All Categories

Development: The Ecuadorean government summoned Colombia's ambassador to Quito, Carlos Holguí­n, on 21 October to complain about his comments regarding the presence of leaders of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) in Ecuador.

Significance: The long-standing row between Colombia and Ecuador over whether or not the Farc crosses into Ecuador was reignited by Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe on 20 October the day after a terrorist attack in Bogotá. Uribe accused the Farc's spokesman, Raúl Reyes, of hiding in Ecuador. The next day Holguí­n backed up Uribe's comments, saying that Colombian authorities had intelligence suggesting Reyes was hiding in “Ecuadorean jungles".

Ecuador's foreign minister, Francisco Carrión, strongly rejected the comments of Uribe and Holguí­n. Carrión demanded an explanation from the ambassador and told Holguí­n to convey the Ecuadorean government's displeasure at the incident, which might have far-reaching consequences in Ecuador given the current political situation.

On 26 November voters will head to the polls for the second round of the presidential election to choose between rightwing candidate Alvaro Noboa and the leftwing Rafael Correa, who have taken markedly different lines towards Colombia and the Farc. Noboa has shown himself to be far mnore keen to cooperate with Colombia over detaining members of the Farc than Correa.

Development: President Evo Morales broke the opposition boycott of the senate on 28 November to get his land reform proposal and the new gas contracts with 12 foreign companies approved.

Significance: The opposition will be furious at the government's success. When one opposition senator learnt of the session he burst into the senate, he smashed some windows and kicked in a door, in an effort to curtail the session. The surprise approval by the senate came when two suplentes (replacements who can, the president of the senate ruled, be summoned to meetings when elected senators are boycotting senate sessions) turned up to the session, at 8pm local time, and thus made the senate quorate. The opposition claims that the government bribed the politicians, with US$100,000 each, to turn up. President Morales denied this: “We have not paid; we have dignity and honour."

Once the session was underway, the 14 senators (12 from the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo plus the two suplentes) in the 27 seat chamber quickly approved the articles of the land reform bill before moving on to approving 44 new oil contracts with 12 foreign oil companies. All the legislation was promulgated by President Morales by midnight: today Morales leaves for Nigeria before dropping in on Cuba for President Fidel Castro's delayed 80th birthday celebration. 

Most of the land involved in the reform is in the lush east of the country where large commercial farms predominate. The reforms allow the government to expropriate “unproductive land" and caps the growth of medium-sized and big farms farms.

Development: Manfred Reyes Villa, the prefect of Cochabamba, sought sanctuary in the eastern city of Santa Cruz on 13 January.

Significance: Reyes Villa claimed that, following the confrontation between his supporters and those of the central government, which left two dead on 11 January, it was now too dangerous for him to return to Cochabamba. Reyes Villa is lodging with Bolivia's senior churchman, the cardinal archbishop of Santa Cruz, Julio Terrazas, who is mediating in the Cochabamba crisis. Terrazas's homily on 14 January seemed to be aimed at his houseguest: the cardinal said that he was shocked by the racist nature of the confrontations in Cochabamba. Reyes Villa and his supporters want to align Cochabamba, which straddles the country's main economic arteries, with the four whiter, and secessionist-minded, departments in the east of the country: Reyes Villa's opponents want Cochabamba to remain subservient to the indigenous-dominated central government in La Paz. 

The government's supporters, led by the coca-growers, say that they will not leave Cochabamba until Reyes Villa has gone. The government's supporters did, however, lift their roadblocks which had sealed off the city's land communications for most of last week. 

Reyes Villa is already making concessions. He said on 13 January that he would drop his idea of holding a referendum on autonomy. It was this initiative, announced on 4 January, which triggered the unrest in Cochabamba. Reyes Villa wanted a fresh referendum in Cochabamba to reverse the decision taken in the nationwide referendum held last July in which Cochabamba voted heavily (63%: 37%) against increased autonomy for the state. Only in the four secession-minded eastern departments (Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija) was there a significant majority in the referendum in favour of increased autonomy. Exactly what the easterners mean by “increased autonomy" is far from clear, but the westerners fear that the easterners want to split the country. If Cochabamba, which links the Andean highlands to the fertile (and gas rich eastern lowlands), sides with the secessionists, the westerners would be unable to keep the country together. The other reason the westerners want the result of July referendum to remain definitive is that five of the country's nine departments voted against increased autonomy: if Cochabamba defects, the autonomists will then speak for a majority of departments. 

