All Categories

The Partido Acción Nacional looks as though it has had another bad day at the ballot box. The early returns from two of the congressional election re-runs held yesterday point to the PAN's loss of two more seats in the lower house of congress.

The most shocking defeat for the PAN looks imminent in the Zamora seat in Michoacán, which has been Panista for generations. It is also the home town of Marta Sahagún, President Vicente Fox's wife. In a race where the abstention rate is close to 80%, the candidate from the Partido de la Revolución Democrática is five percentage points ahead of the Panista with about 80% of the ballot boxes counted. This reverses the result in the election in July which was annulled.

In Coahuila, where there was also an election rerun yesterday, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional looks as though it has won a Torreón seat which the PAN won in July. The PRI had objected to the PAN's malpractices.

The results will not tilt congress one way or the other, but they will add to the growing sense of PAN exasperation that the party has been unable to cash in on President Fox's victory in 2000. The party will now have fewer than 150 seats in the 500 seat congress. The PRI, which is split, will have a total of 223 and the PRD at least 97. The other seats are held by minority parties.

A global anti-drug-trafficking operation has exposed links between the Italian mafia and Colombia's largest paramilitary group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

Italian authorities announced yesterday that its three-year operation (codenamed 'take-off') against the infamous 'Ndrangheta calabresa' revealed that the Calabrian crime group, which has taken over from the Sicilian Mafia as Italy's number one drug-trafficking organisation, brought industrial quantities of cocaine from Colombia to Italy. The paramilitary connection to the trafficking was established by a mole within the Ndrangheta who dealt with a close family friend of Salvatore Mancuso - the head of the AUC - in Italy. The same informant was kidnapped in Colombia in December 2003, but was freed by police.
 
Yesterday's announcement was accompanied by the arrest of some 110 people in six countries, of whom 15 were captured in Colombia. It is not clear how many of these are linked to the AUC, but the revelation of its links to drug smuggling will embarrass both the paramilitaries and the government, which is currently involved in a controversial peace process with the AUC. The paramilitaries have consistently denied that they use the drugs industry to raise funds for the battle against the leftwing guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional.

There was further discomfiture for the government and the AUC when it was revealed yesterday that two members of Colombia's regular armed forces had been captured by the military while fighting for the paramilitaries. The government has always played down speculation that the two forces cooperated in any way.

The heads of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia have requested talks with President Alvaro Uribe to safeguard the peace process between the paramilitaries and the government. The government admitted last week that the deal signed last July was in danger of collapsing due to the AUC's refusal to concentrate in pre-established areas where their compliance with the ceasefire can be monitored.

The 12 top leaders of the AUC, known as the military staff, issued a statement on their website on Friday (5 March) saying that they remained committed to talks with the government, but that certain conditions would have to be met before the process could advance. Foremost of these demands is the assurance from the government that the AUC leaders, primarily Salvatore Mancuso and Carlos Castaño, would not face extradition to the US if they handed themselves in.

The AUC also demanded that 'all its members would be able to return fully to civil society' and both the paramilitaries and the Colombians they protect would themselves be looked after by the government. Under such circumstances, the AUC will continue with a 'gradual' demobilisation rather than the immediate decommissioning the government wants.

Separately, Mancuso asked for a private meeting with Uribe - a proposal made via Julio César Vidal, an intermediary from the Catholic Church. The President has reacted coolly to this offer and indeed the AUC statement; Uribe said yesterday only that the peace process should be 'transparent' and that negotiations would continue through the peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo. As regards extradition, Uribe said only that he had to respect Colombian law.

Committees representing holders of Argentina's US$88bn defaulted commercial debt are starting to arrive for talks with the government. In keeping with a commitment made to the IMF, the Argentine government will meet all such groups in an attempt to persuade them to accept its offer of a 75% cut in the value of the debt.

First to arrive was the Assotutella Consumatori, which represents 20,000 Italian bondholders who hold US$200,000 in Argentine debt. The group yesterday told Argentine Finance Secretary Guillermo Nielsen that it wanted the government to honour 35% of its debt rather than 25%.

