation deepened dramatically this week and could spill over into violence.... Read More

The door slammed shut on the electoral prospects of Yaku Pérez on 14 March.... Read More

All the signs are that Venezuela is beginning to experience a damaging second wave of coronavirus (Covid-19) infections.... Read More

As the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic reaches new heights in Brazil, and with political pressure growing, President Jair Bolsonaro has moved to replace the current health minister, serving army general Eduardo Pazuello, with a doctor.... Read More

Despite the success of Chile’s vaccination programme, a new wave of coronavirus (Covid-19) cases is again threatening to overrun the public health system, just as the authorities are organising complex combined local and constituent assembly elections on 11 April.... Read More

Argentina has a new justice minister.... Read More

BRAZIL | Fiscal reform paves way for new round of pandemic aid.... Read More

With the support of the Mexican government, US President Joe Biden has set out to humanise the treatment of Central American migrants travelling overland to try and enter the US.... Read More

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has come out with all guns blazing in defence of his electricity sector reforms, which look to be at the centre of a potentially protracted constitutional battle.... Read More

Claims by Ana Paola Hall, the president of Honduras’s national electoral council (CNE), that the 14 March presidential primaries would be the “most transparent, free and fair electoral process of the last 12 years” are starting to ring somewhat hollow.... Read More

Paraguay’s ruling Asociación Nacional Republicana-Partido Colorado (ANR-PC) gave short shrift to an impeachment motion against President Mario Abdo Benítez and Vice President Hugo Velázquez presented in the lower chamber of congress by opposition parties on 17 March. ... Read More

“The government is accelerating towards an autocratic model similar to Venezuela’s… [it is using] the notion of a false and inexistent ‘coup’ to pursue manipulated criminal proceedings against the main leaders of the opposition.”... Read More