President Evo Morales has also made a couple of interesting moves. On 12 January, he said that he would send a bill to congress that would allow recall referenda on presidents, departmental prefects and mayors. This would open the way to a political solution to the problem in Cochabamba. A recall referendum would either confirm Reyes Villa, elected in December 2005, in his post or eject him. 

The other interesting point about the recall referendum proposal is that it demonstrates that President Morales is braced for the failure of the constituent assembly to change the constitution. He now believes that he can use congress, even though he does not have a majority in the senate, to make major changes to the country's constitutional arrangements. 

Morales's Movimiento al Socialismo is making its final effort to get the constituent assembly to function this week. The assembly has been meeting in Sucre since August but has made no progress. This week the MAS says that it will call on the 21 committees of constituent assembly members to start coming up with constitutional amendments. If the opposition members of these committees fail to turn up, the MAS said that committees will carry on. The MAS has a majority, but not a two-thirds majority, of the 255 seats in the constituent assembly. The opposition claims that constitutional changes can only be made by a two-thirds majority.

Development: The attempted assassination of a federal deputy in Tamaulipas on 19 February shows that the security situation is not improving despite the government's much-hyped offensives against the drug trade.

Significance: President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and his government clearly feel that there can be no turning back and they must defeat the drug gangs to restore law and order to large tracts of Mexico. President Calderón was filmed on 19 February at an army base in central Mexico, flanked by the defence minister General Guillermo Galván Galván, and the navy minister, Admiral Francisco Saynez Mendoza as he reviewed troops on what was Army Day in Mexico. The government is sending 3,300 troops into the states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas in the latest phase of the war against the drug gangs. Somewhat surprisingly, Calderón wore a suit for the review. This is a change from when he launched the offensives against the drug trade in Michoacán on 6 December: then Calderón donned military fatigues. 

The attempted assassination at around 7pm of Horacio Garza, a federal deputy from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas on 19 February underlined how grim the law and order situation is in the border state. Garza's driver was killed and Garza himself is in intensive care in hospital after their car was riddled with machine gun fire as it travelled to the airport. Garza has twice been mayor of the violent border town of Nuevo Laredo (1993 to 1995 and 1991 to 2001). 

The attack on Garza was not the only grim news for the government. In Michoacán, where the anti-drugs offensives began, four members of a dance band were murdered early on 18 February. 

The other problem the government faces is that its offensives are pushing the drug trade into areas which had previously been reasonably peaceful. On 19 February, the governor of Aguascalientes, Luis Armando Reynoso Femat, said that the gangs had been building up their operations in the state. Last week four state policemen were gunned down by a gang. Reynoso Femat, from Calderón's Partido Acción Nacional, refused to concede that the battle with the drug gangs was lost, though he did admit that they had got stronger in recent years.

Development: President Leonel Fernández confirmed on 25 March that he will run for re-election next year.  

Significance: Although Fernández's intention to run for the presidency again in 2008 was expected, he had yet to make it public. Last month Fernández's Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD) accepted his pre-candidacy, which was put forward by his closest allies. Fernández is currently serving his second (non-consecutive) term as president of the Dominican Republic; his first was from 1996 to 2000.

In a speech to some 10,000 supporters, Fernández defended his decision to run again in order to “represent the democratic-liberal movement in the Dominican Republic". He went out of his way to defend his prospective re-election, citing democratic leaders who ruled their countries for two consecutive mandates. Fernández's PLD was against the constitutional changes of 2002 that allowed the consecutive re-election of a president.  

Significantly, many within the PLD still hold this same opinion and it did not come as a surprise that Fernández asked his party to remain “united" behind him. The PLD's nomination will be decided in an internal contest next May. According to opinion polls, Fernández is by far the favourite among the PLD's members. His contenders are his former chief-of-staff, Danilo Medina, and a senator, José Tomás Pérez.

Development: The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez , hosted the fifth presidential summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Alba) on the weekend of 27-29 April. 

Significance: Alba is Chávez 's response to the US-sponsored, and now defunct, Free Trade Agreement for the Americas. The Alba concept was designed with the assistance of the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro. Apart from Venezuela and Cuba, the governments of Bolivia and Nicaragua are also signatories. A high level delegation from Ecuador, which is expected to join the group, was also present. So was René Préval, the Haitian President, and delegations from other Caribbean countries, including one from Haiti's neighbour, the Dominican Republic. 