The German group IG-Argentinien and the US-based Capital Group Company are also likely to ask for more money when they are received today, but the real challenge for the government will come tomorrow (16 April) when it is scheduled to meet the Global Committee of Argentina Bondholders (GCAB). The GCAB, led by Italian financier Nicola Stock, is the biggest group of bondholders, claiming to hold US$37bn in debt. It is also the most aggressive; before boarding his plane yesterday Stock told reporters he would be asking Europe to place sanctions on Argentina if it did not improve its offer.

Pleasingly for the government, the head of the Assotutella Consumatori, Paolo Alazraki, distanced himself form the hardline stance of his compatriot. Alazraki told the government that Stock and the GCAB represented banks rather than bondholders - an opinion shared by Argentina. The government also doesn't believe Stock's claim that the GCAB has the tacit support of the IMF. Friday's discussion 'will not be friendly' admitted Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna recently.

Nonetheless, there is no sign of Argentina improving its offer although national newspaper La Nación said today that the government was considering making the proposed growth-linked-bond more attractive to bondholders. Scepticism regarding the proposed bond abounds, but the price of defaulted Argentine bonds on Wall Street has risen in the last fortnight amid speculation that the government will be forced by these meetings to up its offer.

The leader of the opposition Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP), Alan Garcí­a, is getting bolder and bolder with his demands. He has called for Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero to be dismissed for failing to confront adequately the political and social crisis currently affecting the country. Garcí­a's PAP was recently instrumental in bringing down Peru's former interior minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, for his alleged mishandling of the government's confrontation with the country's coca growers.

Garcí­a met with the leader of Unidad Nacional, Lourdes Flores, and a former interim president, Valentí­n Paniagua of the Acción Popular, to come up with suggestions to improve governability. They reached a consensus that the government should recall Beatriz Merino as prime minister.

Toledo's approval rating is so low that he cannot dismiss Garcí­a's posturing. Garcí­a has stopped short of calling for Toledo to stand down, unlike several other politicians and social groups, but there is little doubt Garcí­a is calling the shots now. He seems to be content to see the president lurch from one crisis to another rather than setting a potentially dangerous precedent by seeking to replace him before his mandate expires.

Development: The Mexico City assembly announced on 29 June that it will hold an extraordinary session to consider dismissing the mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The session could start as early as the end of this week. The first point the assembly members will have to consider is whether they can constitutionally dismiss López Obrador.

Significance: The impeachment attempt, which is being backed by the two main opposition parties in the assembly, is unlikely to succeed but it will keep López Obrador under pressure. The mayor is likely to be safe because López Obrador's own party, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática, has a comfortable majority on the city council. 

The interesting point is that the PRD is beginning to fret about López Obrador's reaction to the pressure he is under. The party has implied that he is developing a persecution complex, because he interprets any criticism as evidence of a plot against him. The PRD's president, Leonel Godoy, said that he did not believe that any governor or mayor had done more to combat crime than López Obrador but, Godoy added, it was clear that this effort had not been enough. So it was wrong, Godoy argued, to do what López Obrador had done: dismiss the anti-crime march which took place on 27 June and to claim that ordinary people were wrong when they said that there had been no progress on dealing with crime.

On 28 June López Obrador claimed that the march was a political stunt, organised by his opponents to embarrass him. He currently heads the opinion polls for the presidential election in 2006. López Obrador claims that the far right, and the federal government of President Vicente Fox are exploiting the law and order issue for their own political ends. 

To be fair, López Obrador himself is distancing himself from his initial claim that the march was a political stunt. On 29 June he accused the media of distorting what he said by ignoring his statements in which he expressed support for those who had marched in good faith on 27 June. López Obrador said he especially admired those marchers who had been victims of crime themselves. 

Other PRD politicians said that López Obrador should have taken this line from the beginning. They say that it is silly to claim that the whole march was a political protest. Intellectuals agree: they say that although the right got the march going, it was a popular and unscripted protest, not controlled by López Obrador's opponents.

The impeachment attempt is quite cleverly pitched. Both of the two main opposition parties, President Fox's Partido Acción Nacional and the biggest party in the federal congress and the country, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, argue the decision as to whether López Obrador should have his immunity from prosecution removed should be handled by the city council, to which he is answerable, rather than the federal congress. The lower chamber of the federal congress is currently considering whether López Obrador should lose his immunity because he ignored an injunction which would have stopped the city council improving access to a public hospital.

