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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has attended the inauguration event of a new police base in the city of Manaus, the Centro de Cooperação Policial Internacional da Amazônia (CCPI Amazônia). Officially launched on 9 September, the CCPI will be run by Brazilian law enforcement institutions, such as the federal police (PF), and will serve as a base from which federal and state authorities can coordinate operations and share intelligence. Questions remain over how effective this new base will be, but the establishment of the police centre could represent a step in the right direction towards boosting interstate and international coordination in efforts to fight crime in the Amazon.  

In 2023 Lula and other South American leaders pledged to set up a police hub in the Amazon region where Brazilian police and authorities from other countries could collaborate on investigations and share information. This objective was included in the ‘Belém Declaration’ signed at the August 2023 summit of the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization (OTCA), an intergovernmental group comprising Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. In June this year, the CCPI became operational, but it was not until 9 September that Lula held the official event to inaugurate the base.

“One of the perverse consequences of globalisation is the interconnection of criminal groups across national borders,” Lula said. “We are dealing with true multinational corporations of crime.” Lula stated that this is why he is seeking to promote a transnational solution and involve groups such as OTCA and Interpol. The CCPI launch event was attended by Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and Ecuador’s Vice President María José Pinto. Attending by videolink was Valdecy Urquiza, the Brazilian PF officer who is the current secretary general of Interpol. The financing for the base comes from Brazil’s Amazon Fund, a mechanism for investments in rainforest conservation initiatives which takes international donations.

From the Amazon Fund, R$36.7m (US$6.8m) was invested for the establishment of the CCPI, which will be managed by federal government. The plan is for the base to serve as a hub for the PF, the federal highway police (PRF), and other organisations such as the police forces of the nine Brazilian states that span the Amazon rainforest biome and police from other Southern American countries. The priorities of the base in Manaus will be to tackle crimes such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, illegal fishing, mining, and logging, among other organised criminal activities.

However, a new police base is unlikely to be a silver bullet. Putting more boots on the ground and providing more equipment for gathering intelligence signal an increased effort to tackle organised crime, but there are other issues that need to be resolved for transnational police operations to be effective, such as questions of jurisdiction, chain of command, and aligning different procedures and protocols used by different police forces. The CCPI also seems to focus more on providing the infrastructure for money laundering investigations or drug seizure operations, but it is unclear whether the centre will engage in any form of community policing or other crime prevention initiatives that involve building trust with local communities or providing education and welfare programmes to reduce the risk of young people being recruited by gangs. 

Environmentally risky projects

Lula’s visit to Brazil’s northern state of Amazonas appeared to emphasise federal support for infrastructure in the Amazon region rather than focusing on boosting his green credentials. On 9 September, the same day that Lula inaugurated the police centre to tackle gangs in the Amazon and environmental crimes, the president expressed support for initiatives that have faced criticism from environmental groups: the BR-319 highway to connect the states of Amazonas and Rondônia, and the controversial proposal by state oil firm Petrobras to explore oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Ecuador suffered its second most violent January in history this year, hot on the heels of what was, by some distance, the country’s most violent year on record in 2025. Despite President Daniel Noboa making security his central focus, his radical measures have so far failed to stem a rising tide of violence. The government announced a new security plan in January that will see it double down on its tactics.

There were 9,235 murders in Ecuador in 2025, according to interior ministry figures, representing a stark increase of 31% on the 7,063 homicides recorded in 2024. Last year’s toll significantly outstripped the previous record, set in 2023, of 8,248 homicides. In fact, with the exception of 2024, murders have been trending upwards since 2016, with the number of homicides in 2025 up by 862% compared to that year, when 959 killings were registered. This rise in violence intensified dramatically in 2021, when there was an 82% year-on-year increase in murders. This was the year that the security situation began to seriously break down, with massacres in the prison system heralding the escalation of the country’s gang wars.

Despite President Noboa’s overhaul of public security since early 2024, which has included the permanent mobilisation of the armed forces against gangs and the declaration of an ‘internal armed conflict’, the situation has continued to worsen during his presidency. A 6.6% year-on-year drop in homicides this January will only offer limited relief, given that, with 747 murders, it was the second most violent start to the year in Ecuadorean history after January 2025, when 800 homicides were committed.

With Noboa’s hopes for a US troop presence in Ecuador now in tatters following a referendum defeat in November [SSR-26-01], the government is seeking new solutions as it attempts to turn the situation around. On 26 January Noboa announced a new security plan that will see US$180m invested in 11 projects, including the purchase of seven dual rotor helicopters; a multipurpose logistics boat; and a 3D radar system, scanners, and drones for use in the border regions. There will also be a US$50m investment in the intelligence service, which the defence minister, Gian Carlo Loffredo, said would “modernise the tactical systems of intelligence” to “prevent attacks, identify risks before they materialise, and protect the country’s strategic infrastructure”.

Regarding the prison network, which has in the past five years been a key centre of gang violence and recruitment, as well as an operational headquarters for criminal leaders, Interior Minister John Reimberg claimed that it is nonetheless on track to become “one of the best in the region”. This, he said, would be a result of the Cárcel del Encuentro, a new maximum-security prison which began receiving inmates in November despite not being finished [SSR-25-12], and a new mega-prison which he said will be completed in the next 15-18 months and would hold 15,000 inmates.

Another key element of the plan is the strengthening of the government’s financial analysis unit (Uafe) to try and cut off gangs’ revenue streams. Uafe’s director, Julio José Neira, said that as well as targeting organised crime, these efforts also extended into the political sphere, and that “thanks to high-level international cooperation, we’ve managed to identify illicit finance for politicians”. This was a reference to a probe into the main opposition party, the left-wing Revolución Ciudadana (RC) for allegedly receiving illegal campaign donations from Venezuela in the 2023 presidential election.

• Leading opposition politicians investigated

On 28 January prosecutors raided the home of Luisa González, the two-time RC presidential candidate who reached the second round against Noboa in 2023 and 2025. Prosecutors also raided the home of RC’s 2021 candidate, Andrés Arauz, who was González’s running mate in 2023. The raids are part of a probe into allegations that RC received illegal donations from Venezuela for its 2023 campaign. RC, which was founded by former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), claims to be the target of political persecution. The raids were followed by the arrest of another leading opposition figure, Guayaquil mayor Aquiles Álvarez, on tax fraud and money laundering charges on 10 February. Álvarez represents the left-wing Movimiento Reto and is allied with RC.

Development: On 14 September presidential hopeful Manuel Baldizón of the Libertad Democrática Renovada (Líder) announced a legislative alliance with the ruling centre-left Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) of former First Lady Sandra Torres, its right-leaning ally,Gran Alianza Nacional and two lesser parties, Unidad del Cambio Nacionalista (UCN) and Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN) ahead of the new congress.

Significance: The alliance in the 158-member unicameral congress is the first sign of rapprochement between the Líder and the UNE which could prove critical ahead of the 6 November second round, to the detriment of Baldizón’s rival and current favourite, Otto Pérez Molina of the Partido Patriota (PP).

Key points:

• Torres, who has rejected a deal with the PP, was clear that the alliance is purely legislative, based on a joint agenda and the party was still considering the possibility of whether to back Baldizón, a UNE dissident whose acrimonious split from the party in December 2008 left him some powerful enemies, in the run-off.

• With the supreme electoral court (TSE) yet to issue the final results from the 11 September legislative contest, the new alliance would appear to have 77-79 seats (47-8 from the UNE-Gana); 13-14 for Líder; 15 from the UCN (of disgraced former President Alfonso Portillo [2000-2004]) and 2 from the PAN. This compares with 56-57 for the PP which is currently seeking alliances with the Compromiso, Renovación y Orden(Creo) – which looks to have won 12 seats and the Visión con Valores (Viva) Encuentro por Guatemala which could have seven.

• An eventual UNE- Líder alliance ahead of the Baldizón- Pérez Molina run-off could prove critical. While Pérez Molina won all but four of the 22 electoral districts in the first round presidential contest, with the remainder going to Baldizón, the challenge posed to the PP candidate by a UNE-Lider alliance is clear from looking at the results of the direct constituency elections for congress. Adding up the UNE-Gana-Líder votes against votes for the PP leaves the latter with control of just three departments (Guatemala, Baja Verapaz and Zacapa) with at least a further three borderline (Sololá, Chiquimula and Jalapa).

Five new state governors, plus the mayor (cum governor) of the Mexico City Federal District (DF), will also be elected on 1 July.  As with the federal election, the traditional Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is set to make the most gains.

Voters in Jalisco, Guanajuato, Morelos, Tabasco and Yucatán will chose new governors on 1 July, with the southern state of Chiapas also due to elect a new governor a month later on 1 August.*(Correction: Chiapas held its gubernatorial elections on 1 July).