The most important outcome from the meeting was Chávez 's promise to finance the Alba by guaranteeing the supply of 100% of fuel needs of Alba members as well as Haiti. The scheme is similar to the Venezuela-sponsored Petrocaribe, which supplies subsidised oil to the region, but with more advantageous terms. In practice, Venezuela and its oil company, Pdvsa, will provide cheap loans to Alba countries and Haiti to buy Venezuelan oil. In this way Chávez hopes to tighten his grip in these countries. 

Chávez also announced that he plans to sell Venezuelan-owned oil refineries in the US and build new networks in Alba countries and in Haiti. He also invited Alba countries to explore heavy oil in the Orinoco River basin, which is said to contain more oil than Saudi Arabia, by joining a transnational Alba oil company. On 1 May the Venezuelan government will take majority control of operations of foreign companies in the region. Chávez offered either a minority partnership to these companies or compensation, albeit not full compensation. 

Chávez also proposed to issue a US$1bn “Alba bond" in Venezuela to finance social projects in member countries and in Haiti. The most important political gesture, however, has been the signatory countries' criticism of the US in the summit's final declaration. The final declaration condemns the US's decision to free Luis Posada Carriles from prison a fortnight ago. Posada Carriles is accused of planning the bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner heading for Venezuela in 1976, killing all 73 people on board. He was also involved in other terrorist plots in Central America, which led Préval to suggest another reprimand to the US for keeping in custody five Cuban men who worked to contain Posada Carriles's operations. Venezuela asked for Posada Carriles to be extradited.

Development: The federal police arrested 77 people on 4 June in connection with an illegal gambling ring.

Significance: The new operation is linked with another investigation over illegal gambling, which also led the federal police to arrest several people in April. A supreme court judge, Paulo Medina, was implicated in the scheme but avoided arrest. In the latest operation the police arrested lawyers, businessmen, civilian and military police, as well as former congressmen from both opposition and allied parties. They are all accused, like the suspects arrested in April, of “facilitating illegal gambling activities in exchange for bribes".

The federal police said it started its operation with an investigation into smuggled slot machines. In the end, it uncovered a corruption scheme as well as cases of drugs trafficking and torture. According to the police, the illegal gambling scheme was worth R$250,000 (US$130,000) daily. Brazilian politicians, however, seem adamantly against gambling. One of the main reasons behind their opposition to it is the fact that illegal gambling bankers finance electoral campaigns.

The police arrested Dario Morelli Filho, the environment secretary of Diadema, a town in the metropolitan region of São Paulo and the birthplace of the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores. The police also searched the home of Genival “Vavá" da Silva, President Lula da Silva's brother, in the neighbouring town of São Bernardo do Campo. Vavá was not arrested but the police took files and a computer to be scrutinised. He is accused of using his relationship with Lula to lobby for illegal gambling. This is not the first time Vavá has caused problems: just over a year ago he was forced to close down his office after being caught on tape promising to use his “influence" with Lula to advance business with the federal government.

Development: Primary elections held nationwide on 8 July passed off without incident but attracted a disappointing turnout.

Significance: The primaries were an important indicator for the security situation ahead of local elections on 28 October. One of President Alvaro Uribe's most important claims is that his security policies have allowed Colombians to take part in free and fair elections since he came to power but the outlook ahead of the local elections is not promising. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia remain active while re-formed paramilitary groups are a growing threat.

According to General Orlando Páez , operations chief for the national police, the primaries passed off without incident in the 26 departments where they were held (Colombia has 32 departments in total). Almost 4,000 potential candidates took part in the election. However, turnout was very low and one candidate was killed the day before voting took place: Antonio Colorado Martí­nez, who was running for re-election as a councillor for the rightwing Cambio Radical was shot dead in the municipality of Sevilla in Valle del Cauca.

The most important primary took place in Bogotá. Samuel Moreno defeated Marí­a Emma Mejí­a the race to run for mayor in October on behalf of the Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA). The PDA's Lucho Garzón is the present mayor of the capital but Moreno, a former senator, is an outside shot to succeed his stable mate: Enrique Peñalosa of the Partido Liberal is the clear favourite to win October's vote.

Development: An approval rating published by a private consultancy, CERC, on 7 August showed President Michelle Bachelet's approval rating at 51%, unchanged from a similar poll in April.

