Weekly Report - 09 August 2012 (WR-12-31)

One of the region’s standout examples of cross-party political cooperation is unravelling. Tension between the government of President José Mujica and the right-wing opposition Partido Colorado (PC; Colorados), exacerbated by Paraguay’s suspension from the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and Venezuela’s back-door admittance to the bloc, prompted members of the PC to resign en masse this week from management positions in state companies, autonomous entities, decentralised services and other state institutions they were invited to take after Mujica came to power in 2010.