Of these races the federal district is the easiest one to call, if the polls are anything to go by. All the polls suggest that Miguel Ángel Mancera will be handily elected, retaining the DF for the leftist Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). Until 6 January this year Mancera was the DF’s attorney general under the incumbent mayor, Marcelo Ebrard. Though a popular mayor, Ebrard lost the 2012 PRD presidential nomination to Andrés Manuel López Obrador and is biding his time for the next contest. The PRD has run the capital since 1997, when elections to the federal district administration were first introduced, yet the PRD has never managed to build much of a platform outside the capital, currently running only there of Mexico’s 32 states; Chiapas, Guerrero and Michoacán. It may lose control of Chiapas in August to the PRI, whose candidate Manuel Velasco Coello has appeared ahead in recent polls. Notably, the PRI’s 2012 presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is also ahead in Chiapas.

The federally-ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) currently runs six states; the Baja Californias (North and South) and Sonora in the North, along with Jalisco, Guanajuato and Morelos in central Mexico. The PAN and the PRD also jointly administer Sinaloa, Puebla and Oaxaca.

The PRI, meanwhile, is dominant at the state level, running 18 states: Aguascalientes, Campeche, Chihuahua,  Coahuila, Durango, Hidalgo, Estado de México (Estado), Nayarit, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán and Zacatecas. Given that some pollsters expect the PRI to potentially win a simple majority in both houses of the federal parliament, which will also hold elections on 1 July, the PRI’s ‘reconquista’ of Mexico will be all but complete (see sidebar).

The PAN is expected to retain control of the conservative Guanajuato, while Tabasco and Yucatán are traditional PRI strongholds.

However, polls suggest that the PAN may lose Morelos (south of Mexico City), which it has run since 2000, when it also won federal office for the first time in just over seven decades. According to data from local pollster, Mitofsky, published on 25 June, the PRI’s Amado Orihuela Trejo is polling in first place in the governor’s race with 35% of voting intentions, followed by Graco Ramírez Garrido of the PRD on 30%, with the PAN’s Adrián Rivera Pérez trailing on 16%. Some 18% were undecided. Eliminating these, the PRI candidate is on 43%, way ahead of his rivals.

Jalisco is Mexico’s fourth-biggest state (or fifth including the federal district) and the state capital Guadalajara is the country’s second-biggest city. The PAN has run the state since 1995.  However the PRI hopes to unseat the PAN with its candidate Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz, who according to a late June poll by El Universal, had nearly half (49.3%) of voting intentions.  The PAN’'s Fernando Guzmán Pérez Peláez was in second place with 29.3%, with the PRD’s Fernando Garza Martínez in third with 12.7%.

• And congress too

According to the final Mitofsky poll (published on 26 June) the PRI and its allies look set to have between 274 and 304 federal deputies in the 500-seat chamber of deputies and between 66 and 73 seats in the 128-seat senate.

ECONOMY | Argentina announces new FX restrictions. On 6 August the Argentine tax agency (Afip) issued a new resolution (3356) in relation to foreign currency exchange controls, which stipulates that Argentines travelling abroad will only be able to purchase the “currency of legal tender or of daily use of the destination country”, thus further limiting local access to US dollars. Furthermore, those purchasing FX to travel overseas will have to show proof of destination by presenting either (air, bus, train, cruise) tickets or a certificate issued by the travel agency used to organise the trip.

FOREIGN RELATIONS | Managua accepts Costa Rican ambassadorial appointment. Today (17 September), Javier Sancho Bonilla will take his post as Costa Rican ambassador to Nicaragua, a position that has been vacant since President Laura Chinchilla took office in May 2010, despite several previous attempts to fill it. Bilateral relations between the two nations have come under serious strain by the alleged Nicaraguan invasion of Isla Calero in October 2010, triggering a territorial dispute that is currently before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. The new appointment and its acceptance suggest a slight improvement in bilateral relations.

ECONOMY| ProConsumidor warns against Brazilian sugar. On 16 September the Dominican Republic (DR)’s consumer protection institute, ProConsumidor, a state agency, warned consumers against buying brown sugar imported from Brazil by a local firm, Casa Chepe S.R.L., because it had found that the product contains sand, making it unsuitable for consumption. According to ProConsumidor, in August it received 15 complaints from consumers and retailers about the “Canaria” brand of sugar that began being sold in the DR in July.  ProConsumidor has conducted two tests on Canaria samples and found that it contains insoluble materials which include: cellulose fibres, calcium carbonate and silica carbonate (sand). Casa Chepe has confirmed that it has received complaints from local retailers and supermarkets regarding the product, which it has promised to withdraw from the market. This is not the first time that ProConsumidor has denounced a locally sold product; in July it warned about the poor quality of locally produced salami, earning the institute severe criticism at home and sparking a reaction in neighbouring Haiti. ProConsumidor’s public denouncement of Canaria has the potential to spark another international reaction.

Development: On 12 November Colombia’s national police (PNC) announced that members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) had launched a bomb attack in the main town of the municipality of Suárez, in the south-western department of Cauca, the previous night, wounding 24 civilians and one police officer.

Significance: The attack is the latest in a string of (almost daily) incidents in the municipalities of Suárez and Morales, where authorities killed the Farc’s top commander, ‘Alfonso Cano’ (Guillermo León Suárez Vargas), a year ago.  As the government led by President Juan Manuel Santos prepares to begin formal peace talks with the Farc in Havana, Cuba, this Thursday (15 November), Farc attacks are expected to intensify, in a deliberate show of strength and a tacit bid for leverage at the negotiating table.

Key points:

• In the municipality of Morales, about 2,000 members of local Nasa indigenous communities have been in ‘permanent assembly’ for a month in an effort to protect themselves from the ongoing clashes between the Farc and the Colombian army.

• The southern Caucan municipality of Argelia has been attacked 85 times so far in 2012. The latest attack (on 9 November) triggered a mass displacement of 800 locals, effectively rendering the rural hamlet of El Mango a ghost town.

• The Colombian government firmly rejected the Farc’s demand for a ceasefire for the duration of the peace negotiations. However, Cauca residents have suggested a humanitarian commission to negotiate with both sides, so that civilians are not caught up in the clashes. Another suggestion is that the Farc declare a unilateral cessation of hostilities, both in the immediate area and beyond, as a sign of their commitment to the peace dialogue.

ECUADOR | Getting another Chinese loan. Ecuador’s finance ministry issued a statement on 26 February reporting that the China Development Bank had transferred it US$1.4bn, part of the US$2bn loan that the bank agreed with Ecuador last December. The statement explained that the government of President Rafael Correa had secured the eight-year loan, which has a 7% interest rate (with a two-year grace period), to finance its 2013 budget, which is now “completely funded”. The statement went on to add that this was the first instalment of the loan, which can be freely spent by the government. Meanwhile, the second, US$600m, instalment will be divided in two parts with US$300m to be destined for energy projects, and US$300m for other infrastructure development projects in the healthcare sector. With this loan China has consolidated itself as Ecuador’s main creditor, as the Andean country has repeatedly resorted to obtaining loans from its Asian partner ever since it decided to partially default on its foreign debts in 2008, and has sought to avoid resorting to international markets to raise funds.

COLOMBIA | FTA with South Korea. The Colombian and South Korean governments signed a new bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) on 21 February. Despite the fact that bilateral trade between the two countries quadrupled between 2002 and 2011, reaching US$1.9bn last year, the majority of this (US$1.5bn) was in the form of Korean exports to Colombia. These are predominantly manufactured products such as cars, car parts and machinery. Meanwhile Colombia’s main exports to South Korea are products with less value-added, such as charcoal, minerals and, significantly, coffee.

The stark contrast in what is exported by each country has led to the agreement, which will eliminate 96.1% of tariffs on all Colombian exports and 96.7% of tariffs on all Korean exports in the next 10 years, to be met with mixed reactions in Colombia. On the one hand, the troubled coffee sector has welcomed the deal, optimistic about the possibility of increasing its exports to such an important fast-growing market. Genaro Muñoz, the president of the national coffee growers’ federation (FNC), has said that the deal represents a “big opportunity” for the sector, pointing out that South Korea buys 1.6m sacks of coffee a year, 20% currently comes from Colombia. According to Muñoz, with the elimination of tariffs, which can be as high as 8%, coffee exports to South Korea should increase by about 5% a year, to the benefit of the 500,000 families that depend on this sector for their livelihoods.

In contrast, Colombia’s automobile sector is concerned that the deal may “completely decimate” it if the Colombian government does not provide further incentives to domestic manufacturers. The head of the automobile and car parts association (Asopartes), Tulio Zuloaga, said that South Korea’s automobile industry is “extremely competitive”, as it is able to produce cars and parts much more cheaply than Colombian manufacturers. Zuloaga explained that the Korean government “generously protects” its domestic industry by providing tax exemptions of close to 50% as well as offering a 50% discount on energy costs. According to Zuloaga the FTA with Korea, along with the FTA signed with the US last year and another currently under negotiation with Japan, could all but “obliterate this industry”, which employs 4.3m people or 23% of the total labour force.