Significance: It is a major surprise that support for Bachelet has not slipped, although it should be noted that her disapproval rating has risen from 38% in April to 41% in the latest poll. The government has suffered from the failure of the Transantiago, the high-profile project which has expensively failed to improve transport in the capital.

The survey showed that the Transantiago is no longer Chileans' top concern. The number of respondents who condemned the transport project fell from 45% to 23% over the three months. Carlos Huneeus, the head of CERC, said that this decline was not because people were warming to the Transantiago, but because other issues had become more important, such as Chile's "shameful disparities of wealth".

Development: The profits made by Venezuela's state oil company, Pdvsa, fell by US$1.03bn last year, according to the company's annual report published on 11 September.

Significance: The annual report revealed the Pdvsa's contribution to the government has increased considerably, adding to its expenses. Last year the company's sales reached US$99.2bn, up from US$82.9bn in 2005. Pdvsa's expenses, meanwhile, rose to US$78.5bn last year, from US$64.9bn in 2005. The figures were audited by an independent company, Alcaraz Cabrera Vázquez.

Last year Pdvsa disbursed US$11.9bn to fund social programmes carried out by the Venezuelan government, both at home and abroad. This figure is part of the US$39.2bn the company handed to the government through different dealings. The company has also invested US$5.8bn to boost its operations, especially with regards to natural gas.

Pdvsa claims it produced an average of 3.2m barrels of oil per day last year, 2.3m of which were produced solely by the company and the rest in joint ventures with foreign companies. According to the report, this volume "honours the pledge made by Venezuela to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), which promotes the rational use of hydrocarbons". Opec is under pressure to increase production to supply increasing demand without inflating prices. Venezuela, together with Iran, are against this.

Development: The ailing Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, participated live in the weekly broadcast of his pal, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, on 14 October.

Significance: Fidel's participation in Chávez 's weekly broadcast Alô, Presidente was the first time Cuban's heard their leader live for over 15 months - ever since he handed day-to-day power to his younger brother, Raúl. Chávez decided to make a special broadcast directly from Cuba, in a special programme to pay homage to Che Guevara, the legendary leftwing guerrilla killed in Bolivia forty years ago. The programme, however, was also carefully staged to end rumours that Fidel was dead. Indeed, during the live participation Fidel said he could see Chávez though the TV "moving your left hand".

Before the two men talked on the phone, producers showed a short video clip of their four-hour meeting on 13 October. Fidel seemed lucid, albeit very frail. In the telephone conversation with Chávez , however, Fidel revealed his usual wit, laughing at jokes about the US President, George W Bush. Fidel also paid homage to Che and said that Chávez "was fighting" to keep Che's ideals alive in Latin America. Fidel and Che fought side-by-side during the Cuban Revolution in the 1959 and Che served in the Cuban government once Fidel took power before deciding he wanted to keep spreading the revolution - a decision that took him to meet his end in Bolivia in 1967.

Development: The National Environmental Agency (Anam) gave the green light for the Panama Canal's expansion project on 13 November.

Significance: Anam's approval was based on a series of environmental-impact assessments, more than 20 of which have been carried out in the past five years. Anam analysed both the project and a plan for the management of the surrounding environment.

In order to receive the green light from Anam the Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP) had to accept ecological responsibility for the canal's surrounding area, including paying compensation for any damage to the environment. The ACP will have to take measures to prevent risks to animal life, including the rescue and relocation of species. It will also have to carry out a reforestation plan in the areas affected by the expansion works, a programme that envisages the planting of trees in more than 1,000 hectares around the country.

The ACP accepted all the responsibilities set out by the Anam. The canal extension project started in September and is expected to take seven years to conclude. The project was fiercely opposed by the environmental lobby, although many argued that it was necessary to avert the construction of other waterways in Central America to take the increase in maritime traffic.

COSTA RICA: Exports are forecast to surpass the US$9bn mark and foreign direct investment to reach US$1.7bn this year, both record figures.

Development: On 30 January 45 senior officers in the Rí­o de Janeiro military police handed in their resignation.

Significance: The military police is holding the state government to ransom just as Carnaval is about to get underway. The officers' demands are threefold: that the ten senior officers sacked by security secretary José Mariano Beltrame this week be reinstated; that Beltrame himself be fired, and that wages for the police force be increased. It was this latter demand that sparked the crisis in Rí­o's military police in the first place: Beltrame sacked Commander General of the force, Colonel Ubiratan Angelo, for allowing officers to march in protest on Ipanema beach on 27 January.