Development: The president of the central bank, Henrique Meirelles, faced fresh allegations of tax evasion on 5 August throwing his position into doubt.

Significance: President Lula da Silva's hitherto unwavering support of Meirelles could dissolve if corruption allegations continue to flow. Meirelles joked yesterday that 'there will be one (allegation) every day until the elections'. And that is the point. With municipal elections looming in October, Lula might chose to sacrifice Meirelles (a highly competent banker but politically insignificant) to curry favour with disillusioned leftists in the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Such a move might also increase Lula's popular support (and hence his party's) ahead of the elections by showing that he will not tolerate corruption. At the very least, the latest allegations will increase pressure on Meirelles to appear before the senate committee on economic affairs sooner rather than later, if only to halt the daily drip of allegations. The longer he delays, the more allegations are likely to appear.

The latest allegations came from the current affairs magazine Veja which was the first to bring allegations against Meirelles in July. Veja reported on 5 August that in 2002 Meirelles carried out a US$50,000 transfer from an undeclared US bank account to an account operated by an undisclosed São Paulo money dealing firm, which is currently under investigation for money laundering. This follows earlier allegations published in Veja and another current affairs magazine, Istoé over the last two weeks alleging that Meirelles set up a company without informing the government's ethics commission - as required by law - and concealed some of his holdings from the tax authorities.

The markets have started to react to Meirelles' travails. Brazil's benchmark stock index, Bovespa registered its largest fall in three months on 5 August in the wake of the latest allegations. The Bovespa fell 3.8%. Investors are concerned that legislators might become sidetracked by what is becoming an increasingly politicised case to the detriment of the economy. Several bills aimed at further stimulating the economy are currently waiting in the wings.

Investor concern is largely unwarranted. Lula is aware that he cannot allow the Meirelles saga to drag on indefinitely. Meirelles will either have to clear his name soon or he will go. The loss of Meirelles would certainly not be a disaster for the government. There is no shortage of competent bankers in Brazil: the new director of the central bank's monetary policy committee (Copom), Rodrigo Azevedo moved seamlessly from his old post at Credit Suisse First Boston last week to replace Luiz Augusto Candiota, who resigned in the face of allegations similar to those being faced by Meirelles. As far as the economy goes, the finance minister, Antônio Palocci, is far more significant than Meirelles.

This point was made, ironically, by the leader of the opposition Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), Artur Virgí­lio, who yesterday called for Meirelles to resign as he had lost his credibility. Virgí­lio reacted angrily to accusations that the PSDB was trying to destabilise the country by going after Meirelles. He said that it was dissident elements of the PT that were trying to bring down Meirelles to try and gain control over the government's economic policy. He added, pertinently, that this was futile as any replacement would be from the same mould as Palocci.

For Meirelles to go, president Lula will first have to agree with the conclusion of the PSDB's deputy leader Jutahy Júnior. He said on 5 August said that it is simply unsustainable to have a president of the central bank who is permanently under suspicion.

Development: President Néstor Kirchner announced on 8 September that Argentina 'will not liberalise its automobile trade with Brazil in 2006 as planned'. His comments have raised fears that a new trade spat with Brazil is looming just weeks after the last such dispute - over restrictions imposed on Brazilian white goods - was resolved.

Significance: It is easy to understand why Argentina is reluctant to open its market any further to Brazilian cars. According to Argentina's industry secretary, Alberto Dumont, some 60% of the cars purchased in Argentina this year come from Brazil, while only 3% of cars in Brazil come from Argentina. Kirchner told a Volkswagen plant in Pacheco on 8 September that 'we have to redress the imbalances and aim for a development on equal terms'.

Unfortunately for Kirchner, the so-called 'Mercosur Automotive Policy' is founded on this imbalance. Under this framework, which aims to liberalise trade in cars completely by 2006, Brazil is already allowed to export 2.4 times as many automotive products to Argentina as it does to Brazil. This figure rises to 2.6 times in 2006, where it will likely stay if there is no full liberalisation.