PERU | Repaying debt early. On 26 February Peru’s economy & finance ministry (MEF) announced that it was paying in advance US$1.7bn of a loan it obtained from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

Last week MEF head, Luis Miguel Castilla, had said that the government was contemplating making an advance payment on its foreign debts as parts of its efforts to address the appreciation of the Sol against the US dollar which has recently reached PEN2.55/US$1. Castilla had explained that in order to make the payment, the government was considering issuing bonds in the local market for up to US$4bn, US$1.8bn of which would be used to make an advance repayment, US$1.2bn of which would be deposited in the fiscal stabilisation fund and US$1bn of which would service other debts.

A MEF official statement said that it was planning to carry out an initial bond issue; with a second issue to take place only if the first issue is oversubscribed by at least 25% of the offered amount.

Venezuela stops Zara from trading

On 25 February Venezuelan authorities ordered a three-day suspension of the activities of Phoenix World Trade, the local distributor of Spanish clothing firm Zara, amidst suspicion of possible price-fixing infringements. Trino Martínez, the head of Venezuela’s national consumer defence agency (Indepabis), said that Indepabis had found “irregularities including the arbitrary increase of prices” and that it had fined Phoenix World Trade US$85,000 and suspended its activities for 72 hours. Trino added that, after the suspension, Indepabis will conduct another investigation and if irregularities persist “we will submit a case before the public ministry so that criminal proceedings can begin”. The decision comes after Vice-President Nicolás Maduro warned that the government would “fight capitalist speculation” following the decision earlier this month to devaluate the Bolívar. 

COLOMBIA | La Santé poised to go global. On 6 February Colombian pharmaceutical firm, La Santé, announced that it had successfully completed the acquisition of Pharmetique S.A., the local subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim, for an undisclosed amount. The deal allows La Santé to consolidate itself as the main player in Colombia’s pharmaceutical industry and provides it with a solid platform from which to continue to pursue its rapid internationalisation. In recent years, La Santé has emerged as one of the region’s ‘multilatinas’, with operations in 12 different Latin American countries, all of which allowed it to post US$360m in sales last year.

La Santé CEO, Charles Bevan, said that the acquisition of Pharmatique, which produces prescription and over-the-counter drugs in Colombia, would allow the firm to increase its worth by around 30% and increase its production capacity by 50%. Currently La Santé has three production plants in Colombia and one in Venezuela. Bevan pointed out that it would also put the firm “at the forefront of production processes” as Pharmatique is one of the most technologically advanced pharmaceutical firms in the world with its production techniques “coming straight from Germany”.

Bevan said that following the acquisition, the firm expected to expand its business by between 19% and 30% over the next couple of years, with plans to start exporting medicines to Mexico and Africa by 2016; and to the US, Russia and Central Asia in the near future. In fact Bevan said that La Santé is already conducting preliminary studies on the dermatological products’ market - one of the firm’s strong points - in both the Mexican and African markets.

Explaining the firm’s expansion strategy, Bevan said that 15 years ago its founder, Carlos Vallecilla, realised that it was fundamental to “read the future and anticipate events” and that, as a result, in recent years La Santé had adopted a strategy of acquiring firms that would allow it to undergo an quick internationalisation process in “anticipation of the signing of [Free Trade Agreements] FTA’s”. Since 2011 Colombia has signed FTAs with all its Pacific Alliance partners (Chile, Peru and Mexico) as well as the European Union (EU) and the US, all of which La Santé is now in a good position to exploit.

ECUADOR | América Móvil fined. On 9 February Ecuador’s market power superintendence (SCPM), the country’s anti-trust body, announced that it had decided to fine Consorcio Ecuatoriano de Telecomunicaciones (Conecel), the local subsidiary of Mexico’s América Móvil, some US$138.5m for market abuse practices. According to SCPM, the decision to fine the firm 10% of its sales reported in 2012 was taken as a result of a complaint presented by the state-owned telecoms firm, Corporación Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CNT), in October 2012.

CNT accused Conecel, which has a dominant 67% share of the Ecuadorean telecoms market, of making owners of properties in which it has erected its telecoms infrastructure sign exclusivity contracts in violation of anti-monopoly laws. According to CNT, 83% of Conecel’s contracts include a clause which forbids property owners from allowing other telecoms firms from installing similar equipment in their properties and forces them to pay a penalty if this clause is breached. CNT argues that this practice has largely prevented it from expanding its coverage and improving its service provision.

Conecel has denied these allegations, which it says are “malicious and reckless”. It says that CNT has provided no substantial evidence that the firm has at any point prevented CNT, which currently only has a 2.5% market share, from developing and expanding its network. Conecel says that it has presented SCPM with “solid evidence” that discredits the accusations made by CNT and has “shown that this firm could without any transactional or additional economic costs set up telecommunications infrastructure sufficiently close to our own infrastructure”. As such, Conecel has rejected the “unjust” fine levied against it by the SCPM, arguing that in addition to there being “serious inconsistencies” in the SCPM decision-making process, “the magnitude of the sanction violates the constitutional principle of proportionality of penalties”. It says that it will challenge the decision in the local courts.

This is not the first time that Conecel has encountered problems in Ecuador. In 2012 the firm was forced to pay US$193m in backdated taxes dating from the 2003-2006 period after losing a court case.

• Venezuelan remittances

On 10 February the Venezuelan government announced the temporary suspension of all remittances from Venezuelan nationals sent to family members in Colombia until further notice. An official statement said that the measure stemmed from the recent agreement signed by the Venezuelan and Colombian governments under which the two agreed to work together to combat the contraband of goods across their borders. As part of the deal the two countries agreed that in the future Venezuelan remittances would be made in Colombian pesos rather than US dollars in a bid to stop individuals in Venezuela from taking advantage of the preferential US dollar exchange rates offered by the government for importers to buy currency and transfer it to Colombia. The statement explained that the suspension will remain “until this new mechanism is put in place”.

La Presidenta de Chile, Michelle Bachelet, estaba decidida de que el primer discurso sobre el estado de la nación de su segundo mandato el 21 de mayo, establecería el tono de su mandato: ambicioso y proactivo. El discurso abarcó una serie de objetivos de su gobierno en numerosas esferas, pero lo que realmente provocó comentarios fue su determinación de aprobar legislación que permita el aborto en ciertos casos. Hay pocos temas más sensibles que el aborto en el firmemente conservador Chile, y la propuesta de Bachelet fue rápidamente censurada por la Iglesia Católica Romana de Chile y por la opositora ultra-conservadora Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), esta última alegando que fue diseñada deliberadamente para distraer la atención de las recientes propuestas de reforma fiscal y de la educación de Bachelet, ambas cuestionadas por unos 2.500 estudiantes y sindicalistas reunidos afuera del congreso en Valparaíso.

Bachelet dedicó una parte significativa de su discurso de dos horas a la discusión de la reforma de la educación como parte de su principal objetivo que apunta a “abordar la desigualdad en todas sus dimensiones”. Bachelet alegó que “una educación de calidad es el mecanismo más efectivo para reducir la desigualdad” y “un derecho social que no debería depender de los recursos económicos de los estudiantes o sus familias”. Sin embargo, mientras Bachelet estaba lanzando su discurso, cientos de estudiantes estaban protestando afuera contra el borrador de la propuesta de reforma de la educación enviado recientemente por su gobierno al congreso, que aunque apunta a mejorar el acceso y la calidad de la educación desde el preescolar hasta la universidad, puntualmente falla en ponerle fin de inmediato a la educación con fines del lucro, la demanda clave de las protestas de años de los estudiantes. Las federaciones estudiantiles alegan que la propuesta de reforma es demasiado tímida.

Bachelet también buscó calmar las preocupaciones del público, y la principal organización sindical, la Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), varios de cuyos miembros estaban protestando afuera, acerca de la propuesta de reforma fiscal de su gobierno, que financiará algunos de los cambios en la educación. Ella insistió en que en vez de financiar la reforma fiscal, la clase media y los pequeños comerciantes se beneficiarían de ella.

Este aspecto del discurso fue totalmente predecible, pero la sorpresa llegó cuando Bachelet anunció su intención de avanzar rápidamente para legalizar el aborto terapéutico. Bachelet alegó que Chile es uno de sólo cinco países en el mundo, además del Vaticano, en el que el aborto es considerado completamente ilegal. “Periódicamente escuchamos en las noticias acerca de casos de mujeres quienes realizan abortos clandestinos que ponen en riesgo sus vidas y que sin ninguna duda las marcan con una experiencia dolorosa y angustiante”, Bachelet dijo en su discurso. “Cada aborto en nuestro país es un signo de que como sociedad hemos llegado muy tarde debido a que la prevención no está teniendo los resultados deseados”.

Bachelet dijo que su gobierno avanzaría para legalizar el aborto en tres casos: cuando está en riesgo la vida de la madre; violación; o embarazo inviable. Dijo que probablemente el gobierno lanzaría su peso detrás de una de las tres iniciativas para legalizar el aborto terapéutico presentadas en el congreso por diputados y senadores en los últimos años, y que nunca fueron puestas en marcha.

