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This year, 2010, is a busy year for elections in the region. Brazil's presidential and congressional elections dominate the calendar and the big question is whether President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can transfer his popularity to his preferred successor, Dilma Rousseff. The example of what has happened in Chile shows how difficult this is. Chile elected Sebastián Piñera as its first democratically-chosen, rightwing president for 52 years in January. This was despite the 80% plus opinion poll approval ratings of the leftwing incumbent, Michelle Bachelet.

This year is unusual because it may not feature any contests, outside the Caribbean, in which an incumbent runs for re-election. At the time of writing, in early February, it is still unclear whether Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe will be able to run for an unprecedented third term. He is still awaiting the nod from the constitutional court and then will also have to win a national referendum before he can compete in May's presidential race.

Even in countries with no presidential races this year, pre-electoral jockeying for coming leadership contests moves up a gear in 2010. In Peru, this year's regional and municipal elections will provide strong indications of what may happen in 2011. In Argentina, internal party campaigns for the 2011 presidential election are already underway. In Mexico, this year's 12 gubernatorial elections will show whether there is any hope for a candidate seeking to prevent the traditional Partido Revolucionario Institucional recapturing the presidency in 2012. In Venezuela, the opposition is fervently hoping that this year's congressional elections will throw up a candidate who can challenge President Hugo Chávez .

It is almost impossible to generalise about political trends in the region. Does Piñera's win mean that the region is tilting to the Right?   Would a defeat for Dilma in Brazil confirm that trend? But how then do the easy wins last year for Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia and José Mujica in Uruguay fit with this supposed tilt? And what about the continuation of a centrist government in Costa Rica?

Our view is that all these changes are evidence of the fact that Latin America's democracies are becoming more stable. This view, though, clearly comes with a caveat given what happened in Honduras in June 2009, where an elected president, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown in a constitutional coup. The fact that the interim government of Roberto Micheletti stuck to the electoral timetable and handed over to an elected president, Porfirio Lobo, suggests that even coupsters   now want swift democratic validation. It is also worth noting that Latin America is unusual in that coup leaders (ranging from Chávez in Venezuela to Efraí­n Rios Montt in Guatemala, Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador and the late Hugo Banzer in Bolivia) have all subsequently espoused democratic politics.

As we argued last year, the region's comparatively young and inexperienced electorates are bold. They have picked an extraordinary range of people as presidents: in the last two years they have picked, in no particular order: a TV personality, a billionaire, a former bishop and a former guerrilla. Also in this mix is the occasional professional politician, most recently Laura Chinchilla, elected in Costa Rica in February 2010.  

Our conclusion of 12 months ago, that in Latin America, personality is more important than policy still holds true. Indeed we would argue that in Venezuela, in particular, the absence of a charismatic opposition leader is Chávez 's biggest asset.

The apparently arcane dispute over the reform of Article 122 of the constitution illustrates the grim political problems facing Mexico. Ostensibly the dispute, which has prompted members of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática to interrupt congress twice, on 5 and 7 October, is over whether the federal government should go on subsidising primary education in Mexico City. In fact, the dispute is really about how Mexico should be governed.

What is at issue is whether low politics should dominate the political process. The government, backed by the biggest party in congress, the Partido Revolcuionario Instituiconal (PRI), has seized on the chance to deliver a low blow to the government of Mexico City, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He is the frontrunner for the presidential elections in 2006. Both his long-term rival from Tabasco, Roberto Madrazo, who now heads the PRI, and President Vicente Fox, would like to see López Obrador knocked out of the race for the presidency. 

Their weapon is the arcane anomaly under which the federal government subsidises basic education in Mexico City. This anomaly is a legacy of the time when Mexico City was ruled directly by a presidential appointee. In 1992, the country's 32 states took responsibility for basic education, but Mexico City did not. Manuel Camacho Solis, the mayor at the time, said that this anomaly was because of problems he had with Ernesto Zedillo, then minister of education. Zedillo became President in 1994, after President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's first choice for the post, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was assassinated. 

The government now wants to correct the anomaly, but in one go. This will blow a M$9bn (US$782m) hole in Mexico City's 2005 budget and probably force López Obrador to trim his spending. He has based his popularity on heavy public spending: he has built a lot of a new inner ring-roads and provided direct payments to pensioners and mothers with school-age children. The PRD feels that the change is aimed directly at undermining López Obrador's popularity. Even dissident Prií­stas feel that something rotten is going on. Amazingly Manuel Bartlett, who as interior minister presided over the computer failure during the election count which almost certainly allowed Salinas to `win' the 1988 presidential election, reckons that the reforms to Article 122 are being rushed. Along with the PRD he argues that any reform of Article 122 should form part of an overhaul of the whole of Mexico City's finances. 

López Obrador is trying to portray himself as a political victim. He said that there is no chance of negotiating a solution to the Article 122 problem. He has probably calculated that the next move the PRI-PAN alliance (PRIAN, as López Obrador calls it) will make will be to strip him of his immunity so that he can be prosecuted for a (petty) contempt of court.

Hezbollah: On 12 October it emerged that the US government had asked Mexico's Procuradurí­a General de la República to investigate whether a Hezbollah cell was operating in Mexico. According to a report in El Universal, the PGR has been investigating the US's evidence for the past three months. It is not clear whether it has substantiated the US claims from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US State Department. Mexico has investigated about 30 claims by the US that Middle Eastern terrorists are operating from Mexico and found insufficient evidence to make any arrests or to bring charges. The US allegations are, apparently, that Hezbollah is raising finance for its operations in Mexico. 

The current investigation seems better founded: the PGR is investigating specific (but unnamed) individuals and companies. The only recent terrorist cell found in Mexico was an ETA cell which was dismantled in 2003 when six presumed ETA terrorists were arrested. They were charged with financing ETA leaders in Spain.

Whither Nafta: US academics are considering what President Vicente Fox's government has achieved and what President-elect Felipe Calderón Hinojosa might do. One of the most pungent analyses of the state of Mexico was made by J Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at Berkeley. DeLong was US Assistant Treasury Secretary during the presidency of Bill Clinton. DeLong wrote, in an article syndicated in the second week of October, that six years ago he was convinced that Nafta had been a success. Now he was not so sure. As a self-confessed neo-liberal, DeLong said that he was no longer sure that neo-liberal economic policies were the right ones for Mexico. He pointed out that since 1994 Mexico's GDP had grown at an average rate of 3.6%. As its population had grown by 2.5%, the average Mexican was now only 15% richer than he was in 1993. Furthermore the difference between average earnings in the US and Mexico had widened since Nafta came into force in 1994. He noted that although Mexican economic policymaking had achieved great things since 1994 (lowering inflation, increasing exports from a little over 10% of GDP to 28% and providing a long period of economic stability) productivity and wages in Mexico had not risen much. Crime, corruption and emigration had continued, DeLong pointed out. 

Lettuce and spinach: Mexico banned imports of US lettuce and spinach because of fears about the cleanliness of the product. On 9 October a US company, Nunes, in California warned that some of its lettuces had been irrigated with contaminated water. An investigation by the Mexican federal health commission found dangerous levels of E.Coli in some lettuces. The health commission said that Mexican-produced lettuces posed no dangers. On 20 September spinach imports from the US were also banned, after they were found to have dangerously high levels of E.Coli after been irrigated with waste water.

The good news for the federal government is that, outside Chihuahua, the pace of killing by gangsters appears to be slowing down from the 700-800 a month levels the drug gangs achieved in October and November 2008. This improvement has been balanced by clear evidence that local police forces are in league with the gangs and, secondly, that the public has had enough of this state of affairs and may be prepared to take matters into its own hands.

The evidence for state police complicity in organised crime is mounting. On 7 February, a state policeman in Zacatecas was arrested after he, and nine other   gangsters (four of which were killed), attempted to ambush a patrol of soldiers and federal police officers. The second piece of evidence for the uncertain loyalty of the state police was the arrest, on 9 February, of the head of public security in Cancún (and thus the commansder of the municipal police force) over his alleged involvement in the assassination of a retired general on 3 February. The general had been brought in by the mayor of Cancún to advise him on security issues, thus potentially threatening the role of the local police.

It is worth noting that Mario Villanueva, a former governor of Quintana Roo, the state in which Cancún lies, is the only senior politician to have been jailed for his links to the drug trade. Villanueva was an archetypical member of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the party which heads the opinion polls for the forthcoming congressional elections.

The arrest of the municipal policeman and the head of public security in Cancun suggest that municipal police forces, which are poorly paid and poorly trained, are hopelessly compromised. Indeed at the end of January, in the municipality of Villanueva (Zacatecas), locals took the law into their own hands and summoned the army to take over from the municipal police force.

Arguably, the federal government is also running out of patience with all levels of police. Army generals now hold all but one of the top operational jobs in the police forces reporting to Genaro Garcí­a Luna, the controversial minister of public security, who had been attempting to establish a national police force.

Tension between the army and mostly corrupt local police forces has been high ever since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa started to deploy the army against the country's drug gangs in December 2006. The Zacatecas arrest is is the first time, however, that a local police officer has been caught red-handed attacking the army. The arrest adds more evidence to the widespread assumption across the country that most local police forces are in league with organised crime.

