Bolsonaro barred from political office for eight years
June 30, 2023
Four judges of Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal have voted to bar former President Jair Bolsonaro from holding political office for eight years. As of this morning, a majority of the court’s seven magistrates ruled that Bolsonaro had violated Brazil’s election laws when, less than three months before last year’s vote, he summoned diplomats to the presidential palace and made baseless claims that the nation’s voting systems were likely to be rigged. (New York Times)
In a 45-minute address that was broadcast on national television, the panel found, he made false claims about the voting system’s vulnerability to fraud. They say the comments created the environment in which thousands of his supporters stormed the Presidential Palace, Congress and Supreme Court on Jan. 8.
The ruling would keep Bolsonaro from running for the presidency until the 2030 election, when he is 75. It’s the first time in the court’s 90-year history that it has applied the ban to a former president. (Washington Post)
Bolsonaro is expected to appeal the ruling to the country’s Supreme Court.
However, Bolsonaro faces another 15 cases in the electoral court, including accusations that he improperly used public funds to influence the vote and that his campaign ran a coordinated misinformation campaign.
The TSE trial is part of a broader reckoning in Brazil with the fallout from the country's most painful election in a generation, reports Reuters.
The ruling, once final, will upend Bolsonaro’s immediate political fortunes, reports the Associated Press. A stunning turnaround for a man who was president just seven months ago. Many of Bolsonaro’s former allies have turned their backs on him, pinning their hopes on new right-wingers like Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio Freitas and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema, reports Reuters.
Secret Venezuela-U.S. talks in Qatar
A high-level meeting between U.S. and Venezuelan officials has unexpectedly put Qatar in a key position mediating between the two countries. Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly and President Nicolás Maduro’s right-hand man, met in Doha, three weeks ago, with Juan González, advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, reports El País.
Sources say they met to establish a direct channel of communication, and discussed the release of prisoners and the need to normalize political life in Venezuela.
Talks between the Maduro government and the opposition, carried out in Mexico, have been paralyzed since last year. Now, Maduro is demanding the full and not progressive lifting of sanctions, as had been agreed, to restart the dialogue, reports El País.
Corruption scandal rocks Boric administration
Chile’s Boric administration is under fire for a scandal involving members of the Revolución Democrática, a party that forms part of the Frente Amplio governing coalition. Boric ordered affected officials in the Housing Ministry to resign, in relation to allegations of influence trafficking involving payments of about $530,000 to a foundation run by the boyfriend of an RD lawmaker. (Bloomberg, El País)
The scandal could also undermine the Boric administration’s efforts at fiscal reform — critics have said the improper transfer of funds raises questions about mechanisms of control and efficient spending of increased government revenue under the proposed “fiscal pact,” reports El País.
(See today’s Chile Update.)
More Venezuela
Venezuelan opposition leader and presidential hopeful María Corina Machado will present her economic plan, including a debt restructuring proposal, to economists and bondholders in New York next month. She will do so virtually because she is banned from traveling by the Maduro government. (Bloomberg)
Russian state-owned oil firm Roszarubezhneft is asking Venezuela's state-run company PDVSA for permission to take control of exports from their joint ventures to revive cash flow from the five companies, which have been hard-hit by U.S. sanctions, reports Reuters.
Oil production in Venezuela has recently picked up after years of decline. But increasing criminal activity around the industry hinders the market’s potential recovery, according to InSight Crime.
Regional
Growing lithium demand is a (white) golden economic opportunity for Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. “However, it entails risks of negative impacts on the environment and the populations that inhabit the territories where lithium mining is carried out, and in the wasted opportunities to develop productive and technological capacities,” warns a new report by Fundar that examines the potential for sustainable lithium extraction, with Green Dealings.
Bolivia announced $1.4 billion in lithium agreements with Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom and China's Citic Guoan Group, in a bid to develop production, reports Reuters. The deals follow a similar agreement in January with giant Chinese battery maker CATL.
Bolivian gas production has tumbled by around a third over the past decade, dragging down foreign currency reserves. The case higlights "a common vulnerability in Latin America, where most economies are highly reliant on commodities that are sensitive to see-sawing global prices, weather events and the political mood,” according to Reuters.
More Brazil
Drug abuse is soaring in São Paulo’s downtown, reports the Associated Press.
Mexico
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is famously pro-austerity, but his parsimony has “hurt Mexico,” according to the Economist. “His government has underinvested in health and education, undermined the bureaucracy and cut funding for institutions that underpin democracy. It has taken money away from successful anti-poverty programmes and handed it to ones that are less effective. It has been weirdly reluctant to raise tax revenues.”
One of the founders of Mexico’s “self-defense” movement, the lime farmer turned vigilante crusader Hipólito Mora, has been murdered in an ambush, reports the Guardian.
A Tesla factory planned for Mexico’s Nuevo León state has advocates hoping for economic expansion, but critics are concerned it will exacerbate growing problems, particularly water shortages, reports Rest of World.
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s approval ratings are way down — 33% in the latest Invamer poll, reflecting a general pessimism in Colombia regarding the administration, reports El País.
Petro’s political woes could pave the way for a far-right government to succeed him, argues Sergio Guzmán in Global Americans. “Petro’s empowering of the right is not a good thing. Colombia’s far right is increasingly enamored with anti-institutional and authoritarian idealism as well as embracing radical Christianity and libertarian economic ideas.”
Migration
In recent years, Costa Rica —which has a population of five million—has become one of the world’s largest receiving countries of asylum requests, with a majority coming from Nicaragua. The Latin America Advisor looks at how the country is handling the influx.