Bachelet dijo que se necesitaba un “debate maduro” sobre el aborto. El torrente de críticas a la propuesta, lideradas por la UDI, sugiere que esto podría ser una expresión de deseos. La UDI lanzó una campaña para denunciar la legalización del aborto el 27 de mayo, con la difusión de un folleto representando a dos mujeres embarazadas –en cuyos estómagos estaban escritas las leyendas ‘me están usando para encubrir la reforma fiscal’ y ‘me están usando para encubrir la reforma de la educación’. En una subsiguiente entrevista por la televisión, Bachelet dijo, “Yo soy pediatra y amo a los niños, pero este es un tema tabú y no creo deba existir ningún tema tabú pues eso es antidemocrático”.

Durante su discurso Bachelet también defendió la idea de cuotas en la reforma del sistema electoral binominal que ella envió recientemente al congreso [IL-14-18]. Ella sostuvo que ayudaría a la incorporación de más mujeres en el debate de todos los temas en Chile, pero sobre todo en temas como el aborto. La reforma establecería un sistema de cuotas requiriendo que un mínimo del 40% de los candidatos para ambas cámaras del congreso sean mujeres.

Tensión con Bolivia

Al final de su discurso sobre el estado de la nación, la Presidenta Michelle Bachelet discutió las relaciones internacionales, desde el tratado de comercio de la Alianza del Pacífico, del cual ella dijo que debería estar “al servicio de la región”, con Chile trabajando como un puente entre sus miembros (México, Colombia, Perú, y Chile), Asia y el Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur); hasta la disputa marítima con Perú, recientemente resuelta por la Corte Internacional de Justicia (CIJ) en La Haya; y el caso marítimo que Bolivia está llevando ante la CIJ.

Bachelet fue rotunda en que la posición de Chile con relación a la frontera compartida con Bolivia, ya fue definida en el tratado bilateral de 1904. Su canciller, Heraldo Muñoz, elaboró sobre esto varios días más tarde: “Tenemos que disipar el mito de que Bolivia no tiene acceso al mar. Chile le otorgó a Bolivia el acceso al mar a perpetuidad, incluso aunque no es un acceso soberano […] Hay una serie de beneficios y facilidades que otorga Chile que son mejores que los disfrutan los empresarios chilenos”.

“Desde el momento en que Bolivia presentó la demanda”, continuó Muñoz, “la cuestión de la aspiración marítima estaba totalmente cerrada en todas sus dimensiones. Al llevarnos [ante la CIJ] unilateralmente, Bolivia alteró la disposición del nuevo gobierno [chileno] de buscar una amplia, constructiva relación basada en los 13 puntos de la agenda original” acordada en el 2006 a comienzos de la primera administración de Bachelet (2006-2010). Muñoz dijo que el caso era “una forma solapada de repudiar el Tratado de 1904 [...] Esto es extremadamente delicado porque apunta hacia la inestabilidad y a la certidumbre jurídica sobre un tema tan importante como los tratados fronterizos”.

Chile está considerando desafiar la jurisdicción de la CIJ en base a que ninguna cuestión resuelta antes de la firma del Pacto de Bogotá (por la mayoría de los países latinoamericanos en abril de 1948) puede ir ante la corte. Bachelet se ha reunido con sus predecesores, presidentes de partidos, y su equipo jurídico y planea consultar a los legisladores antes de tomar una decisión. La fecha límite para presentar cualquier desafío es el 18 de febrero del 2015.

• Cifras del aborto

El aborto terapéutico fue permitido en Chile en 1931, pero fue abolido por la dictadura militar del General Augusto Pinochet en 1989. A pesar de la prohibición general del aborto, se estima que Chile tiene la segunda tasa de aborto más alta en la región, con miríadas de peligrosos procedimientos teniendo lugar en clínicas clandestinas. Las estimaciones llegan hasta los 160.000 abortos por año.

• Piñera sobre la propuesta del aborto

El predecesor de la Presidenta Michelle Bachelet, Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014), tuiteó que “Parece que el bienestar de las mascotas es más importante que la vida y la dignidad de aquellos quienes aún están por nacer”, en referencia a otro plan anunciado por Bachelet en su discurso para construir refugios para perros y gatos sin hogares.

Last month Guatemala’s ruling Partido Patriota (PP) faced various corruption allegations – both relating to the approval of the national budget but also over alleged illegal contributions from Brazilian construction company, OAS, to the campaign of the PP’s pre-presidential candidate, Alejandro Sinibaldi, ahead of the September 2015 general elections.

The allegations involving OAS’s contributions broke on 16 December 2014 when Brazilian daily, Valor Económico, published documents found in the OAS offices, following a raid conducted as part of investigations into Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras. According to the documents, US$1m was handed, in 20 instalments of US$50,000, to Spanish publicist, Antonio Solá, one of the directors of President Otto Pérez Molina’s campaign in 2011. Such was the impact of the allegations that on 22 December President Pérez Molina suspended official relations with Brazil’s national development bank (Bndes), which had provided some of the funds allegedly delivered to Solá until “everything had been clarified”. The next day Pérez Molina cancelled a Bndes loan worth US$340m for the expansion of four highways in Guatemala.

Sinibaldi, who is currently polling second in pre-electoral surveys, behind Manuel Baldizón of the main opposition Libertad Democrática Renovada, (Líder), and Solá, who also served as advisor on the campaigns of other political figures like Mexico’s former president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, deny the allegations. But if these prove to be true it would leave Sinibaldi in breach of Guatemala’s 2007 electoral law, which prohibits political organisations from receiving any foreign campaign contributions whether from individuals, State entities or businesses. The only exception is contributions from authorised academic institutions or foundations for training purposes, which must be reported to the supreme electoral court (TSE) within 30 days.

Other transparency complaints

With local civil society groups like Acción Ciudadana (AC) demanding that the TSE and the attorney general’s office launch an investigation into the allegations, the PP has also faced accusations of corruption over the approval of the national budget which was ratified by 106 votes in the 158-member unicameral legislature on 28 November 2014.

Approval of the national budget is traditionally a tortuous process in Guatemala (the previous year, the legislature failed to meet the 30 November deadline meaning that the previous year’s Q$66.98bn [US$8.41bn] budget was rolled over). The ease with which this year’s budget – for Q$70.6bn (US$9.2bn) - was approved, following a deal between the PP which has 44 seats and Líder which has 52, consequently aroused suspicion from AC as well as private sector organisations like the chamber of commerce (CCG); umbrella private sector lobby group, Comité Coordinador de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras (Cacif); as well as the chamber of industry (CIG).

In a 3 December 2014 press release, the CCG flagged up the abolition of controls on assignations to NGOs. Also cited as a transparency concern, was the fact that the approved budget includes nearly Q$2bn (US$265m) for the communication, infrastructure & housing ministry, even though the precise destination or objective for these funds was not specified.

Another source of private sector complaints

Budget transparency is not the only concern for the private sector which has also been fuming over the introduction of three new taxes: a Q$5(US$0.65) monthly tax on landlines and cell phones; an increase in taxes on cement from Q$1.50 (US$0.20) to Q$5 (US$0.65) per quintal sack; and an increase in mining royalties, from 1% to 10%.

As regards the telecoms tax, while President Pérez Molina said this was exclusively for companies, private companies warned that consumers will ultimately foot the bill. Meanwhile, the national chamber of construction (CGC) complains that the new cement tax will increase construction costs by 6%, putting at least 20,000 jobs at risk this year. The rise in mining royalties, 9% of which will go to the central government and 1% to municipalities, has also prompted an outcry from local mining lobbies such as Gremial de Minas y Canteras and Canada’s Tahoe Resources (which owns the Escobal silver mine in San Rafael).

The private sector lobbies have moved to challenge the new taxes, with some success. On 30 December the constitutional court (CC) admitted an appeal presented on 18 December by the CIG along with telecommunications companies, Claro, Tigo and Telefónica, calling for the new tax on landlines and cell phones to be suspended on procedural grounds, until a definitive verdict is reached.

• Ríos Montt trial delayed again

Efforts to bring Guatemala’s former dictator, Efrain Ríos Montt (1982-1983), to justice have received a further setback. Although in May 2013 a local court convicted Ríos Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1960-1996 civil war, this ruling was overturned days later. A retrial was due to begin on 5 January but has been suspended after the court hearing the case accepted defence appeals that one of the judges was not impartial. José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas executive director of international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), told reporters that the latest decision“ is not only extremely frustrating but also is revealing of the lack of solid independence of the judiciary in Guatemala, which is clearly sensitive to political pressure”

El gobernador del estado de Nueva York, Andrew M. Cuomo, se convirtió en el primer gobernador de EU en visitar Cuba desde el ‘día-D’. Cuomo parecía genuinamente feliz de estar en La Habana, y fue particularmente atraído por una belleza local, ‘Lola’, un relucientemente restaurado Chevrolet Bel Air 1956 pintado de color rosa, que a falta de partes originales ahora funciona con un motor diesel Toyota. “Tenía que venir a Cuba para ver esto”, el auto-proclamado obsesivo de los coches de época confesó entusiasmado sobre el capó del auto, sugiriendo al propietario del vehículo que el restablecimiento de las relaciones entre EU y Cuba podría permitir la eventual restauración de Lola a su completa gloria anterior, por medio de un motor Chevy reconstruido de los EU.