In the small town of Villanueva (pop. 32,000) the locals had protested so strongly against their local police that the army was deployed to replace the municipal police on 24 January.

For a week, the army replacement went well and peacefully. Then on 2 February, Rómulo Madrid Olague, the municipality's head of public security, was gunned down as he left home in the centre of the town. The fear locally is that the killing was a reprisal by gang members, who were irked by the locals'ejection of the complaisant local police.

The locals had wanted all 42 local police officers dismissed, claiming that they were all in league with gangs, who had been kidnapping with impunity in the municipality. In the first half of January, the local community had forked out M$500,000 (US$34,000) to release a retired teacher, a local shopkeeper and a credit company owner, all kidnapped.

Villaneuva is typical of tracts of Mexico. Like much of Zacatecas, most families have at least one member working in the US and sending money home. Locals say that the Los Zetas killers, working under contract for the Golfo gang, have been running the area for years and that the problem started under Ricardo Monreal, the previous state governor. Zacatecas is one of the few states controlled by the leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD).

In the 7 February incident in Zacatecas, gangsters tried to ambush a patrol by a joint army and federal police unit. The patrol beat off the ambush, though an army lieutenant was killed and two soldiers wounded. Four of the attackers were killed and four others arrested, including the (unnamed) municipal police officer from Fresnillo.
 
The declining public confidence in the municipal and state police has been a feature of public opinion surveys throughout the past decade. It now seems that the public is prepared to act. Opinion polls indicate that ordinary Mexicans trust the army far more than they trust the police. Worryingly, however, there are indications that this confidence in the army may not endure if it fails to deliver enhanced security.

Chihuahua, where, like Zacatecas, the army has been deployed for the past couple of years, may be seeing the emergence of death squads, which have so far been noticeably absent in Mexico, despite the decline in public confidence in the bulk of the police. Mexico has 203,000 state police and 152,000 municipal police but only 20,000 federal police. There are 162 separate police forces across the country. In Central America, Colombia, South America and in Mexico 20 years ago, death squads started up when the state was too weak to deal with challenges to its authority.

On 15 January a group in Chihuahua calling itself the Comando Ciudadano pro Juárez (CCJ) issued a statement saying that it would kill one criminal a day. The statement seems to have been a reaction to the kidnapping of two young ranchers, Jorge and César Muños Reyes. One was killed and the other only released after the family paid a huge ransom.

Businessmen in the state then got together and decided to do something to halt the kidnappings and murders. The CCJ said in its statement that it was financed by businesses and invited people to send emails suggesting “bad people" that deserved to die. It is not clear whether the CCJ has delivered on its threats yet.

The death toll in January 2009 in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, the most dangerous place in Chihuahua, was 148. The rising murder rate in Ciudad Juárez is bucking the national trend, which showed a decline from the level of between 700 and 800 killings a month hit in both October and November 2008. According to a Mexico City newspaper, Reforma, the national gang murder rate in the month of January was 450.

The January death toll in Ciudad Juárez, however, was three times the rate for January 2008, when 55 people were murdered by gangsters in the city. In the whole of 2008, over 1,600 people were killed in and around Ciudad Juárez. Across the whole of Mexico, between 5,200 and 5,600 people were killed in 2008.

Even more worrisome is that the brutality and scale of the killings in Ciudad Juárez has increased. Groups of between five and eight people have been butchered this year, with some decapitated. Sometimes it is not clear whether victims are even dead before being beheaded.  

To be fair, the situations in Chihuahua and Zacatecas are extreme, but it is worth noting that the government has deployed the army in 10 of Mexico's 32 states. The federal government has been using the army to beat back the gangs in the worst affected states (starting with Michoacán, another PRD-run state) ever since it took office in December 2006. The only places that remain largely free of gang violence are the big cities, notably Mexico City (run by the PRD) and Guadalajara (a fief of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's Partido de Acción Nacional [PAN).

Retired General assassinated
The assassination of a retired general on 3 February opened up a new front in the war between the government and the gangs. This was the first time that a senior general was murdered by gangsters. Gangs have previously attacked military installations and ambushed and killed soldiers on active duty. Never before, however, had they targeted a retired general.

What made the case even more sensational was the arrest on 9 February of Francisco Velasco Delgado, the head of public security in Cancún (known, apparently as “El Vikingo") for his alleged role in the killing of the general, his aide and his driver. The army deployed armoured cars around the Cancún police headquarters in the run up to the arrest of Velasco, presumably fearing that the police might fight to protect him.

The assassinated general was Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñónes, 63. He had served in the president's security force and as commander of the military region covering the violent, gangster-ridden state of Michoacán. Tello retired on 1 January 2009 and had been appointed, on 2 February 2009, to advise the mayor of Cancún on security issues. Even though Tello failed to achieve the rank of full general (he was only a General de Brigada), he was so prominent that the defence minister, General Guillermo Galván Galván, and President Calderón each took a turn as guards of honour for his coffin as it lay in state.

There was evidence that the general and his two men were tortured. The general's feet appeared to have been burned and his fingers and wrist broken. He was also beaten up and shot 11 times.

Tello was controversial, though he ended his military career in Michoacán, where he commanded the country's 21st military district, headquartered in Morelia, the state capital. He was appointed to this job in 2005 by former president Vicente Fox, despite fierce opposition from human rights' activists. Indeed, Tello spent a year in custody after acontroversial incident in 1997, when days after a raid on drug pedlars and other petty criminals in the Buenos Aires district of Mexico City, six of those arrested were found dead.

The Mexico City authorities eventually dropped the murder charges filed against Tello in 1998. Human rights activists claim that what Tello and his fellow generals did when they ran the police in Mexico City for the PRI demonstrates how dangerous it is to use the army as a police force.

Terrorism: On 4 February Mexico asked to be excused from hosting a forum on terrorism, scheduled by the Organization of American States (OAS), for March. This is a reversal of Mexico's usual policy of offering to host almost any summit or high profile meeting. The acting Mexican ambassador to the OAS pleaded lack of money, but a more likely reason is the security headache such a meeting would create for the local authorities. The OAS meeting would be an obvious target for gangs. The meeting will now be held in Washington on 4-6 March.

Congressionals
There are mid-term congressional elections in July and several social movements are threatening to make law and order the key issue, above even the economy. The latest movement to launch is led by Isabel Miranda de Wallace, who announced that she was setting up the so-called Movimiento Blanco.
Wallace is a prominent critic of the police, which has failed to rescue her son, Hugo, a businessman who was kidnapped in 2006 and has not been seen since. Her movement is unlikely to run its own candidates, though it will vet candidates to try to ensure that gang nominees are revealed.

FAP
The mayor of Cancún, Gergorio Sánchez Martí­nez, is one of the few elected on the Frente Amplio Progresista (FAP) ticket. The FAP is loyal to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a radical, who still does not accept that he was defeated in the 2006 presidential election.  

Silencing critics?
On 5 February another senior officer in the Policia Federal Preventiva was remanded in preventative custody. The officer is Javier Herrera Valles, a former coordinator of regional security for the PFP. In 2008, he accused the public security minister, Genaro Garcí­a Luna, of allowing the country's law enforcement agencies to become riddled with corruption by the drug gangs. The government, effectively, ignored these allegations.

On 26 March, the country's biggest political party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), sprang a surprise when it nominated Eruviel Avila Villegas, the mayor of Ecatepec, as its candidate for the governorship of the Estado de México. Avila is not one of the closest supporters of the incumbent governor Enrique Peña Nieto, who tops the opinion polls for the 2012 presidential election.

The choice and the timing of Avila's nomination were both important. Avila was by no means the favourite and his proclamation came on the eve of an unprecedented state-wide vote (on 27 March), organised by the national ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the left-wing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), on whether to run an alliance candidate on a joint platform in the Estado de México election on 3 July. Unusually, Avila emerged as the PRI candidate when the other contenders, one after the other, announced on 26 March that they were no longer pre-candidates for the PRI's gubernatorial nomination.

The media's favourite had been Alfredo del Mazo Maza, who was the representative of the influential Grupo Atlacomulco, which traditionally dominates the PRI in the Estado, Mexico's most populous electoral district. Both his father and his paternal grandfather had been governors of the state.

What helped to swing the decision Avila's way was the decision by two smaller parties to back him. Both the Partido Verde Ecologista de México and the Partido Nueva Alianza, which is controlled by Elba Esther Gordillo, the leader of the teachers' union (SNTE), backed him. The PRI hierarchy's hope is that the PRI will coalesce around Avila and sweep him to victory on 3 July and thus keep Peña Nieto's campaign for the presidency on track.

On the other side, the unprecedented state-wide consulta on 27 March was a modest success. As just over 211,000 people voted (about 2% of the state's electorate), the divided PRD can plead justification in ignoring the overwhelming (76% plus) vote in favour of an alliance with the PAN. The Left, which may or may not include the PRD, will run Alejandro Encinas. Encinas, who may yet be excluded from the ballot because he may not meet the residency requirement, is a close and loyal supporter of the radical leftwing leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. More importantly, Encinas is also backed by the current mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, who, unlike López Obrador, supported alliances with the PAN in 2010 and in Guerrero earlier this year.

