Weekly Report - 14 April 2022 (WR-22-15)

The results from Mexico’s presidential recall referendum are in and, unsurprisingly, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador comfortably came out on top.... Read More

One of the few universal truths of politics is that citing Nazi Germany as an aspirational model is unlikely to go down well.... Read More

President Iván Duque’s administration is continuing to suffer the fallout from a deadly military operation carried out in the southern department of Putumayo on 28 March, with Defence Minister Diego Molano Aponte facing mounting pressure to resign over what has been variously dubbed a “massacre,” a “war crime,” or, in a clumsy defence by the army’s top commander Eduardo Zapateiro Altamiranda, “not the first operation in which pregnant women and children have died”.... Read More

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso moved a step closer towards his goal of a free trade agreement (FTA) with China on 7 April, when the autonomous foreign trade committee (Comex) gave his administration the go-ahead to commence negotiations.... Read More

ECUADOR | Referendum on investment bill.... Read More

Two inveterate rivals will compete on the same ticket in Brazil’s presidential elections in October.... Read More

Around 8,000 indigenous Brazilians have been mobilised in the capital Brasília for the past 10 days as part of the annual Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL) indigenous mobilisation.... Read More

The Argentine government has managed to seal a series of deals with Bolivia, Brazil, and Chile designed to avert gas shortages as the Southern hemisphere winter approaches.... Read More

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric completed one month in power on 11 April, acknowledging that it had been a rough ride so far.... Read More

BRAZIL | New Petrobras leadership to be approved.... Read More

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has come under fire this week from the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, local journalist associations, international human rights organisations, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for changes to the penal code that threaten to criminalise freedom of expression and lead to censorship.... Read More

President Daniel Ortega’s efforts to stamp out all dissent continued this week with the arrest of a Nicaraguan musician and three producers in the space of 24 hours, while another Italian singer is going to be deported by the authorities.... Read More

Delivering the first quarterly report of his fourth year in office, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had harsh words for those planning to vote against his government’s constitutional electricity reform when it is presented to the lower chamber of congress on 17 April.... Read More

“Only an indomitable, unwavering democrat like him can subject himself to a recall process.”... Read More