Cuomo, quien pasó unas agitadas 26 horas en la capital cubana, con una considerable delegación comercial, incluidos ejecutivos de JetBlue, MasterCard, Pfizer, la compañía de lácteos, Chobani, y otros, señaló que su padre y predecesor, Mario Cuomo, un prominente Demócrata de EU electo gobernador de Nueva York tres veces (sirviendo entre 1983 y 1994), siempre había sido crítico del embargo de EU sobre Cuba, y que se había reunido con el ex presidente de Cuba, Fidel Castro. “Hay una larga historia con Nueva York. Fidel Castro se reunió con mi padre en Nueva York. Mi padre fue siempre partidario de poner fin al embargo. Tenemos una amistad que ha durado décadas. Se trata de revivir esa amistad”. Cuomo también alegó a favor de comprometerse como una manera de impulsar a Cuba hacia más libertades políticas y civiles. “¿Cómo puede usted promover el diálogo sobre derechos humanos que todos dicen que debe progresar? No es a través del aislamiento, es a través del compromiso”, insistió Cuomo.

Mientras que el proceso de restaurar las plenas relaciones diplomáticas (incluida la última decisión de remover a Cuba de la lista de EU de los estados promotores del terrorismo), ciertamente despertará el interés en EU de hacer negocios con Cuba; los considerables obstáculos legales y técnicos  para hacerlo bajo el embargo permanecen firmemente intactos, con pocas esperanzas de removerlos pronto. De todos modos, esto no es imposible (el Presidente Barack Obama puede otorgar licencias federales a empresarios para comerciar con Cuba, por ejemplo, aunque estas son raras) y de hecho, la delegación encabezada por Cuomo partió de Cuba con un par de interesantes acuerdos, incluido uno con una instalación médica con sede en Nueva York para conducir pruebas clínicas de una vacuna contra el cáncer de pulmón desarrollada en Cuba, cuyo altamente considerado sector medicinal está abriendo camino para un lucrativo espacio como un pionero global en biotecnología.

El Roswell Park Cancer Institute, con base en Buffalo (al norte del estado de Nueva York), trabajará con el Centro de Inmunología Molecular en La Habana, para llevar la vacuna para el cáncer de pulmón  a EU y someterla a pruebas clínicas, mientras que una compañía de software, Infor, proveerá software de cuidado de salud a una universidad cubana, altos ejecutivos de las dos compañías anunciaron en una conferencia de prensa en el aeropuerto internacional ‘José Martí’ antes de la partida de la delegación.

Cuomo mantuvo reuniones personales con el ministro de comercio exterior & inversiones de Cuba, Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz; el primer Vicepresidente Miguel Díaz-Canel, y otros funcionarios de comercio. La delegación fue conducida en un paseo por el nuevo Puerto de Mariel, de aguas profundas, y la zona de desarrollo especial, que Cuba espera que proveerá un gran estímulo para el crecimiento económico. El Puerto de Mariel, deliberadamente está frente a EU, y podría convertirse en un centro industrial caribeño clave en el futuro.

Finalmente, Cuomo también se reunió con el Cardenal Jaime Ortega, cuyo rol en el país él elogió abiertamente. El Cardenal Ortega recibirá el reconocimiento papal por su rol a mediados de septiembre, cuando el Papa Francisco recalará en Cuba en camino a EU, ha confirmado el Vaticano, coronando los decisivos esfuerzos diplomáticos del Papa para acercas a los Presidentes Obama y Raúl Castro.

• Visita papal

“La presencia de su santidad en Cuba será memorable. Él recibirá la más cálida hospitalidad del pueblo cubano”, dijo el canciller de Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, en Bruselas, en respuesta al anuncio del Vaticano. Rodríguez hizo sus comentarios después de sus conversaciones con la alta representante y vicepresidenta de la Unión Europea (UE), Federica Mogherini, quien anunció que la UE y Cuba habían acordado establecer un “diálogo estructurado sobre derechos humanos”, en paralelo con las actuales conversaciones sobre un nuevo acuerdo de diálogo y cooperación, que la UE desea finalizar para fin de año. El representante especial de la UE (EUSR) para los derechos humanos, Stavros Lambrinidis, encabezará el diálogo sobre derechos humanos, que tendrá una primera ronda en Bruselas en junio.

Colombian agribusiness firm Uniban is holding negotiations with Chinese firm Goodfarmer Foods Holding to start exporting bananas to China. Uniban’s announcement follows President Iván Duque’s state visit to China in late July when he signed an accord enabling Colombian producers to export 4m boxes of bananas annually to the country. Duque said the deal represents US$40m a year for Colombia’s banana industry and “a firm step to continue placing more products on the Chinese market”. But the deal coincides with an outbreak of the Fusarium R4T fungus affecting banana plants in the north-eastern department of La Guajira, leading to the declaration of a state of national emergency.

Colombia’s agriculture minister Andrés Valencia Pinzón said that tests carried out on banana plant samples confirmed the presence of the Fusarium fungus, commonly known as ‘Panama disease’, which kills banana plants. Fusarium fungus does not pose any health risks for humans but it can decimate banana crops as it can remain in the soil for as long as 30 years, and is resistant to fungicides. There is no known way to combat it other than containment and destruction of all infected plants.

• Clearing

According to the Colombian national daily El Tiempo, 168.5 hectares (ha) of the 175 ha of banana plantations where the fungus was detected have now been cleared, as part of the early warning measures carried out by Colombia’s agriculture institute (ICA), beginning on 11 June.

Upon confirmation of the presence of the fungus, Colombia’s agriculture institute (ICA) declared a national state of emergency to contain the outbreak. Under the emergency, additional surveillance measures have been adopted at all ports, airports, and border points to mitigate the risk of the disease spreading to other regions. Amongst these measures are the changes to resolution 448, which will ensure that it becomes mandatory for producers to implement the necessary biosafety measures for exportation.

Notably, ICA has said that the declaration of emergency does not mean that the fungus has spread to other areas of the country, nor is there a risk of it spreading. Given that China is also a major banana producer, the Fusarium outbreak could affect the plans to import Colombian bananas, although the diesease occurs widely in China.

However, Colombia is not alone in dealing with the outbreak. On 5 August, agriculture ministers from 10 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean met at the foreign ministry in Quito, Ecuador, for a regional meeting to discuss plans to prevent the spread of the fungus. The meeting, which was also attended by representatives of the International Regional Agency for Agricultural Health (OIRSA), the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (ICCA), led to the signing of a regional declaration.

The declaration outlines a regional strategy to implement stringent biosecurity measures with banana imports from outside Latin America and the Caribbean only permitted to go ahead in times of “extreme necessity”, and if they are guaranteed to be free from the Fusarium R4T fungus. Ports, airports and border crossings, throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, are also to be examined and strengthened.

Highlighting the importance that the Latin American authorities put on jointly dealing with the Fusarium outbreak, Ecuador’s Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner Sper said during the meeting that “We have to understand the role we all play when these events occur as pests know no borders. We must be clear that in terms of selling we are competitors, but when combating diseases, we are strategic allies”.

VENEZUELA | Hyperinflation coming back? President Maduro has announced an agreement with local businesses to monitor and control price increases for a series of basic household items. The announcement came as the independent Observatorio Venezolano de Finanzas (OVF) reported that monthly inflation in May was sharply up at 26%, compared with only 2% a month around this time last year. OVF believes annual inflation is now running at around 229%.

To put this announcement into context, the government rarely publishes reliable economic statistics. That said, the Maduro administration is clearly entering a period of rising economic difficulty. The Bolívar, the country’s official but weak currency, has depreciated by around 30% so far this year stimulating domestic price rises.

Oil output and revenues have dropped steeply as the US has limited the oil giant Chevron’s licence to operate in Venezuela and tightened other economic sanctions.

There have been rumours that petrol prices within Venezuela may be doubled. Former finance minister Ramón Lobo has warned that a system of price controls could rapidly trigger shortages across the economy like those experienced a decade ago. There are also fears that the government will push up business taxes (already it is calculated that an average of 60% of company profits are being siphoned off in taxes).

It is assumed, in the absence of budget information (no government annual budgets have been published since 2015), that the authorities are printing money to cover a widening fiscal deficit.

The arrest in June of Costa Rica’s former security minister (2014-2015) and supreme court (CSJ) justice (2016-2018), Celso Gamboa, who in July was then charged with drug-related crimes in the US, has exposed a major drug scandal which could implicate members of President Rodrigo Chaves’ government. With security a major public concern as Costa Rica is facing record homicides, attributed to the growing presence of international drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) in the country [SSR-25-06], the scandal comes as Chaves himself is facing the threat of impeachment over an unrelated corruption case. This is all taking place as Costa Rica is gearing up for general elections in February 2026, in which Chaves is constitutionally barred from seeking a further presidential term, although he is reportedly mulling a bid for the legislature.