Confusingly, Encinas may not be nominated by the PRD, but he will certainly be nominated by the PRD's traditional leftist allies, the Partido del Trabajo and Convergencia. It is just possible that Encinas could win in the Estado, but such a result is most unlikely. López Obrador is a formidable campaigner but Encinas himself is not a charismatic figure. He will not attract PAN voters, which he will need, to his campaign.

For the PAN, Felipe Bravo Mena, José Luis Durán and Ulises Ramí­rez all nurse hopes of gaining the party's nomination. None of them look like a winner and, equally, none of them looks able to attract the votes of “Los Chuchos" the anti-López Obrador group which dominates the PRD party hierarchy and supports an alliance with the PAN. By 30 March it looked as though Bravo Mena would be the candidate as the other two announced that they were withdrawing. Bravo Mena said that he hoped that the PRD would endorse him.

If the PRD does that, it risks splitting completely, which may be what López Obrador wants. The López Obradoristas want to have nothing to do with the PAN.

The result of all this is that the PRI's chances of winning the Estado have improved sharply. This means, in turn, that Peña Nieto's presidential chances in 2012 have also strengthened. His problem may be that the stronger he gets, the more his opponents will be prepared to think the unthinkable. Paradoxically, the biggest danger for him could be if Avila wins easily in the Estado on 3 July 2011. Then, even the dimmest opposition politician will have to accept that a compromise candidate will be needed to defeat Peña Nieto in the presidential elections in July 2012. Arguably, President Felipe Calderón has already jumped to this conclusion by suggesting to the PAN that it should nominate the best candidate for 2012, even if he or she is not a panista.

Avila is the first gubernatorial candidate the PRI has chosen from a municipality in the central Mexico valley rather than from the Toluca valley, and particularly the municipality of Atlacomulco. Avila's municipality, Ecatepec, is the east of the state.  

There are two politically powerful families in Ecatepec, now a dormitory for Mexico City. One is the Coss family. Vicente Coss Ramí­rez, a transport union leader, was twice mayor of Ecatepec in 20 years. His son, Vicente Coss Tirado, is currently a PRI federal deputy for part of Ecatepec. Avila, however, is probably closer to the other political dynasty in Ecatepec, the Torres family.   Alfredo Torres, the son of a former mayor of Ecatepec, gave Avila his start in politics, when he was number two in a district council between 1994 and 1997.

From that position, Avila became a state deputy in 1997 and saw the PAN win Ecatepec. After his first stint in the state congress, Avila served in the state government as a deputy regional administrator for Nezahualcóyotl. Then Avila had his first term as mayor of Ecatepec, defeating a Panista. After this, Peña Nieto made him a state party organiser. From this position he returned to the state congress and then in 2009 won Ecatepec again which had, by that time, passed into the control of the PRD.

The big question for both Avila and the PRI is whether the disappointed PRI candidates will rally behind Avila or jump ship and seek to become the alliance candidate the opposition needs. This seems unlikely. The elections are in July, so there is not much time to smoothe egos and there is no obvious prií­sta who could unite the PAN and the PRD behind him

The gossip in Mexico City is that the influential leader of the teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo, swung behind Avila, determining the result. Avila is close to the former governor of the Estado, Arturo Montiel (1999-2005). Montiel was humiliated in the PRI presidential primary in 2005 by Roberto Madrazo, an enemy of Gordillo's.

Technically, Avila was nominated by the PRI in the Estado, but the current governor, Enrique Peña Nieto, had a big say. A long dinner on 25 March with Peña Nieto was the event which clinched the nomination for Avila, other gossips say.

Eruviel Ávila Villegas
Age : 41
Qualifications: doctor of law from UNAM.
Secretario del Ayuntamiento de Ecatepec (1994-1996).
State congress deputy (1997-2000 and then again 2006-2009).
Deputy minister in the state government responsible
for Nezahualcóyotl (2001-2002).
Mayor of Ecatepec (2003-2006 and 2009-2012).
President of the Federación Nacional de Municipios de México (Fenamm) which is a national organisation for 1,510 municipalities.

• All the voters will have to prove is that they live in the Estado. The organisers, Alianza Cí­vica and Propuesta Cí­vica guess that 350,000 people may vote, yet over 14m people live in the Estado. The question is: Do you agree that the PAN and the PRD should form an alliance to back a single candidate and a joint programme of government. It has three possible answers: “Yes", “No" and “Don't know".
  

The race for the governorship of Puerto Rico still hangs in the balance. The elections were submitted to a recount on 8 November because so little separated the two candidates and the result is unlikely to be declared until late December. Aní­bal Acevedo Vilá, who is in favour of keeping Puerto Rico's commonwealth status, took 48.38% of the vote while the pro-statehood former Governor Pedro Rosselló took 48.18%.

With just 0.2 of a percentage point, or 3,880 votes, separating the two men the electoral commission was obliged to launch a lengthy process of verification of the electoral lists to see whether 30,000 uncounted ballots were legally cast. Any election with a margin less than half a point is subject to an automatic recount. But the recount will only begin once the outcome of the election is known provided that the margin is still within half a point. Rosselló's Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) took control of the legislature from Acevedo Vilá's Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), winning 18 seats in the 27-member Senate and 34 in the 51-member House of Representatives.

The two men
Rosselló began his political career in 1988 with the PNP and became president of the party between 1991 and 1999. He served two terms as governor between 1993 and 2001. He has vowed once again to campaign for statehood for Puerto Rico. During his first two terms, he called two referendums on Puerto Rico's status but failed to get the clear-cut option for statehood on both occasions; the majority of Puerto Ricans are content with the status quo - an estado libre asociado, or commonwealth. Acevedo Vilá he served as an advisor to former governor Rafael Hernández Colón before being elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 representing the PPD. In 1997, he became the president of the PPD but in 1999 he ceded this title to Sila Calderón, the incumbent governor, and assumed the vice-presidency. He defeated José Alfredo Hernández Mayoral in the PPD party primary.

As the guests begin to confirm their places at Oscar Arias's investiture, taking place on 8 May, the details of his cabinet and his goals for his four-year term are coming to light. Despite his self-confessed "humbling", by the slim nature of his victory over Ottón Solí­s, Arias appears determined to push ahead with the Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta) as a way of realising his goal of reducing poverty levels in the country from 21% to 17% by 2010.

Economic stability

The outgoing president, Abel Pacheco, who according to one local newspaper's survey has failed to honour 59% of his campaign promises during his term, appears content that he is handing over an economy "in good shape", noting that despite the difficulties created by the high price of oil, both exports and tourism are booming. Arias has said that he will keep the current president of the central bank, Paula Gutiérrez, in her job.

The new president is going to downsize his cabinet from 19 to 16 posts. Of these, 11 have served in previous administrations as ministers or vice-ministers. They will be charged with fulfilling Arias's promise to be the scourge of monopolies, both public and private. Already he has stated his intention to break up the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, the state telecoms monopoly. Among the new cabinet members are a prominent businessman, Marco Vinicio Ruiz, in charge of foreign trade; Rodrigo Arias, brother of the president, as minister of the presidency and Bruno Stagno, a career diplomat, at the foreign ministry. The two vice-presidents, Laura Chinchilla and Kevin Casas will serve in the ministries of justice and planning, respectively.

One interesting feature of the next legislature, due to take over on 1 May, a week earlier than the new president, will be the number of women. The 22 congresswomen will make up 38% of the 57-seat legislature, putting Costa Rica in the first place in Latin America and third place in the world ranking for women's representation in congress.

The Costa Rican government severed its six-decade-long ties with Taiwan on 1 June and established diplomatic relations with China. According to the Costa Rican President, Oscar Arias, the decision was "an act of elemental realism due to the growing importance of China in global affairs". The change in Costa Rica's foreign policy towards China may have a dramatic impact in other parts of Central America. 

The Costa Rican government was obliged to break its traditional alliance with Taiwan in order to establish diplomatic relations with China. This is a pre-condition for having diplomatic relations with the government of mainland China, as they consider Taiwan to be a breakaway province. Indeed, in an official declaration Costa Rica recognised "the People's Republic of China [as] the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China" and downgraded "Taiwan [as] an inalienable part of the Chinese territory".

In a bitter note the Taiwanese foreign minister, James Huang, declared "it is ironic that a Nobel Peace Prize winner establish[ed] diplomatic relations with a country that does not respect neither peace, nor democracy, nor human rights". Huang was referring to Arias, who was granted a Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for helping to resolve conflicts in Central America; and to China, which activists maintain has a poor human rights' record. To be fair to Arias, the latter notion has not deterred 168 nations represented in the UN from maintaining diplomatic relations with China. Taiwan, meanwhile, is currently recognised by only 24 countries (including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama). 

At the same time it is undeniable that Arias's political ambitions in the international arena have outweighed his principles. Firstly, he is seeking a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for Costa Rica next year and Chinese backing would be a great boost for its candidacy. Secondly, and at a more personal level, Arias sees a prospective attempt to resolve Chinese-Taiwanese hostilities, or even pressing China on human rights, as a great chance to improve his own international standing. 