The protests were over poor pay and working conditions; in many cases officers work overtime and are not properly equipped. A senior member of the military police, Colonel Paulo Ricardo Paúl, recently fuelled the controversy by publicly stating that low salaries make officers vulnerable to corruption and are the reason why some have turned to crime.

The governor of Rí­o de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral, has been quick to pledge his support for Beltrame and appears unruffled by the resignations, even though millions of tourists from Brazil and abroad are currently bearing down on Rí­o. Beltrame was adamant that "Carnaval will go ahead, and the military police will be in the streets".

The security secretary's confidence may be well-placed: at an emergency meeting last night, the military police softened its demands towards the government and endorsed the force's new leadership, on the condition that it continue to press for higher wages. Notwithstanding, more demonstrations are planned to take place on Copacabana beach on 1 February.

Who is Adolfo Zaldí­var? He is former president of the Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC) and currently an independent senator.

Why watch him? Zaldí­var was expelled from the PDC immediately after Christmas and is favourite to become the next leader of Senate this month.

Born: Santiago, Chile.

Date of Birth: 13 September 1943.

Educated: A law graduate from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Public life: Nicknamed "El colorí­n" by the local press, Adolfo Zaldí­var is the younger brother of former interior minister, Andrés. He joined the PDC in 1957 and led the student party movement followed by the PDC lawyers association until 1980.
Co-founder of the Chilean Human Rights Commission, Zaldí­var presided over the Forum for Chilean-Argentine political integration from 1985 to 1989 and was elected senator in December 1993. He became president of the PDC in 2002 although he lost the party leadership to Soledad Alvear. He then became one of the main critics of his own party and the ruling coalition, Concertación which, as well as the PDC also comprises the Partido por la Democracia, Partido Radical and Partido Socialista. After siding with opposition and voting against the government's financing proposal for Transantiago, the transport initative, he was expelled from the party in December last year. Since his departure from the PDC, Zaldí­var has struck a formal agreement with the rightwing opposition bloc, Alianza - comprising the Renovación Nacional (RN) and the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) whereby he may become president of the senate in March.

Time line:

1958: Joins the PDC
1965: President of the PDC university students' party
1973-1980: Leader of the PDC lawyers group
1985-1989: President of the Forum for Chilean-Argentine political integration
1983-1990: National adviser consejero to the PDC.
1993: Elected senator
2002-2006: President of the PDC.
December 2007: Expelled from the PDC.

Strengths: Zaldí­var is an established figure in Chilean politics and his influence was most recently shown after his expulsion from the PDC; five PDC deputies resigned as a result followed by numerous party activists and one regional party president. His departure caused serious problems for the PDC at it resulted in the loss of the ruling coalition's majority in both houses of congress. As an independent senator Zaldí­var is in a strong position given the unpopularity of both the Concertación - in part due to the fiasco over the Transantiago - and rival Alianza; a survey conducted at the end of last year showed their approval ratings at 23.5% and 24% respectively while disapproval was at 57.1% and 54% respectively.

Weaknesses: Legislators from the Concertación have accused Zaldí­var of simply making a power grab and threatening the stability of congress with his pact with the Alianza. He also received a minor embarrassment as his brother, Andrés Zaldí­var and his daughter, Ana Marí­a, refused to follow him out of the PDC.

Prospects: The deal struck between the Alianza and Zaldí­var and his followers involves sharing the leadership position in the upper chamber over the next two years. This month (11 March) the presidency will go to an independent. There are three candidates Zaldí­var, Carlos Cantero and Fernando Flores (with Zaldí­var the likeliest choice) and the vice presidency to someone from either the UDI or RN. In 2009 the roles will be reversed. Zaldí­var has the backing of the UDI leader Hernán Larraí­n and influential RN senator Sergio Romero. In the less immediate future, the PDC dissidents are sounding out a possible alliance with the Partido Regionalista de los Independientes (PRI) to contest October's municipal elections. The PRI formed in July 2006 after two parties with powerbases in the far north and far south of Chile fused. Talks are revolving around a common agenda including decentralising power and modifying the binomial electoral system, a proportional representation system which favours the main parties and makes it difficult for small parties to win seats in congress.

Development: On 7 April the public security minister promised that the troops and marines fighting drug gangsters would be back in their barracks by 2009.