A security minister under former president Luis Guillermo Solís (Partido Acción Ciudadana, PAC, 2014-2018), Gamboa was detained in Costa Rica on 23 June along with his purported associate Edwin López Vega, an alleged international drug trafficker. At the time of his arrest, the head of Costa Rica’s judicial investigations unit Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ), Randall Zúñiga, described Gamboa as being as among the top four narcos in the country.

On 11 July the US Department of Justice announced that Gamboa had been charged with conspiring with and assisting other international drug traffickers to “manufacture, distribute, and transport significant quantities of cocaine, much of which was trafficked through Costa Rica and ultimately into the United States for further distribution”. At the time of writing, both Gamboa and López were awaiting extradition to the US, as per new legislation approved in May which changes the country’s constitution to allow for the extradition of Costa Rican nationals in cases of drug trafficking and terrorism [SSR-06-25].

According to excerpts from US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) documents obtained by CR Hoy, a local media outlet, and published on 15 July, the allegations date back to around 2017 at which point Gamboa was serving as a justice. He was dismissed from the supreme court in 2018 over the ‘Cementazo’ corruption case, involving Sinocem Costa Rica, the Costa Rican subsidiary of a Chinese cement exporter, and top public officials [WR-17-41]. According to the same CR Hoy report, the DEA document highlights a meeting between Gamboa and two associates who were secretly DEA informants in the capital, San José, in September 2023 – during the current Chaves administration. Gamboa, who the DEA reportedly identifies as the apparent regional representative of Mexican DTO Cártel del Golfo (CDG), was allegedly recorded as saying that he could guarantee the reception of cocaine entering Costa Rica whether by the Atlantic or Pacific coasts with the Chaves administration’s consent.

Describing the allegations as “what may be the most significant drug scandal” in Costa Rica’s history, specialist website Insight Crime points out that prior to this, other high-level officials in Costa Rica had been linked to drug trafficking. These include former head (2007) of the national police force Fuerza Pública, José Fabio Pizarro Espinoza, who was handed a 10-year prison sentence in 2018 for concealing a lorry containing 237kg of cocaine, according to local press reports, although he was released in 2022. However, Insight Crime notes that Gamboa is the highest-ranking Costa Rican official to be arrested on such charges.

Chaves under pressure

With the possibility that further high-level officials may be implicated, the drug scandal comes as President Chaves, whose mandate which began in May 2022 has been characterised by clashes with the judiciary, the opposition-controlled 57-member unicameral legislature, and independent media [WR-24-25], is already feeling the heat over two investigations, one of which has already led the CSJ to request that the legislature strip him of his immunity from prosecution.

In what the national media reports is a first for the country, on 1 July the CSJ announced its decision after considering a request by the attorney general’s office. The case concerns a contract awarded for communication services for the presidency to RMC La Productora S.A, owned by Christian Bulgarelli, a specialist in audiovisual communication, to provide communication, marketing, and strategic consultancy services for the presidency from 2022-2026.

According to the attorney general’s request to the CSJ, ahead of the contract being awarded in 2022, Bulgarelli attended various meetings with Chaves and his culture minister Jorge Rodríguez Vives, then serving as Chaves’ chief of staff, in which Bulgarelli was instructed to draw up the contract’s terms himself, thereby ensuring RMC’s success. It adds that Chaves and Rodríguez also leant on Bulgarelli to divert US$32,000 in funds from the Central American development bank (BCIE) to a Chaves ally, Federico Cruz Saravanja, to buy a house. In June 2024, BCIE notably blacklisted Bulgarelli and RMC for seven years for having allegedly committed fraudulent activities.

At the time of writing, the legislature, in which Chaves’ Partido Progreso Social Democrático (PPSD) has just eight seats, had yet to make a decision regarding the request by the CSJ which is also considering a further accusation from the attorney general’s office regarding Chaves in relation to another investigation: on 23 June the attorney general’s office formally accused Chaves, along with First Vice President Stephan Brunner, Foreign Minister Arnoldo André, and four PPSD deputies – Pilar Cisneros, Luz Mary Alpízar, Paola Nájera, and Waldo Agüero – of crimes related to illicit campaign finance during the 2022 electoral campaign. The charges are in line with an investigation that began in 2022 into whether the PPSD used two parallel funds to finance its campaign ahead of the 2022 general elections, which would be illegal [SSR-22-06].

• Illicit campaign finance

According to a statement by the attorney general’s office, the parallel financing structures identified were “a trust” – widely considered an allusion to a trust named Costa Rica Próspera, administered by ATA Trust Company SA, whose president at the time was Foreign Minister Arnoldo André – and the “personal bank accounts of a woman with the surname Agüero”. This has been widely understood as a reference to Sofía Agüero, a former administrative assistant, who has previously been accused of receiving funds from businessman Jack Loeb Casanova which were not processed via party channels. According to the same statement, both funding channels operated outside the oversight of the electoral authority and Partido Progreso Social Democrático (PPSD)’s official treasury.

Cocaine seizures up

According to the most recent (7 May) round-up of cocaine seizures by specialist website Insight Crime, Costa Rica seized 27 tonnes (t) of cocaine in 2024, up from 21.4 t in 2003. Insight Crime notes that last year the government launched Operation Caribe, a strategy aimed at reducing crime in the province of Limón, a historically important drug trafficking hub on the Caribbean coast.

More visas revoked

On 9 July the president of Costa Rica’s congress, Rodrigo Arias (PLN), revealed that the US government led by President Donald Trump had revoked his tourist visa, saying that this occurred without explanation or prior warning.

Also targeted that day with similar measures were constitutional court judges Paul Rueda and Jorge Araya. This follows the revocation of visas in February of two deputies from the small opposition Partido Liberal Progresista (PLP), Johana Obando and Cynthia Córdoba, who according to local media had been very critical of the 2023 decision to bar Chinese technology multinational Huawei from bidding to supply 5G telecoms technology in public procurement auctions [SSR-25-03]. This followed a visit in February by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Costa Rica and other countries in Central America, where he highlighted the need to counter Chinese influence in the region as a priority for Washington.

Since then, others have faced similar measures including Vanessa Castro, congress vice president and a member of the opposition Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC), and Arias’ brother, former president Óscar Arias (1986-1990; 2006-2010), whose visas were revoked at the start of April. Óscar Arias also said that he had not been provided with any explanation. While cited by the media as saying it would be conjecture on his part to speculate about the reason, he did point out that “I established diplomatic relations with China” – a decision he took in 2007. The former president has also been critical of Trump, writing on social media in February that the US president behaved “like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do”. 

Date: 12 April. The presidential election will go to a second round on 7 June if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote.

Type: Presidential and legislative elections. There are 130 seats up for grabs in the lower chamber of congress and 60 in the senate, which has not sat since 1992 but is being resurrected following a constitutional reform.

Main contenders: Rafael López Aliaga (Renovación Popular), Keiko Fujimori (Fuerza Popular), Carlos Álvarez (País para Todos)

Peru’s presidential election should, according to most polls, produce a right-wing victory. But election forecasts have been complicated by the enormous number of candidates vying for the presidency. With over 30 contenders, the election seems certain to go to a second round. This raises the chances of an outsider candidate breaking through, as happened in the 2021 election which produced a surprise victory for the far-left Pedro Castillo (2021-2022). A key goal for the victor will be restoring a semblance of political stability following the impeachments of Castillo and his successor, Dina Boluarte (2022-2025). Indeed, serving out a full presidential term would be a major accomplishment, given that this has not been achieved since the election of Ollanta Humala (2011-2016).

With 35 candidates seeking the presidency (36 if Mario Vizcarra overturns his ban), the election looks set to be deeply unpredictable. The candidate list is twice as long as it was in the 2021 election, when the relatively unknown Castillo broke out of a crowded field of 18 candidates to win a berth in the second round, before going on to scrape a narrow victory against the right-wing Keiko Fujimori. The conditions are right for another electoral upset, and mounting dissatisfaction with the political establishment might push voters towards an outsider candidate.

• Mario Vizcarra

Mario Vizcarra, the brother of imprisoned former president Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020), was hovering around third place in the polls before Lima’s special electoral council (JEE) ruled on 5 January that he should be excluded from the election. The JEE’s ruling can be appealed before the national electoral council (JNE). Vizcarra’s exclusion followed three challenges against his candidacy due to a prison sentence he received in 2005 for embezzlement. He has already served the sentence, which he was given for receiving a double salary while presiding over a transitional council in the south-eastern region of Moquegua in 2001, but electoral law precludes those with firm corruption convictions from standing for election.

According to the latest region-wide Latinobarómetro poll, published in May 2025, Peruvians were the least satisfied with their government out of 17 countries surveyed, with just 5% approving of the running of their country, against an average Latin American approval rating of 43%. Peru was also the country where respondents were least satisfied with congress, with 91% of respondents saying that they did not feel that the institution represents them politically. Corruption was perceived to be more widespread in Peru than any other country in the survey, while only 7% of respondents felt positive about the state of the economy – the second-lowest figure in the survey after Bolivia. Compounding the negative picture, 44% of Peruvian respondents said that they or a close relative had been a victim of crime in the past year – the second-highest figure in the region after Ecuador.

