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Development: On 6 April President Evo Morales swore in María Cecilia Chacón to replace Rubén Saavedra Soto as Bolivia's defence minister. Soto was reassigned to head up the newly created Dirección Nacional de Reivindicación Marítima (DNRM), a committee set up to put together Bolivia's legal case against Chile in its claim for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

Significance: Chacón is Bolivia's first female defence minister and her appointment has been hailed as a major step forward for gender equity, even though there have been plenty of female defence ministers in the region. Though Morales pledged a commitment to gender parity, announcing a "fifty-fifty" cabinet upon taking office for the second time in January 2010, he was criticised for failing to assign any of the significant portfolios (defence, interior, foreign affairs or economy) to women.

Key points:

• Chacón is a lawyer, who has held various posts in the government (notably in the foreign affairs and water ministries). She was hailed as an "intelligent choice" by a range of actors including Marcelo Antezana, a former head of the military and current senator for the opposition Plan Progreso para Bolivia-Convergencia Nacional (PPB-CN).

• Chacón said her main challenge is the modernization of the armed forces. The 2009 constitution broadened the role of the military. The key change allows it to assist in police roles, such as combating drug-trafficking and smuggling. 

Development: On 6 April Ollanta Humala, the front-running presidential candidate ahead of the first round of the Peruvian general elections on 10 April, admitted that he had Brazilian campaign advisers.

Significance: This had long been rumoured. Humala enthusiasts claim that the Brazilian advice has been to move Humala's policies towards the centre so that he appears more like El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes, who also drew on Brazilian political advice, than Humala's old ally, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Humala has also drawn on Brazil's former leftist president Lula da Silva, with a "letter to the Peruvian people", echoing Lula ahead of his first election victory in 2002. Humala's critics claim that the Brazilian link means that Humala will promote the major hydro-electric dams which Brazil wants in Peru's Amazonia.

Key points:

• Despite being the most left-wing and radical of the five main candidates, Humala has spent most on his campaign according to official figures from the Onpe, the election regulator. To 31 March 2011, he spent NS$8.1m (US$2.9m), of which N$6.2m has gone on TV advertising. The second placed candidate (according to most opinion polls), Keiko Fujimori, has spent a total of N$6.3m, of which N$4.5m has gone on TV advertising.

• The Brazilian advisers have encouraged Humala to wear conventional clothes, such as a white shirt, rather than the red Chavista-style shirt he sported in 2006 when he was defeated in the second round of the presidential election. This year's second round is scheduled for 5 June.   

• The Brazilian advisers are interesting in themselves. Luis Favre was born Felipe Belisario Wermus in Buenos Aires and began his political life as a Trotskyist. He married Marta Suplicy, a prominent Brazilian politician (and once former President Lula da Silva's tourism minister) but they separated in 2009. Another of Humala's advisers is Valdemir Garreta, who is close to a major Brazilian construction company, Odebrecht. His business partner, in FX Comunicações, is Marcelo Parada, who was a prominent Brazilian political journalist.  Another Brazilian, João Santana, has also apparently advised Humala on strategy. Santana worked on the campaigns for Lula in 2006 and his successor Dilma Rousseff in 2010.