Economics, however, was central to the Costa Rican decision. China is currently Costa Rica's second-most important trade partner after the US, with deals worth over US$1bn annually. Trade with Taiwan, meanwhile, is small in comparison: some US$260m annually. Significantly, Costa Rica posted a small trade surplus with China in 2006, while bilateral trade with Taiwan left a deficit of almost US$75m, according to figures from the Central American economic integration secretary (Sieca). The figures reveal that trade ties with the Chinese are more profitable to Costa Rica and thus essential to the achievement of the government's target of doubling the country's total exports to US$18bn by 2010. 

Impact on the Sica

Costa Rica's decision to establish diplomatic relations with China prompted other members of the Central American Integration System (Sica) to reaffirm their commitment to Taiwan. Nonetheless, economics may lead to a change of foreign policy in the near future - especially if Costa Rica manages to remain unscarred by the Taiwanese withdrawal of funding and the competition of cheap Chinese imports. Significantly, the Chinese government has made it clear that Costa Rica is "the first step" to win over other Central American and Caribbean countries. In order to set off a "domino effect" in the region the Chinese will allow Costa Rica to run considerable trade surpluses. China vowed to take on Taiwan's investments in Costa Rica and has promised to build an oil refinery.

The Costa Rican government declared it hoped that its decision would not affect relations between the Sica and Taiwan, but that will be difficult. Relations are bound to suffer as trade with the Chinese make Costa Rica even more prosperous in comparison to its impoverished Central American neighbours. The Taiwanese government is now stepping up diplomacy in order to keep its allies in the region. Taiwan is already one of the main sources of finance for Sica and vowed to provide more aid and business deals for the group's members, especially Nicaragua, as the government of President Daniel Ortega is ideologically closer to Beijing than to Taipei. 

Yet trade figures between Central American countries and China shows the potential for increasing exports to China, if relations were better. According to Sieca's figures, the Sica as a whole exported goods worth US$608m to China last year. Over five sixths of this figure were exports from Costa Rica (mostly microchips), which doubled between 2005 and 2006. Meanwhile, the group as a whole imported US$1.6bn from China in the period. Significantly, Costa Rica imported less than one-third of the total figure and was the only Sica country to post a trade surplus with China. 

In comparison, Sica's trade with Taiwan was small, worth US$526bn last year. Crucially, despite their diplomatic recognition, Sica members also posted a trade deficit with Taiwan: US$280m in 2006. The governments of El Salvador and Honduras hope to revert this trend with the signing, last May, of a trilateral free-trade agreement with Taiwan. However, Panama, Guatemala and Nicaragua already have free-trade agreements with the Taiwanese and still posted trade deficits. Central American business associations have grasped this and have increased the pressure on their governments to change their foreign policy.

• Chinese toothpaste "poison alert"
  Panamanian authorities confirmed that toothpaste contaminated with dietileneglycol, which was manufactured in China, has been re-exported to the Dominican Republic. Dietileneglycol is the poisonous substance that killed over 100 Panamanians last year after it found its way into medicine manufactured by Panama's state laboratory. Panamanian authorities said that contaminated toothpaste may have also been re-exported to other countries in the region, prompting a "poison alert" in Central America and the Caribbean. 
  
  

In line with hints in the latter half of last month, President Raúl Castro recently put paid to hopes of further change rekindled by the string of economic reforms he has enacted since becoming president [RC-08-04]. In his most important speech of the year, at the regime's annual Day of National Rebellion ceremony, or the anniversary of the storming of the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, he told Cubans that there would be no further reforms in the short to medium-term. Meanwhile, ongoing crackdowns on dissidents suggest that government hardliners remain uneasy with some of the recent changes (see box).

On 26 July, at the 55th anniversary of the storming of Moncada, in an announcement carefully designed for maximum impact, Raúl said that there would be no more economic reforms for the time being, adding that Cubans must not get used to “receiving only good news". This means that there is no end in sight for the dual currency system, or travel restrictions for Cubans. Raúl further elaborated on a statement made in mid July that it would be “unethical to create false expectations" about the removal of salary caps [RC-08-07], saying that Cubans had to be prepared to make sacrifices in the face of the global economic slowdown and high food and oil prices.

The event was also clearly designed to quell speculation among Cubans and in the foreign press of divisions between Raúl and his brother, former president Fidel, who are reportedly supported by different factions within the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) [RC-08-07]. Raúl was pointedly introduced by an official speaker as “second secretary of the Communist party" - Fidel is still the party's first secretary - and during his 50 minute address, delivered in front of a huge billboard with a photograph of Fidel, Raúl referred repeatedly to his brother.

• Arrests

On 15 August ten dissidents were arrested after attempting to lead a demonstration in the Plaza de la Revolución and returned to their provinces of origin. For the first time, the protest was broadcast by radio stations in Miami, thanks to one of the dissidents who left his mobile phone line open so that the protest and police actions could be heard.

Porfirio 'Pepe' Lobo Sosa, the presidential candidate for the opposition Partido Nacional (PN) is the firm favourite to win the 29 November vote.   He may also have the final say over the restitution of the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya.

In a national 13-19 October survey of 1,420 adults, 59% of respondents (or three of every five), expected Lobo, of the traditional Partido Nacional (PN), to win the presidential race. Lobo only barely lost the last election to Zelaya in a heavily contested vote in 2006. The poll also indicated that the PN now has more public support than the ruling Partido Liberal (PL) for the first time since 2003 (50% vs. 48%). It is also slated to do well at the municipal level: the PN's mayoral Ricardo Alvarez is on 47% support in the capital Tegucigalpa.

Meanwhile the PL, Zelaya's party, still in power under the de facto president Roberto Micheletti, has been splintered by the 28 June coup d'etat, with party supporters not fully united behind its presidential candidate, Elvin Santos.

Lobo, who along with Santos voted in congress on 28 June to remove Zelaya following his forcible ouster and removal from the country by the armed forces, clearly has most to gain from international recognition of the pending elections, which in late October prompted speculation that he had reached an under-the-table deal with the US state department's Tom Shannon to ensure Zelaya's restitution under the US-brokered Tegucigalpa-San José Accord (see previous story). The PN, which controls 55 seats in the 128-seat congress, could muster the 65 votes necessary to “reverse the coup" with the support of the 11 deputies representing smaller parties.

The congressional leader of the main opposition Partido Nacional (PN), Rodolfo Irí­as Navas, said on 5 November that the PN would vote as one bloc on the issue of Zelaya's restitution. That may well be, but Lobo and the PN may not want to risk losing votes by taking responsibility for what even a heavily constrained Zelaya might try to do if returned to power before the elections. The failure of the Tegucigalpa-San José accord to enforce a timeframe on congress to reach its decision means that it will probably delay the vote until after the elections. Congress is in recess, and so an extraordinary session is needed.

Lobo and Santos have trodden a very fine line over the crisis but their antipathy to Zelaya has been clear. Like the de facto government, both men argued strongly that the elections were convoked prior to the coup and that therefore they should be seen as separate from the coup. Lobo has campaigned without reference to Zelaya, focusing on bread and butter and security issues. Zelaya's remaining supporters, grouped under the Frente Nacional de la Resistencia, comprising trade unionists, teachers, women's groups and other civil society groups, insist that the issue of constitutional reform is not off the agenda. Lobo has not ruled out tackling constitutional reform down the line, but he is firm in that the 'artí­-culos petréos' which prevent presidential re-election and ringfence the constitution itself, cannot be touched. A traditional centre right politician, he might, for political closure, take Honduras out of Venezuelan-led regional leftist alliance, Alternativa Bolivariana para las Americas (Alba), although this would presumably mean the loss of its benefits under Petrocaribe (under which Venezuela provides discount oil and other financial support to its allies).

The ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC) has elected 1,000 delegates for the upcoming sixth party congress on 16-19 April, the first since 1997, which will exclusively debate economic and social policy guidelines. The April congress coincides with the 50th anniversary of the failed US-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Politics will also be on the agenda, after the pending elections for the PCC's central committee have been brought forward to April (from the end of the year). The 150-member central committee chooses both the PCC's politburo and party's executive secretariat. Fidel Castro, still formally the PCC leader (first secretary general), is expected to formally step down, handing over the reins to his brother and successor as president, Raúl Castro (currently PCC second secretary).

The party elections will be closely watched for signs of who might succeed the Castros and the ruling gerontocracy at the top of the 52-year old Revolution. Currently, the 19-member politburo is dominated by septuagenarians. Key faces include 'históricos' like Ramiro Valdéz Menendez and Ulisales Rosales del Toro, along with José Ramon Machado Ventura (first vice president on the council of state) and Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada. Key military men include Generals Ramón Espinosa Martí­n, Alvaro López Miera and Abelardo Colomé Ibarra (second vice president on the council of state).

Since formally taking over the presidency in February 2008 Raúl has surrounded himself with what one commentator has dubbed “the Putin generation", a trusted military elite (or a potential dynasty), drawn from veteran trusted comrades in arms and younger cadre of loyal officials drawn from Raúl's inner circle and his family (including his son Alejandro), which “fully controls the destiny of the economy and national finances". Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces elected 65 delegates to represent the military in April's congress, including the politburo generals López Miera and Espinosa Martí­n.