The Argentine president played down the significance of his decision. 'The government wants Brazil's automobile industry to develop, but it wants the same for ours as well,' Kirchner said, adding: 'I'm sure my friend President Lula will completely understand this.' Brazil has yet to react, but will doubtless make its feelings on the subject known to Kirchner's economy minister, Roberto Lavagna, who arrived in Brasí­lia late on 8 September.

Development: The lower chamber of congress agreed on 12 October to a compromise on the divisive issue of who should pay for basic education in Mexico City.

Significance: Although the compromise, suggested by the biggest party in congress and the country, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), was opposed by the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), which controls Mexico City, the issue was debated and voted on. Last week the PRD interrupted congress twice to prevent the issue even being discussed.

The problem for the PRD is that the government wants to clear up an historical anomaly which means that the federal government pays for basic education in Mexico City. In other states, the state government pays about a third of the bill. Clearly changing the current arrangements will have a major budgetary impact on Mexico City. The original government proposal was likely to force Mexico City to find MS$9bn (US$788m) a year. The PRI compromise cuts the amount the city will have to find in half.

The PRD did get the PRI to agree that there should now be a period of national debate to consider how the change should be implemented. This was inevitable anyway because all constitutional changes, and the PRI amendment deals with Article 122, have to be approved by the senate and a majority of the country's 31 states. Effectively, the senate and the states have until 15 November to decide, the date on which the spending side of the federal budget has to be approved by the lower chamber of congress. 

The PRD feels that senators from both the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the PRI are more reasonable and will not politicise the issue. Already senators from the PRI and the PAN are saying that the reform should not be rushed: this is likely to mean that the November deadline will be missed, so the reform cannot be included in the federal budget for 2005.

The PRI amendment was passed by 369 (PRI , plus most of the governing PAN) against 102 (PRD plus some of the smaller leftwing parties). What the PRI amendment does, cunningly, is demand that any money which is switched from education spending in Mexico City is used for education spending in other states.

Development: Senator José Mujica, a senior member of the Encuentro Progresista-Frente Amplio (EP-FA) coalition which triumphed in the 31 October general election, announced on 15 November that a member of his faction of the coalition should run on behalf of the EP-FA to be the next mayor of Montevideo.

Significance: It has not taken long for Mujica to start flexing his muscles. His Movimiento de Participación Popular (MPP) is a key part of the coalition, having won 30% of the EP-FA's vote at the election, and his public assertion that 'we want to implement key changes to what happens in Montevideo' is a clear indication of his ambitions. The capital is not only home to almost half of Uruguay's population, but is also the EP-FA's stronghold.

Inevitably, other members of the coalition took umbrage at the bid for power. The economy minister, Danilo Astori, said that the coalition should live up to its belief that 'the best person should be put forward for the job,' rather than it being decided by 'political quota'. The Partido Socialista, which is headed by EP-FA chief and president elect Tabaré Vázquez, was also annoyed by Mujica's comments, although Vázquez himself has refused to comment.

Far from being stung by the opprobrium heaped upon him by his coalition partners, Mujica's resolve appears to have hardened. He responded by refusing to rule out that he himself might run for mayor of Montevideo, which could create a major split within the EP-FA.

Development: Argentina's partners in the Mercosur trade bloc made it clear on 16 December they will not tolerate its use of protective measures to safeguard its domestic economy.

Significance: The row that has been bubbling under the surface in Mercosur regarding Argentina's desire to impose limits on foreign imports finally erupted at the bloc's presidential summit in Belo Horizonte. Argentina's delegation has found itself under attack not only from Brazil, its largest trade partner, but also from Paraguay and Uruguay on the grounds that the restrictions it is suggesting violate the fundamental spirit of the free-trade bloc.

Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, made his government's position very clear, telling reporters at the summit: 'If protective measures are adopted against Brazilian products, they will also have to be used in retaliation to Argentine goods.' Argentina has responded by pointing out that Mercosur is founded on free competition as well as free trade.

The meeting today (17 December) between Argentina's President Néstor Kirchner and his Brazilian counterpart, Lula da Silva, has assumed major importance. Kirchner is renowned for his lack of tact and diplomacy when his government is criticised, and the good relationship he and Lula have cultivated could be jeopardised.

