Weekly Report - 02 March 2023 (WR-23-09)

Mexico’s Zócalo was bathed in pink on 26 February as a huge crowd of protesters gathered in the central square in Mexico City (CDMX) to protest against the election reform initiative pushed through congress days earlier by the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.... Read More

The threat of impeachment is once again hanging over Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, after a legislative commission formed to investigate alleged corruption in his government recommended the launch of formal impeachment proceedings on 1 March.... Read More

President Gustavo Petro’s divisive health reform bill has exposed ominous cracks in both his cabinet and his legislative alliance [WR-23-07].... Read More

COLOMBIA | Viva Air grounds fleet.... Read More

At the worst point last week, it looked as if Haddad was coming under fire simultaneously from business and from within the so-called ‘political wing’ of the Lula administration.... Read More

With open, simultaneous, and obligatory primary elections (Paso) due in August, both rival coalitions have been seeking some form of prior internal political deal allowing them... Read More

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The decision by Guatemala’s electoral authority (TSE) ahead of general elections on 25 June to exclude the presidential candidacy of Thelma Cabrera, of the opposition left-wing indigenous Movimiento para la Liberación de los Pueblos (MLP) [WR-23-05], has stirred up controversy and sparked protests.... Read More

Panama’s migration authority (INM) recently suspended bus services that transfer migrants from the Darién Gap, a dense jungle bordering Colombia through which unprecedented numbers of migrants have risked their lives over the last few years, to the north of the country.... Read More

Cuba has suffered four major power cuts in the last two weeks, serving to again highlight the precarious energy situation facing the island state whose entire grid was knocked out by Hurricane Ian in late September [WR-22-41].... Read More

President Chandrikapersad Santokhi began a dialogue process with various civil society groups this week in an attempt to defuse social and political tensions that erupted on 17 February when protesters burst into the national assembly building [WR-23-08] in Paramaribo, before going on the rampage and looting stores in the Surinamese capital.... Read More

“[Mexico’s President Andrés López Obrador] used the [national electoral institute] INE and democracy to come to power and now he wants to kill it to prevent alternation of power.”... Read More