The plans to create a small private sector are moving ahead. According to the most recent labour ministry figures, about 75,000 Cubans had signed up for private sector operating licenses as of early January 2011. While the streets of Havana are gradually filling up with new market sellers and small traders, on 28 February President Castro confirmed delays in the planned layoffs of half a million state workers. In a council of ministers' meeting, President Castro stated that “a task of this magnitude" needed to be undertaken carefully and could not be determined by “inflexible deadlines". In September 2010, Castro had set 1 April 2011 as the deadline for the lay-offs, as part of an unprecedented shake-up of the moribund economy. The Miami press has run several stories claiming no sign of any of the mass layoffs, apparently in the face of steep resistance by state company bureaucrats and administrators. President Castro did not set a new deadline for the layoffs but that “no-one will be left behind". The government, rather ambitiously, seems to think that the nascent private sector will be able absorb the thousands of laid off state workers.

Oscar Biscet calls on Castros to go
On 14 March in a Skype interview with the Miami press, the recently released Cuban political dissident, Oscar Elí­as Biscet, called on the Castro brothers to step aside, comparing their “totalitarian dictatorship" to Stalin and Hitler. Biscet, 49, one of the most high profile political dissidents, was released on 11 March as part of the ongoing process negotiated by the local Roman Catholic Church with the interior ministry. Unlike 40 of his fellow dissidents from the so-called group of 75 (rounded up in the 'Black Spring' of 2003 in a crackdown by Fidel Castro), he has refused to travel to Spain. Some 94 freed dissidents have gone to Spain since June 2010.

Biscet, a doctor and the president and founding member of the Lawton Foundation for human rights, was serving a 25 year jail sentence for acts against the Cuban state. He has been in jail almost continuously since 1999. He lamented the worsening conditions on the island and warned that the opposition movement is growing across the country, reaching even the ranks of the ruling Communist Party. He praised the role of the Catholic Church, saying that it should also play a mediatory role in any future transition government, "in order to avoid bloodshed". ““We are still living in conditions of slavery_but the system's days are numbered", he warned.

• Cuba sentences US 'spy'

On 12 March a Cuban court sentenced a US national, Alan Gross, to 15 years in jail for subversion and acts against the Cuban state. According to a statement relayed on state media, the court found that Gross took part “in a subversive project of the US government that aimed to destroy the Revolution through the use of communications systems out of the control of authorities." It also noted that Gross, detained in Havana in December 2009, had “recognized having been used and manipulated" by his company (Development Alternatives, Inc) as well as by USAID and the State Department.
Gross's lawyer, Peter J. Kahn, said that Gross may appeal the ruling before the Supreme People's Tribunal, the highest court in Cuba. While the lengthy sentence prompted US conservative critics, led by the Miami Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio, to conclude that the Castro government has no real interest in better relations with the US, other observers made the point that the judicial process had to conclude before a political solution might be 'arranged'. There is also some expectation that having made its point about US interference in sovereign affairs, the Havana government might decide to release Gross on humanitarian grounds, given that the political costs of continuing to hold him in Cuba would be fairly high (see sidebar).

• Petrobras ends Cuba exploration

On 10 March Marco Aurelio Garcí­a, special adviser on foreign affairs to the Brazilian presidency, announced that Brazil's state oil company Petrobras was ending its Cuban exploration efforts. Garcí­a said that Petrobras would continue with its proposed lubricants company in Cuba, but the poor results from its exploration acreage off the north coast, acquired in 2008, did not justify further investment. He added that Brazil would continue with its US$800m plans to expand the Cuban port of Mariel, due for completion by 2014. Garcí­a was concluding a three-day trip to Cuba, which included a meeting on 7 March with President Raúl Castro.

• US relations

The US State Department administration has repeatedly warned that further efforts to improve bilateral relations would hinge on the release of Gross. Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio called on the Barack Obama administration to “get tough" with Cuba. He and others argue that the recent relaxations on US travel and remittances to Cuba only lines the pockets of the Cuban government with much-needed dollars. Yet the White House continues to quietly promote what it calls 'people-to-people' ties with Cuba - in early March it approved travel to Cuba from nine additional US airports. Some 150,000 Cuban-Americans now visit Cuba a couple of times a year, and family remittances to Cuba are a key economic prop.

The land reform agreement feted by President Nicanor Duarte on 25 September appears to be unravelling. Landless peasants claimed on 12 October that Duarte had not come up with the goods: some 13,000 hectares of land in six departments in the west of Paraguay. They are mooting further land invasions.

The secretary-general of the Mesa Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (MCNOC), Luis Aguayo, claims that the government is already stalling on the distribution of land and he has promised to launch land invasions in conjunction with the MCNOC's sister movement, the Federación Nacional Campesina (FNC). Between them, the MCNOC and the FNC are demanding 610,000 hectares of land.

Speaking on 11 October, Aguayo said that the MCNOC was only considering taking action because the government had broken the agreement reached with the Frente Nacional en Defensa de la Soberaní­a y la Vida on 18 September. For its part, the Frente held a national assembly on 23 October to discuss a national strike which it is planning to stage on 18 November in response to the breakdown of talks with the government. Talks collapsed in mid October after armed civilians attacked peasants at the settlements of José Domingo Ocampos, Limoy, and General Resquin.

Crime
Thousands of people took to the streets of Asunción to demonstrate against the rise in violent crime in Paraguay. They also raised the issues of the earlier abductions of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of former President Raúl Cubas, and of businesswoman Gilda Vargas (in August of last year) - both of whom are still missing. Nelson Mora was drafted in to replace Fiorotto; Núñez was replaced by his deputy, Carlos Zelaya.

Mora immediately ordered a purge of the police in an attempt to address the public suspicion that many of the crimes in Paraguay are committed by criminals in collusion with the security forces. He also ordered the police to start to clamp down hard on unlicensed arms: 'The monopoly of security belongs exclusively to the Paraguayan state. We will not allow any individual or collective arming of the population - and even less that groups of men, in a sort of paramilitarism, should seek to assume that obligation,' Mora said.

Prior to her election victory, President Michelle Bachelet promised that if she won she would deliver on 36 campaign pledges in her first 100 days in office. On 16 June, three days before her self-appointed deadline, she declared the policy initiatives had been set in motion. Polls published in two of Chile's conservative papers suggested the public was less convinced and showed the president's approval rating taking a significant hit. Despite scoring a healthy 56%, the rating was down 11% on May. This, however, was less a result of public scepticism over her policy targets than a consequence of the government's failure to deal effectively with student protesters whose demands for a reform of Chile's education system prompted the largest demonstration in a generation.

The protests

Around one million demonstrators took to the streets across the country on 5 June in the so-called "Revolution of the Penguins", in reference to the students' uniforms. The first protests had taken place three weeks previously when thousands of students demonstrated in demand of free transport, the waiver of the fee for the university entrance exam (PSU) and a restructuring of the school day. Over six hundred students were arrested during the initial protests and several injured. The education minister, Martí­n Zilic, antagonised the demonstrators with his apparently disingenuous regret over police heavy-handedness and his haughty attitude to the students' demands.

Enraged, the students' numbers and demands swelled. At the end of May around 600,000 demonstrators, consisting of high school and university students as well as parents and trade unionists, marched in support of the students' expanded list of demands, which included the wholesale reform of the Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Ensenanza (Loce), one of the last laws passed during the Pinochet regime. Again, the huge number of arrests and dozens of injuries prompted accusations of police brutality. Bachelet responded swiftly by publicly apologising and firing several high-ranking police officers.

On 1 June the government partially acceded to the students' wishes. Bachelet appeared on national television and radio to say that the state would fund the PSU and transport costs for the poorest 80% of Chile's students. The president agreed to increase the number of free school meals and scholarships; repair dilapidated facilities in the public school system and establish a committee to study comprehensive reform of the Loce. The finance minister, Andrés Velasco, said the plan would cost US$137m annually, with the funding coming initially from existing government revenues and thereafter from windfall copper profits. Part of the students' anger comes from the government's parsimony in an era of record high prices for copper, Chile's most valuable export.

Unsatisfied with the representation given to "social activists" on the Loce reform committee, the students called once again for a national strike. This time one million people took to the streets, much to the president's exasperation. "It is unfortunate that we are facing a national strike today, because to me it seems unnecessary. The students have made their demands felt and I recognised them as legitimate and fair," she said. The government acquiesced no further and by the second week of June the protests had petered out.

Beforehand, however, Bachelet took the unusual step of criticising her own cabinet for its failure to react faster to the demonstrations. "I need a government which anticipates problems, not one which only reacts to them." Zilic gave an interview to the local press in which he said he had no intention of resigning but would do so if the president asked. Some local analysts are speculating that Bachelet will reshuffle her cabinet in September. 

The first 100 days

Among the president's achievements in her first days in office are the creation of new ministries of the environment and public safety, an increased number of nurseries and new employment programmes for the poorest sectors. She also raised state pensions by 10% and improved health coverage for senior citizens. According to the government, 18 of the 36 measures have already become bills that are being analysed by congress. However, the public were less convinced by Bachelet's "mission accomplished" statement. A poll by the rightwing daily El Mercurio found that 60.1% believed Bachelet had partially completed the 36 measures; the conservative La Tercera found that 70% did not consider the president to be responsible for her failure to implement fully all the policy initiatives. 41% of respondents considered that the president "commanded authority" and rightwing commentators in the local press argued that the president's concessions to the students' demands could open the floodgates to other sectors demanding more funding. An important statistic was the 74% of those polled who believed Bachelet should reshuffle her cabinet.