Development: President Lula da Silva was booed while making his anti-poverty speech at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre on 27 January.

Significance: For all his charisma, Lula found it hard to answer critics of the government's economic policies and the apparent lack of direction of its social programmes. Lula was interrupted on several occasions by the crowd's jeering during his 35-minute speech.

The Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) was expecting the president and other members of the government to have a hard time in Porto Alegre. The party mounted several stands on the streets to "explain the government's work" and distributed several T-shirts with the party's logo.

Yet, clearly tense, the President had to stop his address to defend the government's two years of economic orthodoxy and friendly relations with international monetary institutions. Lula listed all his government's efforts to fight global poverty and praised his government's foreign policy for expanding relations with the developing world and working for the unity of South America.

Lula asked people for "patience to wait for good results", declaring that the rate of economic growth in 2005 will be faster than last year's. He said the government would invest in infrastructure and listed several measures to improve the government's 'income transference programmes'. In the afternoon, Lula flew to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Development: On 2 March the leadership of the Partido Socialista and the Partido por la Democracia proposed 5 June as the date for the primary to select the Concertación candidate for the presidential elections due in December.

Significance: The PS and the PPD, who back Michelle Bachelet, have thrown down the gauntlet to their Concertación rivals, Demócrata Cristiana (DC), which supports Soledad Alvear. The DC has only recently, and reluctantly, agreed to open primaries, fearing that Alvear will lose as Bachelet is ahead in the opinion polls by a significant margin. Now the DC will have to decide whether to accept the challenge for 5 June or delay the vote until Alvear catches up in the polls.

The PS-PPD proposal, which would leave 180 days until the presidential elections, envisages a national, open primary, identical to the one Ricardo Lagos (who went on to win the presidency) won against senator Andrés Zaldí­var in 1999. Political commentators expect the DC to reject the idea of a national primary if the difference between Bachelet and Alvear in the opinion polls is more than 2 to 1. Other possibilities include a series of regional primaries, though the PS-PPD have expressed their dislike of this method.

Development: Dominica's prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, says general elections will be held on 5 May.

Significance: Skerrit named the date shortly after the government announced on 5 April that the economy grew by 3.5% in 2004, after three years of recession, and is expected to grow 3.7% in 2005. He is expected to win on the strength of his economic record.

Skerrit has prevaricated over naming a date for elections in part because of an embarrassing clash between his Dominica Labour Party (DLP) and the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) over Dominica's relations with China. Skerrit presided over Dominica's switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in March 2004 in return for substantial promises of aid from China (US$100m for an island with a population of only 71,000). However, when China's ambassador, Ye Dabo criticised the Dominican government for not adhering to the "One China" policy in January because opposition supporters were flying the Taiwanese flag, the UWP sought to capitalise on popular support by defending the democratic rights of private citizens. Skerrit decided to wait for the fuss to die down before calling elections.

Development: On 12 May thousands of 'outlaws', protesters who forced Lucio Gutiérrez from office in late April, marched on congress demanding that all legislators should go.

Significance: Around 3000 protesters, convened once more via Radio La Luna, surrounded the parliament. Although yesterday's outlaws were unquestionably the more radical fringe of the movement that ousted Gutiérrez, support for their cause remains widespread. As such the new government, composed of technocrats with no party political affiliations, has attempted to identify itself with the outlaws. Shortly after taking office the new interior minister, Miguel Gándara, declared himself 'the number one outlaw'.

A small group of protesters tried to storm the parliament to expel the deputies, but they were stopped from doing so by the rest of the crowd. Police presence at the demonstration was minimal; Gándara defended the demonstrators' legitimate right to protest and said that he had ordered the police not to use tear gas under any circumstances. During the riots that overthrew Gutiérrez, a photographer of Chilean origin died of a heart attack after inhaling tear gas.

As well as calling for the departure of all legislators, the outlaws demanded the creation of a constituent assembly to reform the constitution. President Alfredo Palacio has promised to do so, but not until the end of this year or the beginning of next. A number of protesters also asked that the government do more to protect them; rumours abound of threats from 'outlaw hunters'; groups loyal to Gutiérrez determined to destabilise the movement. The director of Radio La Luna, Paco Velasco, fled the country following such threats

Development: President Eduardo Rodrí­guez completed his cabinet on 16 June by appointing two people from secessionist-inclined Santa Cruz to hold key economic jobs. He also appointed a Roman Catholic to hold the sustainable development ministry and a social scientist to hold the labour ministry.