Voters are clearly deeply unhappy with the state of the country and have little faith that the mainstream parties will be able to remedy the situation. This poses a cautionary tale for the right-wing parties that have been calling the shots in congress since Castillo’s impeachment in December 2022, and for the conservative presidential candidates who are generally outperforming left-wingers in the polls.

The leading candidate in most surveys is Rafael López Aliaga, the far-right former mayor of Lima (2023-2025), representing Renovación Popular (RP). He is followed in most polls by Fujimori, who is making a fourth run for the presidency with the right-wing Fuerza Popular (FP), and the centre-left Mario Vizcarra, the brother of imprisoned former president Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020) representing Perú Primero (PP), who is attempting to overturn an electoral ban. These three frontrunners have generally polled in the single digits, and in a sign that voters are looking for alternatives, they are facing competition from celebrity figures such as comedian Carlos Álvarez (País para Todos), whose poll numbers have improved since the new year, and retired footballer George Forsyth (Somos Perú – the party of interim President José Jerí, who took office following Boluarte’s impeachment in October 2025).

With no candidate gaining momentum, the election is likely to be decided by the large number of undecided voters. According to an Ipsos poll published on 16 January, a startling 47% of respondents said they would cast blank or spoiled ballots or would not say who they intended to vote for, and a further 11% said they would vote for candidates other than the 12 contenders featured in the poll.

The electoral landscape will be viewed with particular caution by Fujimori, who, after reaching the second round in 2011, 2016, and 2021, and losing by less than 0.3 percentage points on the latter two occasions, will have been hoping that 2026 is the year she finally reaches the presidential palace. There are several factors that could work in Fujimori’s favour. The scandal-plagued presidency of the 2021 victor, Castillo, may have pushed some swing voters to the right. The death in 2024 of her father, authoritarian former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), may enable her and FP to lose some of their associations with Alberto Fujimori’s strangulation of democracy and the human rights abuses he presided over. Her party has also played a key role in the passage of hardline security legislation which seems popular with voters.

At the same time, Fujimori is the classic establishment politician – exactly the sort of candidate which voters are seemingly ready to reject. She is by some measures the most powerful politician in Peru; as leader of FP, she rallied a broad conservative alliance against Castillo, eventually securing his impeachment, then spent nearly three years forcing Boluarte to tack ever further to the right before sealing her fate in the October impeachment vote. Since then she has exerted a similar influence by propping up President Jerí, albeit to a lesser degree given his relative popularity with the public.

The growth of organised crime

One factor which looks certain to shape the election, potentially to the benefit of right-wing populists like Fujimori and Aliaga, is the visible rise of organised crime over the past two years. Transport workers have repeatedly gone on strike in protest at violence meted out by extortion gangs, which have become increasingly brazen in their tactics – murdering transport workers in broad daylight, setting fire to buses in busy thoroughfares, and detonating bombs outside prosecutors’ offices. Rising concern about extortion was the final straw for Boluarte’s deeply unpopular government and was used to justify her impeachment.

Candidates on both the left and right are jostling to present themselves as hardliners, with some describing themselves as students of El Salvador’s authoritarian President Nayib Bukele, whose harsh stance is being increasingly imitated throughout the region.

The return of the senate

In March 2024 congress approved a constitutional reform to resurrect the senate. The upper chamber of congress has not sat since 1992, when it was dissolved by Alberto Fujimori, and was eliminated in the 1993 constitution. There is reason to believe that the senate’s return could help reduce Peru’s chronic political instability. The unicameral system, in which legislators are unchecked by a second chamber of congress, has seen them increasingly flex their muscles through impeachment proceedings. Three presidents, Boluarte, Castillo, and Vizcarra, have been removed by congress since 2020, while Vizcarra’s predecessor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), chose to resign when faced with the imminent prospect of impeachment.

Jerí not seeking another term

President Jerí, who took office in October 2025 following the impeachment of former president Boluarte, is not standing in the elections, and has said that he is working with “less time, but more commitment” than his predecessors before handing over power to the election’s winner in July. He appears broadly popular with voters, however. A CPI poll published on 4 December gave him a 52.0% approval rating – a remarkable turnaround from the depths of unpopularity reached by Boluarte, who regularly polled around 2%. The same CPI poll showed far less enthusiasm for the main presidential contenders. The far-right Rafael López Aliaga led with an approval rating of 12.5%, followed by the right-wing Keiko Fujimori (7.6%) and the centre-left Mario Vizcarra (6.7%).

El ministro del trabajo, Rudecindo Vega, entró en aguas calientes esta semana al proponer una amplia amnistía política para todos aquellos implicados en violaciones de los derechos humanos durante el conflicto interno de 1980-2000 en interés de la “reconciliación nacional”. Vega, quien dijo que la amnistía debía beneficiar a todos los sectores, incluidos guerrilleros, ex soldados y políticos, sosteniendo que la “construcción de puentes” era esencial para consolidar el crecimiento económico y para asegurar que la política insignia del gobierno de la inclusión social sea sustentable. El propuso un acuerdo político nacional sobre la cuestión que debe ser logrado en el congreso.

La respuesta fue inequívoca. Solamente una entidad apoyó el llamado de Vega: el movimiento Senderista Movadef. La principal organización sindical, la Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú (CGTP), que apoya al gobierno, rechazó de plano la misma idea de un perdón para el ex presidente Alberto Fujimori. La CGTP dijo que sería “una afrenta a la dignidad del país y un severo golpe a la lucha contra la corrupción”. Perú Posible (PP), el partido al cual Vega, ministro de la vivienda durante la administración Toledo, pertenece, se distanció rápidamente del ministro. El presidente del PP, Juan Sheput, dijo que Vega no hablaba en nombre del partido y que se había unido a él por propósitos electorales, no por convicción. Los grupos de derechos humanos acumularon desprecio ante la idea que  liberar a prisioneros que habían cometido crímenes contra la humanidad podría contribuir de alguna manera a la reconciliación nacional.

Vega rápidamente se echó atrás frente a las hostiles respuestas, emitiendo una clarificación. El enfatizó que cualquier amnistía solamente se aplicaría a aquellos sin sentencias firmes, por tanto descarta a Fujimori y su jefe de inteligencia Vladimiro Montesinos, como también a los ex líderes de Sendero Luminoso y MRTA, Abimael Guzmán y Víctor Polay respectivamente.

• En Venezuela elevan salarios de militares

La escala del incremento en los salarios para los militares anunciado por el Presidente Hugo Chávez, creó resentimientos en otros sectores, con los sindicatos de maestros, notablemente, pidiendo incrementos similares. Manuel Galíndez, el presidente del sindicato de maestros, la Federación Nacional de Maestros y Sindicatos de Trabajadores Profesionales de la Educación de Venezuela, dijo que aunque aprobaba el incremento del salario para los militares, otros sectores que habían luchado por meses por un incremento similar también debían ser premiados.

El Presidente de México, Felipe Calderón, desea acelerar los esfuerzos para integrar el sur de México y Centroamérica. Hablando en la 13^ra Cumbre de Tuxla, celebrada esta semana en México y a la cual asistieron sus pares centroamericanos, Calderón pidió por un “relanzamiento” del Mecanismo de Dialogo y Concertación de Tuxla –así llamado luego de la reunión inicial celebrada por primera vez en 1991. El foro, al cual se unieron recientemente la República Dominicana y Belice, hasta ahora ha tenido un impacto limitado. Aún así, la creciente conciencia de la necesidad de frenar la crisis de seguridad causada por el despliegue de las organizaciones de tráfico de drogas internacionales (OTD) sobre una base regional, junto con la inminente cristalización de ciertos proyectos –más notablemente en el área de la energía– sugiere que el Mecanismo Tuxla podría jugar un crecientemente importante rol.

Un paso hacia adelante en los esfuerzos por impulsar la cooperación entre México y Centroamérica se dio en las semanas previas a la cumbre del 5-6 de diciembre, con la firma de un tratado de libre comercio (TLC) entre Centroamérica (excepto Panamá) y México. Con el comercio México-Centroamérica creciendo en 400% entre 1995 y 2010, de US$832m a US$4,72bn según cifras del Secretariado para la Integración Económica Centroamericana (Sieca), el TLC, que agrupará a 150m de consumidores (de los cuales 110m son mexicanos) en la región, incorpora los varios acuerdos separados que actualmente tiene México con sus ve4cinos centroamericanos. Esto abarca dos acuerdos bilaterales con Costa Rica y Nicaragua (de 1995 y 1998 respectivamente) y un acuerdo separado con el llamado ‘Triángulo Norteño’ (El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras), que tiene fecha de 2001.

Los asistentes a la cumbre Tuxla reiteraron una posición conjunta en relación a la seguridad, otra área conductora de cooperación –como fue evidente en la cumbre de seguridad centroamericana en junio de 2011 [IL-11-26] (ver más abajo). Los presentes también saludaron el progreso en relación a la integración de infraestructura, uno de los principales objetivos de la cumbre inicial. El proyecto clave, que pronto dará frutos es el Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica de los Países de América Central (Siepac), la planeada conexión de las redes de energía de las seis naciones centroamericanas, como también México (vía Guatemala) y Colombia (vía Panamá). En proyecto desde 1996, el Siepac tiene fijado completarse el año próximo [IL-11-25], y podría comenzar a operar en marzo, el Presidente Calderón también anunció una contribución de US$160m para comenzar un Fondo de Infraestructura para Centroamérica.