One of the main reasons cited for scepticism over the president's achievements is her failure to deliver her most eye-catching initiative: reform of Chile's binominal electoral system. Under this system coalitions field two candidates per electoral district. Both candidates win only if their coalition receives twice as many votes as the second-placed coalition. The system was designed to eliminate fringe political parties and benefit Chile's Right, since after the return to democracy, the Alianza por Chile has often finished second, but ended up with the same number of seats as the Concertación. 

Following a meeting of the leaders of the two Alianza parties, Unión Democrática Independiente (UDI) and Renovación Nacional (RN), on 15 June the coalition decided to oppose the government's plans to expand the number of deputies and senators (currently 120 and 38, respectively) as well as apply an electoral system which is more proportionally representational. The president of the RN, Carlos Larraí­n, said that the bill was indicative of "the Left coalition's impulse to achieve total power".

With less than a week until the 28 October presidential elections, Senator and First Lady, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, running on the Frente Para la Victoria (FPV) ticket, appear set for victory. Given the relative unpopularity of the government, critics are quick to highlight the failure of the opposition to capitalise on voter discontent as well as a "crisis" in party politics.

The most recent poll by Poliarquí­a Consultores published in national newspaper La Nación on 21 October shows Cristina with 40.9% of the vote, followed by Elisa Carrió of the centre-left Coalicion Civica with 14.5% and former economy minister and candidate for Una Nación Avanzada (UNA), Roberto Lavagna, in third place with 10.8%. According to Argentine electoral legislation, a candidate is declared winner if he or she wins 45% of the total votes or 40% of the total vote if the number of votes cast is 10% greater than that for the second-placed candidate. Director of Poliarquí­a Consultores, Fabián Perechodnik said that "unless something exceptional happens", Cristina is set to take the presidency.

However Cristina's consistently comfortable lead throughout the campaigning process is arguably in spite of, rather than due to, her husband President Néstor Kirchner's current government; a recent poll by Poliarquí­a showed support for Kirchner at 45%, its lowest level since he took office in 2003. Critics attribute the drop in popularity to the polemic over inflation, corruption, the energy crisis and crime levels. An earlier survey by the same firm, published on 6 October also showed that 62% of voters believe that corruption is growing; 76% that insecurity is increasing; and over 80% think that inflation is getting worse.

As well as serving as an indictment of the opposition for failing to capitalise on voter discontent, the situation has caused the local and international media to criticise Critina's refusal to engage with the press and her general lack of debate. Critics argue that the failure to present proposals and ideas is an affront to the democratic process. Chief of cabinet Alberto Fernández explained the decision by Cristina to refrain from participating in debates in the media in terms of the considerable gap between her and her competitors in the polls. 

The "Borocotó" phenomenon.
One factor identified by critics as leading to the seeming voter apathy and the current political panorama is the "Borocotó" phenomenon or prevalence of switching party allegiances. The term was coined after Eduardo Lorenzo Borocoto switched to the ruling Partido Justicialista having won a seat in the Buenos Aires legislature on the ticket of Mauricio Macri's centre-right opposition Propuesta Republicana (PRO) party. 

His case would by no means prove the exception. La Nación lists, among many other examples, the Buenos Aires Democracia Cristiana bench who are now backing Cristina's candidacy despite being made up of members with previous ties to different political movements. These include Patricia Siracusano, one of the founders of La Unión del Centro Democrático (Ucedé), Raúl Rabanaque Caballero previously an active member of the Partido Intransigente and a proponent of menemismo and the musician "Chango" Farí­as Gómez, who served as a Buenos Aires legislator for the Pro party and is now a candidate for Kirchnerismo and the Democracia Cristiana.

La Nacion also highlights the case of ex-dualdistas in the Buenos Aires province who staunchly opposed Kirchner in the 2005 legislative elections yet have since come out in favour of the President. 

Critics attribute the switching of allegiances to a more general crisis in party politics and ideologies. Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington told the Washington Post that "with the collapse of the Radical Party and the resignation of [President] Fernando de la Rúa in 2001, in a sense the only institutionalized opposition disappeared." Local analysts agree that the vacuum has been filled by personalities rather than institutionalised movements. 

Cristina abroad
Cristina has only recently appeared to focus on domestic voters. The Financial Times comments that her time spent abroad during her election campaign would suggest that "she is running for a job at the United Nations _ [rather] _ than the presidency of Argentina". 

Her most recent trips include New York, where she courted financiers, business leaders and diplomats on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. She also travelled to Brazil where she met Brazilian President Lula de Silva and discussed the deepening of the "strategic association" between both countries through the Mercosur, the issue of Venezuela's proposed membership in the organisation as well as investments in Bolivia's gas sector. However, her emphasis that her victory in the presidential race would mean "continuity" in terms of Brazil-Argentina relations has backfired as the Brazilian government and businesses have been annoyed by Kirchner's nationalistic policies which have damaged Brazil's hegemony in the region. According to Argentine press reports, the Argentine government has "worked behind the scenes" to prevent Petrobras acquiring Esso's operations in Argentina.

During both visits, she was questioned about the ongoing inflation dispute. Maintaining that inflation was "below 10%" annually while independent estimates place it at 17%, Cristina's ultimate evasion of the issue was commented on by the press. Similarly in Brazil, she was quizzed on the government's freeze on public tariffs which have reduced profits of Brazilian companies in Argentina by as much as 60%. The tariffs have been frozen since 2002, discouraging foreign investors from making the new investments. Again she ducked the issue and failed to provide any clear answers, responding that Argentina was going through a "process of re-industrialisation" and "deepening of competitiveness", so any change in the government's public tariffs' policy would have to "be balanced".

The main priorities facing the new President will include the need to address inflation, adjust tariffs and solve the energy deficit. The local press consider Cristina unlikely to introduce any major changes with regard to each of these issues. La Nación explains that unlike her competitors, she is not proposing a change to the current inflation policy while critics consider that subsidies will remain in place although could be more selective. In terms of energy, the government highlights that a policy is in place to identify and develop resources and alternative energy sources, the benefits of which will be seen in the future.

• Security concerns
  Three Buenos Aires policemen were murdered at a government communications post on 19 October, an act which President Néstor Kirchner claims is linked to the presidential election on 28 October. He added that the crime was either carried out by the "mafia" or by people linked to the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983. Voters have repeatedly cited the worsening security situation in Argentina as a major black mark against the Kirchner administration, and the murder will heighten concerns.

The ruling Frente Amplio (FA) is manoeuvring to put human rights centre stage in the campaign for October's legislative and presidential elections. The FA is moving on several fronts to overturn the amnesty law which shields the military from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship (1973-1985). This is a clear tactic to divert attention away from the upcoming months of deteriorating economic data. Real GDP economy, which grew 11.5% annually in 2008, is expected to slow to 2.5% at best this year, as demand for Uruguayan exports within Mercosur falls and Argentina erects import tariffs.

In early March, FA legislators used their majority in congress to declare the amnesty law, the Ley de Caducidad, unconstitutional. This is the first time that the FA has openly tried to abolish the amnesty law, although President Tabaré Vázquez has steadily chipped away at it since coming to power. The opposition boycotted the session on the grounds that the FA was committing “judicial fraud" in addition to defrauding the people who had already voted in favour of the amnesty in a referendum. The amnesty law was approved in 1986 and ratified via referendum (with 52% of the vote).

The vote in congress is non-binding but it is a clear signal of intent. It puts pressure on the supreme court, which must now decide whether to declare the amnesty law unconstitutional. The outcome of its ruling could prove academic though, as the FA is sponsoring another strategy to repeal the law. An assortment of ministers and trade unions close to the FA are supporting a campaign by NGOs and human rights groups to gather the 250,000 signatures required to petition for a referendum to abolish the law. They have already collected more than 80% of the total and aim to present the petition by mid April.

If the signature-target is reached, Uruguay will hold the referendum on the same day as the elections in October. It will also hold a separate referendum on whether to allow Uruguayan expatriates to vote in elections from 2014.

The FA is also preparing to present a bill to congress under which the state would assume the responsibility for human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship. This will entitle the victims of repression to receive compensation, both financial and in-kind.

Electioneering?
The opposition is accusing the FA of blatant electioneering. It is keen to prevent human rights from dominating the electoral agenda. Instead, it is angling to keep the economy at the heart of the campaign. Vázquez has presided over a strong economic recovery since the 2002 debacle: with high annual rates of growth (culminating in double-digit growth in 2008); foreign reserves of US$6.2bn last year, twice their pre-crisis level of US$3.1bn; and foreign investment up by a massive 25% year-on-year in 2008. But, Vázquez's decision to deliver an unorthodox public state-of-the-nation address in early March to extol these economic achievements was a sure sign that he is concerned the public could turn against the FA in the face of the present downturn.

Compounding problems for the FA is its highly divisive campaign ahead of internal party primary elections on 28 June. José Mujica, the more radical option, is the current favourite in the polls, but the centre-left former economy minister, Danilo Astori, is showing no compunction in attacking his rival's presidential credentials. Uniting the coalition after the primaries could be difficult.

