Weekly Report - 09 February 2023 (WR-23-06)

The left-wing party of Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), Revolución Ciudadana (RC), which carries his initials, excelled in provincial and municipal elections staged on 5 February.... Read More

Unveiling the national development plan intended to guide government policy for the remainder of his four-year term, President Gustavo Petro said on 6 February that it would “break the inertia” in Colombian politics and enable him to “govern with social movements, with the people, to bind the cabinet to the territories”.... Read More

Embroiled in a long-running spat with the Catholic Church, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has reached out to evangelical Christian leaders with a government programme to restore the country’s churches.... Read More

Anyone reading the Brazilian media this last week might conclude that an open battle has been in progress, pitting newly elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against the head of the central bank, Roberto Campos Neto.... Read More

On 6 February a court in Dolores, in the province of Buenos Aires, handed down life sentences for five young amateur rugby players found guilty of kicking to death the young son of Paraguayan immigrants outside a night club in the seaside resort of Villa Gesell three years ago.... Read More

Wildfires are sweeping across Chile’s tinder-dry south-central region, destroying forests over an estimated area of 293,000 hectares, killing at least 24 people, and prompting the government to declare a state of emergency.... Read More

Paraguay’s former president Horacio Cartes (2013-2018) has responded to US sanctions on him and companies that he owns or controls by announcing his intention to “cease all shareholding participation, direct or indirect”, according to his lawyer.... Read More

BRAZIL | Eletrobras privatisation.... Read More

The trial of Mexico’s former top public security official Genaro García Luna has entered its third week.... Read More

Representatives from the three branches of Mexico’s government attended an event on 5 February to commemorate the 106th anniversary of the promulgation of the country’s constitution.... Read More

El Salvador’s investigative media publication El Faro has joined other critics of President Nayib Bukele in recognising the significant impact of the state of emergency, in place since March 2022, in dismantling gang structures in the country.... Read More

Honduras’s President Xiomara Castro recently has marked her first year in office for the leftist Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre).... Read More

The clock is rapidly ticking down on the possibility of presidential and congressional elections being brought forward to 2023.... Read More

“Mr Lasso, you have fulfilled your whimsy of seeing your portrait hanging in the presidential palace, but you must now understand that for the good of the country and for yourself, you are part of the problem, not the solution.”... Read More