Significance: The appointment of the Cruceños to key ministries was not enough to appease the secessionists. They said on 16 June that they would push ahead with their own referendum on autonomy on 12 August when they expect the country to hold nationwide elections for governors/prefects, even though the powers of these offices have yet to be defined. Jesús Marco López, the president of the Asamblea Provisional Autonómica de Santa Cruz, claimed that the referendum elections did not mean that Santa Cruz had ended its truce with the new government of President Eduardo Rodrí­guez.

The government does not see things so rosily. Iván Avilés, the minister of the presidency, said that President Rodrí­guez would go to Santa Cruz today, ostensibly to thank Cardinal Julio Terrazas for his role in piloting the compromise which led to President Mesa surrendering office to Rodrí­guez. Rodrí­guez will also talk to Cruceño leaders to try to reassure them that their preoccupations will not be ignored by his government. Avilés said that Rodrí­guez was going to Santa Cruz only to listen.  

It is far from clear that prefect/governor elections will in fact take place across the country on 12 August. As their powers would be conferred by the president, the national electoral court suggested cancelling these elections since there will be another president and congress which could define the powers of the prefects/governors. The problem is that people have already started to run for governor/prefect: in gas-rich Tarija, a former president, Jaime Paz Zamora, has launched his candidacy. Altogether there are 40 candidates for the nine posts.  

The two Cruceños who joined the cabinet on 16 June were Carlos Dí­az Villavicencio and Guillermo Ribera Cuéllar. Dí­az, aged 38, is an Argentine-trained economist who has spent most of his short business career with the country's biggest bank, Banco Santa Cruz. He also has links to the oil and gas industry. Ribera holds the crucial agriculture and rural affairs ministry. His big claim to fame was organising the construction of the Santa Cruz airport, Viru Viru.

Development: On 20 July the US congress approved an amendment authorising the US government to initiate television and radio broadcasts aimed at establishing a counterweight to Telesur, the Caracas-based TV station due to be launched across Latin America on 24 July.

Significance: President Hugo Chávez described the amendment as “another desperate attack by the imperialists" and promised to jam the signal of any broadcasts from the US. Venezuela's ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, called the decision a product of “manipulation and a lack of knowledge". It is not yet clear whether the US government has any broadcasts planned.

The amendment was proposed by Florida congressman Connie Mack, a prominent critic of Chávez . He said it would allow the US government “to initiate radio and television broadcasts that will provide a consistently accurate, objective, and comprehensive source of news to Venezuela". Chávez denounced the plan as a replica of Radio Martí­, the US government broadcast operations aimed at Cuba.

Telesur ran test transmissions, via satellite, on 24 May. It is being paid for by Venezuela (51%), Argentina (20%), Cuba (19%) and Uruguay (10%). Its backers claim it will provide an alternative to large commercial media outlets, such as CNN en Español or Univision, but critics say it will be a platform for anti-Americanism and Chávez 's revolutionary rhetoric. The Venezuelan information minister, Andrés Izarra, is the station's president.

Development: Hormando Vaca Dí­ez was chosen as the Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria's candidate for the presidential election on 23 August.

Significance: Vaca Dí­ez, who is president of congress and comes from Santa Cruz, lost little time in playing the secessionist card: he said that the MIR should change its name to the MIR de las Autonomí­as. Vaca Dí­ez is the only one of the six official presidential candidates to come from Santa Cruz, the most economically dynamic of the country's nine departments. Santa Cruz is leading the drive for greater departmental autonomy which may be masking a move towards secession. Three other departments: Tarija (which crucially holds the bulk of the country's hydrocarbons) Bení­ and Pando are backing Santa Cruz in an alliance known as Media Luna. It is worth noting, however, that Tarija does not share a border with its fellow autonomists/secessionists.  