• Seguridad

La declaración final de Tuxla reitera la posición conjunta de los países centroamericanos, México y Colombia, ante la necesidad de frenar la crisis de seguridad sobre una base multilateral, como se ha expresado en la cumbre de seguridad centroamericana, que tuvo lugar en Ciudad de Guatemala en junio [IL-11-26]. En ella se pidió a EU y a otras naciones consumidoras de drogas que adopten medidas más drásticas y eficientes para rastrear y cortar el flujo de dinero de las actividades ilegales de las organizaciones criminales, y alegó que a fin de reducir el crimen organizado, es necesario reducir la demanda de drogas ilegales.

El Presidente Evo Morales ha puesto fin a la especulación. En su reciente cumbre nacional, el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) unánimemente seleccionó a Morales como su candidato presidencial ante la elección general del 2014. Esto, a pesar de las dudas que rodean su validez para competir: la constitución del 2009 permite solamente dos periodos presidenciales consecutivos, pero Morales, que primero asumió el poder en enero del 2006 y luego de nuevo en enero del 2010, alega que, como él sirviendo por primera vez bajo la nueva constitución, es elegible para presentarse de nuevo. Mientras que la oposición ha cuestionado este argumento, su debilidad en la legislatura plurinacional –en la cual el MAS tiene aproximadamente una mayoría de dos tercios– significa que es improbable que su cuestionamiento prospere.

La nominación de Morales el 28 de marzo, el último día de la cumbre partidaria de tres días, celebrada en Cochabamba, una vez más expone la escasez de potenciales sucesores. Pese al hecho de que el MAS es la única organización política nacional en el país –tomando cerca del 66% de las municipalidades en la votación regional de abril del 2010, subiendo del 18% en el 2004– su éxito electoral hasta ahora ha sido vinculado con la popularidad personal de Morales y su atracción única que cruza sectores, como líder sindical y Aymara.

Líderes de la oposición, como Juan del Granado del disidente izquierdista Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM), desafió a Morales a celebrar un referéndum para cambiar el límite constitucional a la reelección consecutiva. Pero la cumbre también resultó controversial por otra razón –la participación de miembros de las fuerzas armadas (FFAA) y de la policía nacional. Esto pese al hecho de que la nueva constitución prohíbe explícitamente que los militares y policías tomen parte en actividades políticas (Arts. 245 y 251).

Mientras el MAS justificaba la presencia de los funcionarios de seguridad sobre la base de que el congreso del partido está abierto “a todos los sectores de la sociedad boliviana”, y otros señalaban el rol previsto para los militares bajo la nueva constitución, que permite su participación en el proceso de “transformación del país”, esto probablemente alimentará las preocupaciones existentes en cuanto a las borrosas líneas entre el partido y el Estado que han surgido, en particular con relación a los militares. El pasado enero, después de su inauguración como jefe de las FFAA, el General Tito Gandarillas describió al ejército como “anti-imperialista y anti-capitalista”, una declaración abiertamente política, mientras que su predecesor, el General Antonio Cueto, asumió una posición política similar en apoyo del proyecto de izquierda de Morales. La cooptación de los militares por el gobierno es común en el bloque izquierdista de integración regional, Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Alba), liderada por el Presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.

¿Divide y vencerás?

La cumbre del MAS tuvo lugar en un momento difícil para el partido que está internamente escindido sobre varias políticas del gobierno –más notablemente, con relación a la propuesta carretera a través de un territorio indígena y parque nacional, Isiboro Sécure (Tipnis)– que vio a dos principales grupos indígenas bolivianos, Cidob y Conamaq, distanciarse del gobierno a fines del año pasado. Mientras que la dirección del MAS ha reconocido este problema, resaltando como una prioridad para la cumbre de Cochabamba la necesidad de superar las diferencias internas, Morales sigue siendo acusado por varios líderes indígenas de dividir deliberadamente al sector ante la planeada consulta no vinculante, que debe tener lugar el mes próximo, para decidir si el territorio deberá ser declarado ‘intocable’ o si la construcción de la carretera a través del área deberá seguir adelante [IL-12-07].

La Cidob ha anunciado una marcha nacional que comenzará el 25 de abril en contra de la carretera propuesta; la ONU está advirtiendo que las condiciones “no están bien” para que la consulta tenga lugar; y el gobierno está desesperado por evitar una repetición de la marcha del año pasado que duró más de dos meses y que forzó un giro total sobre el tema [IL-11-43]. Líderes indígenas como Fernando Vargas, presidente del Tipnis Subcentral (el propietario legal del Tipnis), han acusado a Morales de utilizar tácticas poco limpias al intentar persuadir a los potenciales opositores al proyecto.

El Tipnis Subcentral recientemente celebró una cumbre en la cual 41 de los 64 comités ratificaron la marcha. Sin embargo, Vargas se quejó de que la ausencia de ocho de las organizaciones se produjo después de reuniones entre los ocho líderes de esas organizaciones con el ministro de la presidencia, Juan Ramón Quintana. Entre otros informes que acusan a Morales de aplicar la “táctica de la zanahoria y el garrote” para ganarse a los indígenas en protesta (ver más abajo), Quintana ha sido acusado de busca dividir  el Cidob con su anuncio de una cumbre para los grupos indígenas de los llanos para redefinir la política del gobierno y elaborar varias iniciativas para beneficiar al sector. Se ha informado que el gobierno firmó acuerdos con siete de los 13 grupos regionales que componen la Cidob.

Más retumbos con EU

El 29 de marzo Morales puso en vigencia la ley que establece el nuevo acuerdo marco bilateral con EU , finalizado en noviembre del 2011 [IL-11-46], con el objeto de restaurar los lazos diplomáticos, que fueron cortados en el 2008. Aún así la promulgación de la ley coincidió con otro punto de tensión en las relaciones bilaterales, en esta ocasión causada por la intercepción de la policía el 27 de marzo de un auto con patente diplomática que llevaba armas. El vehículo, que fue detenido en los predios de UMOPAR, una unidad antidrogas de la  policía, financiada y equipada por el gobierno de EU en la provincia del nordeste de Beni, transportaba tres escopetas, un revólver y 2.350 cartuchos calibre-38.

      Las autoridades aún deben confirmar las identidades de los dos individuos en el auto, pero la prensa local ha informado que ambos eran funcionarios policiales bolivianos, uno de ellos el jefe de seguridad en la embajada de EU. La embajada de EU dijo en una declaración que las armas estaban siendo transferidas de una oficina cerrada en Trinidad, la capital de Beni, a Santa Cruz, bajo un acuerdo con la policía de Bolivia. La declaración agrega que Washington rutinariamente contrata y arma a policías locales en países extranjeros para proteger a sus diplomáticos. Sin embargo, el gobierno de Morales, negó la existencia de tal acuerdo y dijo que el incidente debía ser “investigado”. Quintana fue un paso más y acusó a EU de violar la seguridad nacional y la Convención de Viena de 1961 sobre relaciones diplomáticas.

• Más dudas sobre la carretera a través del Tipnis

César Uzeda, el director de operaciones internacionales de la compañía de construcción brasilera, OAS, la cual está contratada para construir la controversial carretera a través del Tipnis, ha planteado nuevas dudas acerca de su futuro. La semana pasada, le dijo al diario de negocios de Brasil, Valor, que OAS no podría completar la carretera de US$420m (para la cual el banco nacional de desarrollo de Brasil está proveyendo US$332m del presupuesto de US$420m), en medio de perspectivas de nuevas protestas. La carretera de 300kms, que está diseñada para reducir el tiempo de viaje entre Villa Tunari, en Cochabamba, y San Ignacio de Moxos, en Beni, está dividida en tres secciones. Mientras que la segunda sección vía el Tipnis fue el centro de las protestas indígenas, Uzeda también planteó dudas sobre la terminación de la primera y tercera secciones.

• Zanahoria y garrote

Fernando Vargas se ha quejado que el gobierno ha estado “chantajeando” a las comunidades locales para que apoyen la carretera a cambio de regalos como alimentos, vestimentas, y medicinas así como también otras promesas de viviendas y desarrollo. Mientras tanto, Tomás Candia, secretario de la juventud de la Cidob, está entre otros que acusa al gobierno de buscar penalizar a los oponentes del gobierno iniciando cargos en contra de 26 líderes indígenas en relación al supuesto secuestro del canciller David Choquehuanca durante la marcha de setiembre del 2011. También denunciado como una amenaza, fue el reciente anuncio de Juan Ramón Quintana de que 11 líderes del Tipnis serían investigados por desviar supuestamente B$10m (US$1,4m) de fondos del gobierno que estaban destinados para proyectos comunitarios.