Guatemala poised for change
Aug. 16, 2023
Anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo is widely favored to win Guatemala’s runoff presidential elections on Sunday — raising hopes of a new democratic spring in a country characterized by backsliding in recent years.
A poll earlier this month put Arévalo’s support at 63 percent, compared with his opponent, Sandra Torres, with 37 percent. (Al Jazeera)
Arévalo has captured a wave of anger at Guatemala’s political status quo, and frustration with corrupt institutions. He has promised to investigate wrongdoing, in the midst of an ongoing crackdown against anti-corruption actors in the country.
He faces off against former first lady Sandra Torres, who has become the political status-quo candidate, despite leftist leanings earlier in her career. She has sought to paint her adversary as a foreign implant and falsely accused Arévalo of plans to dissolve the army, legalize same-sex marriage and expropriate private property. (Associated Press)
The Semilla Movement’s candidate surprised analysts with a first-place finish in the first round of voting in June, benefitted in part by the disqualification of other anti-system favorites by an electoral justice court widely seen as favoring entrenched systemic corruption. Arévalo defied judicial efforts to thwart his candidacy after the first round, supported by citizen mobilizations.
Seventy-three percent of citizens feel Guatemalan democracy is under threat, according to a CID Gallup poll carried out with Fundación Libertad y Desarrollo.
The Organization of American States, which has a mission monitoring the elections, has flagged "clear interference." OAS chief Luis Almagro said after a visit to Guatemala earlier this month that the presidential campaigns had been influenced by organized crime. (Reuters, Soy 502)
"This election can be a game-changer. It's a test for Guatemalan democracy," Tamara Taraciuk, Rule of Law program director at the Inter-American Dialogue, told Reuters.
“Parties ranging from center-right to right have been in power since the restoration of democracy in 1986 and this year marks the first time in nearly 70 years that the left has a chance at power in the Central American nation,” notes EFE.
Security is a major concern, along with economic woes. Torres has promised to expand social subsidies and implement an iron-fist security policy emulating that of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Arévalo has called for hiring and training of professional police officers and improvements of police stations. (Al Jazeera)
(See France 24 for more on each candidate’s platform.)
Guterres recommends “robust use of force” in Haiti
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said restoring law and order in Haiti “will need support from the international community, a strengthened U.N. presence and movement in Haiti’s ongoing protracted political crisis,” reports the Miami Herald, citing “a highly anticipated letter to the U.N. Security Council outlining options to help Haiti’s struggling police force combat armed gangs.”
Guterres's report was circulated to the council yesterday and “outlined two potential U.N. options: providing logistical support to a multinational force and Haiti's police and to strengthen a U.N. political mission already in Haiti,” reports Reuters.
"Haiti's current context is not conducive to peacekeeping," Guterres said in the document, advocating for “the robust use of force, complemented by a suite of non-kinetic measures, by a capable specialized multinational police force enabled by military assets, coordinated with the national police.” (Miami Herald, Reuters)
Guterres’ letter was a response to a Security Council resolution adopted last month asking Guterres to come up with “a full range of options” to help combat Haiti’s armed gangs, reports the Associated Press.
A hypothetical international mission — which Kenya has offered to lead — “would be under the umbrella of the Security Council, but it would not be a traditional peacekeeping mission. Civil society representatives cited by a new Human Rights Watch report released Monday said some form of international support is needed to assist Haitian police address violence, but emphasized “that steps must be taken to avoid repetition of past harms and to support implementation of a Haitian-led reparations process.”
“Human Rights Watch calls on the UN Security Council to heed these calls and, if it authorizes the consensual deployment of an international force in Haiti, ensure that it is based on clear human rights protocols and has adequate funding and robust oversight mechanisms.”
Brazil
An investigation into alleged pilfering of high-priced official gifts to then-President Jair Bolsonaro has widened and includes several close aides to the former Brazilian leader. “The scandal has reached new heights in recent days after federal police requested access to Bolsonaro’s banking records, citing suspicions that members of his inner circle had been selling off official gifts … after spiriting them out of Brazil on the presidential jet,” reports the Guardian.
Approval Brazil’s Lula administration increased this month on voter perceptions that the country’s economy is improving and that the president is doing a good job governing, according to a new Genial/Quaest poll. (Reuters)
Venezuela
Key presidential and legislative elections are scheduled in Venezuela for 2024 and 2025, but negotiations to solve the country’s political crisis are stuck, and the economic crisis persists. “To avoid prolonging the country’s malaise, the government, the opposition and foreign powers should converge behind a plan involving sanctions relief and matching steps by Caracas toward fairer votes and better-functioning state institutions,” according to a new Crisis Group report.
Ecuador
“The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has condemned the assassination of a third Ecuadorian politician in less than a month, calling for an end to the bloodshed,” reports Al Jazeera. (See yesterday’s post.)
Mexico
Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has grown her lead to a 13-point advantage in the contest to be the ruling Morena party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election, according to a poll published today in El Universal. The survey showed Sheinbaum with 35% support, compared to former foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard’s 22%, reports Reuters.
Even with two women as early presidential front-runners, Mexico’s election is not likely to turn on issues of gender, including the pressing problem of violence against women, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Argentina
Libertarian Javier Milei, a front-runner presidential candidate ahead of Argentina’s October election, has been compared to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, both of whom have embraced him. His libertarian leanings, like massive economic privatization and relaxing gun ownership regulations, coexist with socially conservative positions against abortion and “cultural Marxism,” gender ideology and the supposed “indoctrination” carried out in public education, reports the Washington Post.
“Never before has the far right obtained so many votes in Argentina: between Milei and Bullrich, they accounted for almost half of the electorate,” write Mariano Schuster and Pablo Stefanoni in Nueva Sociedad. (In English at Nacla.) The two far-right candidates “embody a strongly anti-progressive, refoundational discourse—similar to, but the ideological inverse of, the discourses of the Pink Tide of the 2000s. A weapon in the hands of the voters to blow up the "system," whatever that means for each of them.”
Ingrid Beck analyzes what this means for Argentina’s feminists, and the advances in rights of recent years. (Letra P)
Milei’s showing in Sunday’s primaries broke the two-party polarization that defined Argentina’s politics for the past twenty years. His voters defy categorization. Betta Lab analyzes results in the municipality of La Matanza, and found his voters span socio-economic strata, age groups, and previous political identification.
The IMF has reached out to Bullrich and Milei’s camps to coordinate meetings, reports Reuters.
Dominican Republic
At least 10 people were killed in an explosion at a commercial center in the Dominican Republic on Monday. More than 50 people also were injured. (Associated Press)