The other five declared candidates for the presidency are: a former president, Jorge Quiroga, (who is one point ahead in the opinion polls); Evo Morales, the leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo and the coca growers of Chaparé; Samuel Doria Medina, a rich businessman; René Joaquino, the mayor of Potosí­ and Michiaki Nagatani, who was picked as the candidate for the hopelessly split Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario in mid-August. In the most recent opinion poll (published on 21 August and covering the country's four main cities) Vaca Dí­ez's support was negligible at only 3%.  

Vaca Dí­ez's nomination was a setback for Jaime Paz Zamora, a former president and the leader of the MIR. He had wanted the party to focus its efforts on winning departmental elections this year rather than trying to win the presidency, which is likely to be decided by congress. Significantly, Paz Zamora did not turn up to Vaca Dí­ez's formal nomination at the Bingo Palace in La Paz. The Paz Zamora strategy would have meant that the MIR would not run a candidate for the presidency, but would probably have endorsed Quiroga. Under the Bolivian system if no presidential candidate wins an absolute majority, congress picks the president from the official candidates.  

Paz Zamora himself is running for the governorship of Tarija. These elections are scheduled for December this year along with the presidential and congressional elections. In July 2006, there are elections for a constituent assembly which will draw up a new constitution and a referendum on autonomy.  

The problem for the two traditional parties, the MIR and MNR, is that they have been losing support. Paz Zamora and his supporters in the party reckoned that the MIR needed a “sabbatical from power" and should use that time to rebuild the party's support in departments. The MIR is particularly strong in Tarija, which was one of only two regions not to support Vaca Dí­ez's nomination.

Development: The governor of Santander, Hugo Aguilar, claimed on 26 September that three mayors from his department had been victims of express kidnappings during visits to Bogotá over the last month.

Significance: Aguilar paints a bleak picture of the security situation in Bogotá, even though the Colombian capital is widely considered to be safe. The governor of Santander, which lies to the north of Bogotá, said that the three mayors had come to the capital on official business only to be kidnapped in exactly the same way: they were deceived into meeting their abductors in the Santa Fe neighbourhood, whereupon they were taken to a house in the south of the city until ransom demands had been met.

In each case, the criminals demanded Col$5m-Col$10m (US$2,000-US$4,000) but were satisfied by payments in the region of Col$1m-Col$2m. Aguilar described the crimes as textbook "executive kidnappings" but Colombia's security service, the DAS, is not so sure. A spokesman for the DAS said that the agency was not aware of the details of the crime but knew that the three mayors had been under pressure from either the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or the Ejército de Liberación Nacional to hand over control of their local budgets to the guerrillas.

Development: On 30 October Peruvians voted overwhelmingly against the creation of five political macro-regions from 16 of the country's 24 departments in a referendum.

Significance: The timing of the referendum, just five months before the presidential elections, meant that it was interpreted as a vote on the performance of the government of President Alejandro Toledo. In this respect it was a resoundingly negative verdict for Toledo whose popularity has languished just above single digits for the last two years.

The decentralisation process was a central plank of Toledo's electoral platform. However, his enthusiasm for it was dampened by the lamentable performance of his Perú Posible party in the country's first-ever regional elections in November 2002. The PP won just one regional presidency compared with 13 for the main opposition Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP). Since then, Toledo has been reluctant to devolve any meaningful power to the regions and the central government still controls most of the finances.

The idea behind the macro-regions was ostensibly to increase the political and economic power of the regional governments by bringing together their financial resources, although the effect looked like a reversal of decentralisation and a dilution of the power of the regional presidents.

According to the Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), the “yes" vote topped 50% of all votes in only one department: Arequipa in the south-east of Peru, and even here it was only 50.7%. The “no" vote got in excess of 70% in the northern departments of Lambayeque, Piura and Tumbes and over 80% in Ancash and Pasco in central Peru. In the south it ranged from 69.4% in Ayacucho to 84% in Huancavelica. It was closer in the south-eastern departments of Apurí­mac (59%) and Cuzco (53%).

The PAP refused to back the referendum which it said had been inadequately planned. The government accused the PAP of politicising the vote ahead of the elections. This might be true, but it is also the case that some of the PAP regional presidents, already complaining about a lack of power, were reluctant to see the conflation of their regions into a bigger unit, which would have resulted in the concentration of power in even fewer hands.