Latin American Weekly Report

Last week, Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri had been on the brink of a humiliating defeat over an opposition bill proposing changes to the ‘impuesto a las ganancias’ payroll tax.

President Nicolás Maduro has taken on a new role – Saint Nicholas – assuring Venezuelan children that he will personally ensure that their toys are delivered on time this year.

Argentina’s federal security ministry is taking the first steps towards President Mauricio Macri’s utopian objective of delivering a country “free from drug trafficking”.

The passing of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro was announced many times during his life, only to be refuted, often by a photo of him clutching a dated copy of the Communist party mouthpiece Granma.

Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet tried to take the heat off her beleaguered government this week by questioning the fact, that while serving as president, her predecessor Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014) bought shares in a Peruvian fishing company, Exalmar.

Colombia might soon emerge from what President Juan Manuel Santos has described as “a dangerous and risky limbo”.

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections creates significant uncertainty for Latin American governments but above all it poses major diplomatic and domestic policy challenges for the Mexican government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

In the final round of Brazil’s municipal elections, left-leaning parties were roundly defeated by their right-wing rivals.

Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet and her Nueva Mayoría coalition government suffered a major setback in municipal elections on 23 October.

Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has suffered a political setback as a corruption scandal has forced him to sack Carlos Moreno, his healthcare adviser, and dented his popularity ratings.

Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015) has launched her political comeback.

Colombia faces a period of acute political and economic uncertainty after a wafer-thin majority of voters rejected the peace accord with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) on 2 October.

“Welcome to democracy.” With these words Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos shook hands with the maximum leader of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), ‘Timochenko’ (Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri), after both men signed the final peace accord with a ‘balígrafo’ (a pen crafted from a bullet) during a ceremony in Cartagena de Indias on 26 September attended by the great and the good.

The prize for which Venezuela’s late former president Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) strove so hard could soon be taken away from the country.

Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is in China for his first official foreign visit this week as he seeks to attract investment to drive national development and economic growth.

It is sometimes claimed that a typical six-year Mexican presidency can be broken down into three periods of two years each.

Brazil’s political environment is febrile and bitterly polarised in the aftermath of the impeachment of the suspended president Dilma Rousseff this week.

“The day has come; we can finally say that everything is agreed,” Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos celebrated in an emotional televised address on 24 August.

There is a risk that the Mexican state of Jalisco could imminently be engulfed in violence.

As widely expected, Venezuela’s national electoral council (CNE) has put the kybosh on opposition hopes of a presidential recall referendum this year.

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has swept away the last vestige of opposition to his government and consolidated his ironclad grip on power.

Brazil received a belated boost ahead of the country’s staging of the Olympic Games with three separate developments in the space of two days reducing concern about the impact of the Zika virus on visitors and indeed participating athletes.

Peru’s president-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who takes office on 28 July, has announced his ministerial team.

Political parties in Brazil are often less expressions of shared ideologies than clubs for the promotion of self-interest.

The heads of state of the four full member countries of the Pacific Alliance trade bloc promised on 1 July to strive towards more inclusive growth and greater financial integration without repeating the mistakes that led to Brexit.

At first blush the impact on Latin America of the decision by voters in the United Kingdom (UK) to leave the European Union (EU) in a referendum on 23 June would seem to be small.

The end of the world’s longest running armed conflict is within sight.

Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto and the federally ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) have come out fighting in the wake of the worst set of results in the party’s history in gubernatorial, state legislative and municipal elections on 5 June.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski will become Peru’s 95th president on 28 July after defeating Keiko Fujimori by 50.1%-49.9% in the closest electoral contest in the country’s history.

The island of Hispaniola is undergoing strikingly different electoral processes.

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa delivered his final state-of-the-nation address to the national assembly on 24 May after nine years in government.

While some in the Venezuelan opposition like to disparage President Nicolás Maduro as ‘the bus driver’ and mock his awkward efforts to ape the ways of his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), Maduro, or at least those around him, learned one lesson well from the comandante: always to stay one step ahead of the enemy.

In a marathon session that started at 10AM on 11 May and finished just before 7AM the following day, Brazil’s federal senate voted by 55-22 in favour of initiating impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri had it all carefully planned out.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos reached out beyond his ruling Unidad Nacional coalition this week to forge a “post-conflict cabinet” that features members of almost all of the country’s parties across the political divide.

During the vote to impeach Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff on 17 April, Joaquim Barbosa, the lead supreme court justice in the prosecution of the mensalão cash-for-votes scandal and one of the few elder statesmen to enjoy support from across the country’s political divide, voiced the thoughts of many when he wrote on Twitter: “It’s enough to make one weep for shame.” Regardless of the eventual outcome of the impeachment process, the spectacle of Brazil’s 513 federal congressional deputies casting their votes aloud in an atmosphere akin to a stand full of drunken football supporters will linger long in the collective memory and alienate yet further many Brazilians sceptical of the efficacy of their democracy.

The battle for second in Peru’s presidential elections on 10 April was as closely contested as opinion polls suggested it would be.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos greeted the news that his government will soon be thrashing out a peace accord with the country’s second guerrilla group, Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), as confirmation that a definitive post-conflict settlement is within sight.

From the moment Air Force One touched down in Havana’s international airport and US President Barack Obama and his family disembarked into the rain to the sight of a greeting party in which Cuba’s President Raúl Castro was notoriously absent, the two heads of state vied to gain the upper hand.

El Salvador’s President Salvador Sánchez Cerén announced unprecedented action this week to combat the country’s mara street gangs.

Peru’s presidential electoral campaign is descending into farce.

Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of Brazil’s federal lower chamber of congress, is to become the first defendant in a supreme court trial of those accused in ‘Operation Car Wash’, the investigation into corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras.

After nearly a decade in power, an end date to the mandate of President Evo Morales, Bolivia’s longest-serving president, is finally in sight.

Pope Francis conducted a six-day tour of Mexico from 12 to 17 February, with an itinerary specifically designed to focus on the most persistent and pernicious problems facing the country: drug-trafficking and violence; poverty and marginalisation; and power and corruption.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos has received a massive vote of confidence from his US peer Barack Obama in his pursuit of a peace accord with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).

It is crunch time for Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri.

El Salvador’s health ministry has advised couples to avoid conceiving children over the next two years.

“A gigantic step towards the end of the war.” This was the reaction of Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos to an accord struck in Cuba with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) on 19 January over international verification of a bilateral ceasefire and disarmament of the guerrilla group.

“Mission accomplished: we have him.

Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri might have refrained from direct criticism of his predecessor Cristina Fernández during his inaugural speech on 10 December but his actions since then speak louder than words.