• Security
  Security is a big issue dividing José Mujica and Danilo Astori. Mujica insists that it is a non-issue. He says that those who are so concerned should take a stroll in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires or Caracas. “Any yuppie can walk on the streets of Uruguay without problems as it is the safest country in Latin America," he said. Astori begs to differ. He claims insecurity is “an important problem" and is promising to establish a special security cabinet comprised of the interior, economy and social development ministries.

On 1 November, the Paraguayan chamber of deputies ratified its position to postpone the implementation of the proposed income tax law until 2013, the last year of president Fernando Lugo's term in office.   After failing to pass the “Impuesto a la Renta Personal (IRP)" bill in July, when both chambers of congress decided to postpone its implementation, President Lugo exercised a partial veto power in order to reintroduce the bill for approval.  The chamber of deputies' decision means that congress has defeated Lugo's partial veto; this also follows the 7 October decision in the senate to postpone the implementation of the law. 
Congress' decision to postpone the implementation of the IRP a second time clearly demonstrates the strong opposition Lugo faces in congress.  The creation of the IRP is a crucial part of the “fiscal adequacy and administrative reordering law" (Ley2421/04) aimed at modernising public finance, one of Lugo's priorities. Paraguay is currently the only country in South America that does not have an effective income tax system. Thus, the Paraguayan state receives low levels of tax revenue when compared to other countries in the region. Furthermore, the lack of a comprehensive tax system also means that the state is not able to oversee domestic economic activity effectively, which is characterised by a large informal sector.  The chamber of deputies defeated the bill with 44 votes against, 30 in favour and one abstention.

After facing two months of heavy pressure from opposition parties, trade unions and civic organisations, President Alejandro Toledo finally announced four changes to his cabinet on 25 February. Only one of the appointments was "independent"; the rest were drawn from the ranks of the ruling Perú Posible and, as such, proved deeply unpopular choices.

The only independent appointment was that of David Lemor, a textiles manufacturer and the vice-president of the Sociedad Nacional de Industrias, who replaced Alfonso Velásquez as production minister. Juan Sheput, Toledo's political adviser, replaced Javier Neves as the labour minister. Eduardo Salhuana, a PP legislator, was picked as justice minister. He came in for Carlos Gamarra. The agriculture portfolio, held by Álvaro Quijandrí­a, went to Manuel Manrique. Manrique will face a testing time. He will be responsible for overseeing talks with disgruntled coca growers (see page 6) and organising alternative development projects in lieu of coca production.

The mini-reshuffle bore the main hallmark of previous changes: an ill-considered response from a government that is simply out of tune with the population. A survey carried out shortly before the reshuffle showed that 77% of Limenos wanted to see non-partisan appointments. Unsurprisingly, bringing in Sheput, who is closely associated with the unpopular Toledo, to the labour ministry had the effect of antagonising the trade unions. The president of Peru's largest and most influential trade union, Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú, Mario Huamán, warned that the government could expect strikes and demonstrations ahead. He also said that the reshuffle did not go far enough. He wanted to see the prime minister, Carlos Ferrero, and the economy minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, replaced. Medical workers went on strike on 2 March to demand that the government dismiss the health minister, Pilar Mazzetti, and adhere to an agreement in 2004 to increase their salaries and supply more modern medical equipment to hospitals.

Subsidies for the poor
The Toledo administration is finally trying to take advantage of the stellar economic growth that Peru has registered over the last few years by implementing a welfare programme to assist Peru's most needy. Under 'Pro Perú' the government will hand out direct subsidies of NS$100 (US$31) a month to the poorest families in Peru. ProPerú will be launched in June. According to official figures 25% of the population live in extreme poverty.

The initiative, which is expected to cost US$90m a year was criticised by the opposition as improvised and a form of early electioneering (Peru holds presidential elections in 2006). It is however the kind of populist gesture that the public has been calling for several years and might just revive Toledo's desperately flagging popularity.

After the long build-up to the presidential election, and the fears of fraud or violence, the result was as clear and uneventful as it was predictable: President Hugo Chávez won re-election by a margin of at least 20 points. For the government, the result signals an unambiguous mandate to accelerate the pace of the Bolivarian Revolution; for the opposition it means at least five more years in the political wilderness, with no representation in the legislature and no influence on the executive. Hugo Chávez has now been re-elected for the fourth time, more than any other president in Venezuela's history.

The result
At around 10pm local time on 3 December Tibisay Lucena, the president of the CNE, announced that with 78.31% of the ballots counted, Chávez had won 61.35% of the vote, or 5.9m votes, while the main opposition candidate Manuel Rosales had won 38.39%, or 3.7m votes. Around 25% of the 15.9m Venezuelans eligible to vote abstained, a figure much lower than expected. After the CNE announcement Rosales conceded defeat, although he claimed Chávez 's margin of victory was much narrower. "We admit that they defeated us today, but we will remain in the battle on the street," he said. "This is not the time to surrender."  

Just as he did after his victory in the 2004 recall referendum, Chávez appeared on the "People's Balcony" of Miraflores, the presidential palace, to celebrate. "Long live the socialist revolution, its destiny was pre-ordained," he said. "Let no one be afraid of socialism_socialism is humane, socialism is love." He dedicated his victory to Cuba's ailing President Fidel Castro, who was too ill to attend a military parade in his honour in Havana on 2 December. "Another defeat for the North American empire. Another defeat for Mr Danger [US President George W. Bush]. Down with imperialism," he said.

What will Chávez do next?
Chávez has given few definite indications as to the shape of his new government, other than to emphasise the "deepening and strengthening" of the revolution. With such a convincing level of support, the president will not feel obliged to offer much restraint in the exercise of his power. Since the opposition boycotted the legislative elections in 2005, due ostensibly to concerns over election fraud, there are no anti-government politicians in congress to provide at least some of the checks and balances normally associated with a legitimate democracy. The judiciary also offers scant resistance to Chávez 's rule: in May 2004, the president passed legislation expanding Venezuela's supreme court from 20 to 32, and subsequently stacked it with magistrates loyal to the Bolivarian Revolution.

One concrete proposal Chávez put forward prior to the election is the changing of the constitution to allow indefinite re-election, and 2021, rather than the current limit of 2012, appears to be the earliest date he might consider stepping down. Another issue which appears to preoccupy the president is the slow pace of land reform in the country. In August 2005 Chávez announced a "war on the latifundios" (large land estates) and threatened to expropriate land the government deemed to be lying idle. Characteristically, he later came to a deal with many landowners, but the threat of expropriation was enough to secure a good price.

The president followed a similar tactic ahead of the election. While promising an acceleration in the pace of reform to his core supporters, he also sought to allay opposition fears by restating his respect for private property. There are signs, however, that this policy of double-speak may cause rifts within the government, particularly now that the need for unity is much less urgent. An indicator of what might come was the public spat, in late August 2006, between the mayor of Caracas, Juan Barreto, and the vice-president José Vicente Rangel. Both high profile Chavistas, Barreto was incensed by Rangel after the vice-president gave the mayor a public dressing down for threatening to expropriate two golf courses in the city to turn the space over to cheap public housing. Chávez , conveniently, was out of the country at the time.  

Uncertainty surrounding what exactly the "deepening" of the Bolivarian Revolution will involve has helped generate a spending boom over the past few months. With growth this year of at around 9%, Venezuelans are spending excessively and saving or investing little. According to a survey conducted in October, despite strong sales in the commercial sector, retailers have not been looking to expand their businesses for fear of a sudden change in the economic climate following the election.

What will the opposition do next?
As Rosales was conceding defeat, a number of those in the crowd gathered round the opposition candidate shouted "traitor". When he started campaigning in August as the opposition's main candidate, he was polling under 10% so to manage 38% was a real achievement. Rosales galvanised a fragmented and disillusioned opposition, many of whom would not have voted but for his skilful campaign, which sought to balance criticism of the government with positive (and even populist) proposals for government. This opposition also had to fight against the massive advantages the government had in terms of campaign propaganda: Súmate, the anti-Chávez citizens' rights group, claimed that for every second of air time given over to Rosales on the country's five most-watched TV stations, Chávez and the government had 21.

Nevertheless, Rosales lost. Nobody within Rosales's camp is attempting to explain away the election result as fraud. Two weeks ahead of the election Rafael Poleo, the editor of the Caracas daily El Nuevo Paí­s, called on opposition supporters to prepare for protest action ahead of what was bound to be a fraudulent result, along the lines of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine which succeeded in forcing the government out of office. So far, no one looks like heeding Poleo's call.

The real test for Rosales's political skill starts now. In his speech conceding defeat, he promised to continue leading the opposition to ensure the government rules for all Venezuelans, and restated his commitment to put pressure on the government to redistribute more of the country's oil wealth. However, it is doubtful he will be able to keep the loose-knit opposition together. A former deputy of the social-democratic party Acción Democrática, which along with the centre-right COPEI ruled Venezuela for 40 years prior to Chávez 's arrival, Rosales benefited from the votes of the "anyone-but-Chávez " demographic, but having failed to defeat the president he may struggle to keep the opposition's various political philosophies united.