Significance: The security minister, Genaro Garcí­a Luna, was careful not to say that the government expected to be able to declare victory over the drug gangs. Next year is an election year, with mid-term elections for both houses of congress. Law and order is top of most Mexicans' concerns. The ruling Partido Acción Nacional would get a boost if the government was able to withdraw troops from the streets. Troops are currently deployed in 11 states across the country.

Garcí­a Luna said that by next year he expected the police to be ready to do what the army was now doing. The government has been deploying the army against gangsters since it took office at the end of 2006. In most deployments the army stepped in while the local authorities purged the state police forces which had often become part of the drug gangs.

The army's deployment, however, has not had much effect on the murder rate: so far this year over 850 people have been killed by gangsters. The most recent deployment was on 27 March when the federal government sent 2,100 soldiers and 400 federal policemen into Chihuahua where about 100 people a month are being killed by gangsters.

Garcí­a Luna said that the police should be properly trained to take over from the army by the end of this year after a reorganisation of the police. He was speaking after opening the federal police's new building housing its intelligence operations. This, he said, would be the central hub of the new national police operation and would preside over the flow of information between the public security services and the judicial investigators and prosecutors. He noted that the criminal intelligence computer already had almost 300m incidents recorded on its database ranging from criminal records to car thefts.

Development: On 13 May the Cochabamba prefect, Manfred Reyes Villa, an opponent of President Evo Morales, criticised the main national opposition party Podemos over its decision to sanction the recall vote.

Significance: Reyes Villa's annoyance points to potential divisions in the right between the political opposition and the opposition prefects. Reyes Villa is unhappy over the fact that the opposition-led senate had failed to consult the prefects over its surprise decision to approve the recall vote last week.

The plebiscite - which could either confirm Morales and the nine departmental prefects in office or remove them - was signed into law yesterday (12 May) by the President and is in line with an initiative he proposed last December which puts him at an advantage. The law states that to be removed from office, the vote against each candidate would have to surpass both the number of votes received in 2005 and their percentage score. This means that it will be more difficult to eject Morales - who won the election with almost 54% of the vote - than the prefects, none of whom achieved 50% in 2005. Reyes Villas along with La Paz governor, José Luis Paredes are the most vulnerable.

Meanwhile four opposition prefects refused to attend a meeting on 12 May called by Morales to discuss the political crisis citing the lack of an agenda and government's refusal to allow the Church to mediate. Reyes Villa and Paredes, however, turned up.

Development: On 17 June a teachers union organized a demonstration involving 1,500 people in the Plaza de Armas - the square in front of La Moneda (the government headquarters) - against the new education bill that is currently being debated in the lower chamber of Congress.

Significance: Local authorities in Santiago claim that 70% of teachers have been on strike since 16 June. However, the minister of education, Mónica Jiménez, denied this was the case, acknowledging that only 30% of teachers agreed with the strike.

“The minister is out of orbit. How is there not going to be a crisis if there are schools that have been without classes for more than a month?" asked Jaime Gajardo, president of the teachers' union. The teachers oppose the bill because it still retains some aspects of the current education law created under Pinochet's dictatorship.

Jiménez had several meeting during the day with the opposition in order to reach an agreement on the bill, since it's them and not the ruling coalition who have majority in Congress. The opposition's main concern is that the way the bill is written might close to the door to mixed public and private financing for schools.

The controversial bill was the result of a special commission created by president Michele Bachelet in 2006 after the long demonstrations led by students which demanded the reform of the current education law.

Development: On 21 July, Bolivia's main union, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) declared a general strike demanding that the government of Evo Morales send its pension reform bill to congress.

Significance: The COB once wielded considerable clout but it is now a shadow of its former self. The COB can, however, still mobilise militants and they could disrupt the country further in the run-up to the recall vote due to take place on 10 August.

The COB is demanding that the retirement age be reduced from 65 to 55; that the government abandon individual retirement accounts and restore a collective fund and; the elimination of the two pension funds administrators (AFPs). One is run by Swiss group, Zurich Financial Services, the other by a Spanish bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

The government wants to kick out the AFPs but favours a mixed system, where workers' individual savings are protected but a collective fund is also established, with both to be administered by an autonomous and decentralised government agency.   Morales, who has accused factions of the COB of being “instruments of US imperialism", claims that the COB proposal is unsustainable and would cost more than US$2.4bn over the next five years.

The government also argues, along with peasant unions such as the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB), that the COB proposal favours workers in proper jobs but ignores those who are self-employed; casual and temporary workers - who account for 80% of the workforce.