The opposition will now have virtually no political representation; legislative elections are not for another five years, and the presidential elections not for another six. However, elected officials are eligible to be recalled via referendum after two years in office. The opposition may try to force referenda on unpopular Chavista governors (20 of the country's 22 governors are loyal to the government), in an attempt to gain at least some sort of foothold in the political process.  

Although some members of the opposition may be tempted to resort to protest action or even violence to unseat the government, the size of Chávez 's victory will discourage all but the most radical of the opposition. Speaking on the morning of 4 December, Monseñor Ovidio Pérez, the president of the Episcopal Conference of Venezuela, sought to calm those bitterly disappointed by the thought of another six years of Chávez . "Venezuela has not yet arrived at the apocalypse. The country will continue to go forward. History has not yet finished," he said.

President Alan Garcí­a is facing a series of regional protests which could prove every bit as serious as those that shook his government last July. Publicly he is refusing to give an inch, accusing "extremist agitators" of orchestrating the protests. But on some issues, such as education, the government has backed down. Members of his cabinet have openly pointed the finger at Ollanta Humala, the leader of the main opposition Partido Nacionalista Peruano (PNP) who won widespread support in the regions prior to his narrow defeat to Garcí­a in presidential elections in 2006, for fomenting the protests.

The most serious protests were led by the farming unions Junta Nacional de Usuarios de los Distritos de Riego del Peru and Confederación Nacional Agraria (CAN), which staged a strike in mid February to complain about the government's agricultural policies. They argue that the government has made no provisions for small producers in the free trade agreement sealed with the US and fear that they will be unable to compete with larger producers from the US.

The government, twitchy about any kind of protest, overreacted at the first mention of the strike. It declared a state of emergency in eight provinces in Lima and the northern departments of Ancash and La Libertad on 18 February and suspended various civil liberties. The prime minister, Jorge del Castillo, recognised that the measures "might seem severe" but insisted they were "absolutely necessary" to re-establish order. Del Castillo said protesters were causing chaos by blocking roads, including the Pan-American highway.

Farming strike turns violent

On 19 February, just as Agriculture Minister Ismael Benavides dismissed the strike as a failure, it turned violent in areas not under the state of emergency: the southern departments of Ayacucho and Arequipa, Humala's powerbase. Four people were killed in violent clashes with the police, prompting the farmers' unions to suspend the strike and seek dialogue with the government.

Garcí­a praised the police for acting with great conviction in the face of protests which he claimed had been fomented by "extremist agitators" who had used people as "cannon fodder". Vice-President Luis Giampietri was quick to name names, in particular Humala. He said that Humala was guilty of "subversion" and of seeking to destabilise Peru at a time when the government was trying to boost the country's image by welcoming officials from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) to discuss the Apec summit to be held in Lima in November. The justice minister, Rosario Fernández, said that Humala could be charged by the attorney general's office for conspiring against public order.

The government received the full support of Lourdes Flores, the leader of the conservative Unidad Nacional (UN) coalition, who claimed that she could see "the Chavista hand" behind the protests. In a flight of rhetoric, she said that she could detect "the presence of castrismo and chavismo reincarnated in the presence of an ideologised international communism".

Calls for Alva Castro's head

Despite Flores' comments, the UN bloc in congress, along with the PNP, Unión por el Perú (UPP) and even the Fujimoristas (which has an unofficial alliance with the government) called for the interior minister, Luis Alva Castro, to resign over the violence. They made the demand after Alva Castro put in a hapless performance when he was summoned by congress on 27 February to face questions about the violence.

The PNP led the charge. It argued that the police and soldiers were heavy-handed - they also arrested some 150 protesters - and produced a video showing witnesses claiming the police had opened fire on protesters. Alva Castro, however, insisted that the bullets that killed the four protesters had been fired from home-made weapons. All the opposition parties called for a full investigation into the killings and for Alva Castro to step down.

Cusco protests

The farming unions were not alone in staging protests. Regional authorities in Cusco called a 48-hour strike over the passage of a new tourism promotion law relaxing restrictions on private development in areas surrounding historic and archaeological sites. Cusco airport was closed for the duration of the strike and tourists were unable to access Machu Picchu.

As a result of the protests, the central government agreed to drop Cusco from the list of venues for the Apec satellite summits before the main presidential summit in Lima in November. Clearly chagrined by the timing of the protests (while Apec officials were visiting Peru) Garcí­a branded Cusqueños "whingers" and "unpatriotic", epithets which will do little to endear him to the region. Hugo Gonzales, the regional president of Cusco, is appealing to the government to reconsider.

If the government sticks to its plan there is a good chance that Humala will seek to stage a "parallel summit" in Cusco. He announced a series of parallel summits last month after Garcí­a heralded 2008 as the "year of international summits" in Peru. Humala said that the parallel summit would demand that the government fulfil its campaign promise to introduce a windfall mining tax and restore the 1979 constitution.

Education

The government's other clash with the regions is over education, specifically Supreme Decree 004. One aspect of the decree has been particularly controversial: public schools are barred from hiring teachers who failed to finish in the top third of their class during their studies. The radical wing of the teachers' union, Sutep, believes the decree is designed to root out its members. The government has made it clear that it believes the radical fringe of Sutep shares the ideology of the guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso.

In protest, the presidents of Lambayeque, San Martí­n and Moquegua passed ordinances on contracting teachers which completely ignored the decree. The education minister, José Antonio Chang, denounced these ordinances as unconstitutional. Chang acted with the full support of Garcí­a, who said that his government could not afford to compromise on excellence. He said the changes might be painful but he was concerned with the country's future well into the century rather than his popularity until the end of his mandate in 2011.

Despite Garcí­a's words, however, the government has given ground following the ferocious response. Chang met regional presidents on 19 February; they demanded the decree be annulled. He agreed to postpone its implementation while talks take place, but he said that only the constitutional tribunal is qualified to decide if the decree is unconstitutional.

• Humala

Ollanta Humala claims that he is facing "political persecution" because of his opposition to President Garcí­a. He is due to go on trial on 28 March accused of being the intellectual author of the violent uprising in Andahuaylas in January 2005 led by his brother Antauro. He claims that he knew nothing about the Andahuaylas attack and that the government is behind the judicial process in an attempt to stifle legitimate opposition in Peru. Garcí­a's predecessor, Alejandro Toledo spoke in Humala's defence. He said he felt he was also being hounded by the government.

• Regional versus central government

The education ordinances approved by the regional presidents of Lambayeque, San Martí­n and Moquegua evoke interesting parallels with the ordinances passed by the regional presidents of Cusco and Huánuco in 2005 authorising free cultivation of coca. The administration of former president Alejandro Toledo was so worried that the new regional presidents were elevating themselves above national law (and jeopardising the country's relations with the US) that it challenged the legality of the ordinances. The constitutional tribunal eventually overturned them.

• Criticism

As many as 17 regional presidents have declared Decree 004 to be unconstitutional, elitist and discriminatory. Even some members of the ruling Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP) are criticising the decree. Mercedes Cabanillas, a PAP deputy, said that a top qualification should not be the only criterion for appointing teachers.

The commander-in-chief of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) Guillermo León Sáenz ('Alfonso Cano'), has given his first interview since taking over as leader of the guerrilla group last March. It was published on 13 August by the Colombian news magazine, Cambio. Cano, a university-educated ideologue from the Farc's political wing, presumably hopes to force discussion of a negotiated end to the conflict onto the agenda ahead of next year's national elections.

Cano made two main points: he denied that the Farc had funded Ecuador's President Rafael Correa's election campaign or received arms from Venezuela; and he said that the group was willing to enter peace negotiations with the government if gets “guarantees" for safe conditions.

In the interview, carried out over the internet, Cano explicitly denies funding Correa: “We have not given either weapons of money to governments or organisations in other countries...Why would we contribute to the electoral campaign of a person, like the current president Rafael Correa, who we do not even know?". This directly contradicts a video, leaked by the Colombia authorities in mid July, which appears to show Farc second-in-command, Jorge Briceño Suarez, referring to “aid in dollars" given to Correa's campaign.

Cano also denied government allegations that the Farc had purchased Swedish-made rocket launchers from Venezuela (an accusation that recently led Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez to “freeze" diplomatic relations with Bogotá). According to Cano, the launchers were seized by the group “a long time ago during a military confrontation on the border". Cano accused President Alvaro Uribe's government of using the arms issue to “justify the handover of Colombia's sovereignty to Washington", in reference to the proposed US-Colombia military base plan. He went on to warn that the “new attitude of the US to Latin America, reflected in the [situation in] Honduras and the [military base] agreements announced by Uribe" would “generate very radical reactions on the continent".

• Peace talks?

Cano reiterated the group's willingness to partake in a 'humanitarian exchange', under which it would swap its 'exchangeable' hostages - which Cano said now number 23 - for some 500 imprisoned Farc members. When asked whether the group would talk to Uribe's government, he said that “independent of who occupies the presidency, we will continue to seek political solutions to the conflict", on the condition of “official guarantees" (although Cano did not clarify exactly what these would be). Uribe's response to the interview was uncompromising: Cano, he said, was not a legitimate political opponent and would end up in prison. Uribe said back in April that he would consider talks with the Farc if the group were to undertake a three- to four-month ceasefire, which, predictably, it has not done.