Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down a key portion of a sweeping electoral reform bill championed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, backing critics who said the measures undermined the country’s electoral authority, a key pillar of Mexican democracy.
The nine to two ruling is a political defeat for the government, which said the reform would reduce costs and make elections more efficient. Justices said lawmakers violated legislative procedure in passing the reform, saying that the changes had been rushed through in only four hours and that members of Congress had not been given reasonable time to know what they were voting on.
The court had already invalidated, last month, another part of the bill that, among other things, involved changes to publicity rules in electoral campaigns.
The ruling is likely to further tension between Mexico’s executive and judicial branches. The president’s office has accused the Supreme Court of violating the separation of powers by overriding the legislative branch. The justices say the legislative branch must follow its own rules.
The legislation struck down yesterday was known as “Plan B,” after Congress rejected López Obrador’s original electoral reform plan. The president has already proposed “Plan C,” a new vote on broader electoral reform if his Morena party and allies can win a supermajority in the next Congress, permitting them to pass constitutional changes.
(New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters)
More Mexico
Mexico’s national government sidelined municipal governments in the fight against organized crime — handing security duties to the military in part due to local corruption and the sheer magnitude of violence. But Mexican criminal groups have fragmented, and the 80 municipalities where elections can trigger fierce battles for control are now the greatest risks of violence. “Fighting this scourge requires law enforcement attuned to the specific nature of local crime waves. Militarised and centralised policing is not well suited to this task,” according to a new report by the International Crisis Group.
The report calls for “a new generation of security cooperation agreements” between municipal governments and “other rungs of the state, reinforcing local police forces, ensuring a more efficient division of labour and enabling better intelligence sharing. These accords should feature strict anti-corruption controls.” (International Crisis Group)
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily press conferences have evolved into a platform for intensifying attacks on media outlets, opposition figures, and crucial democratic institutions like the National Electoral Institute (INE). A DFRLab analysis of the daily morning press conferences held by López Obrador, also known as AMLO, reveals that these attacks have become more frequent since mid-2021. (Via Latin America Risk Report)
Guatemalans to vote in tarnished election
Guatemalans head to the polls on Sunday, in a presidential election tarnished by irregularities and a context of attacks against critical voices in the judiciary and the press.
Twenty-two candidates are on the ballot, but the exclusion of three of the most popular candidates challenging the political status quo has contributed to widespread distrust of the electoral system and apathy. “The remaining front-runners are people with links to some segment of the political or economic elite,” reports the New York Times.
Former first lady Sandra Torres, of the UNE party, leads the latest Encuesta Libre poll, with 21.3%. She is followed by Edmond Mulet, a career diplomat, of the Cabal party with 13.4% and right-wing Zury Ríos of Valor party, with 9.1%. (Prensa Libre) A second round, required if no candidate obtains more than 50% of the vote on Sunday, is likely and would take place on Aug. 30.
“Seen from the outside, the general elections on June 25 in Guatemala meet the formal requirements,” writes former foreign minister Edgar Gutiérrez in InSight Crime. The exclusion of candidates is “symptomatic of a more serious problem: The rule of law has been systematically undermined, the application of the rules has become arbitrary, and there is no recourse for those who dissent from the regime.”
The backlash against landmark anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala reflect a persistent “a counterinsurgent mentality” within the country’s elite that equates “unprecedented efforts of prosecutors and judges over the past ten years to investigate war crimes and probe government corruption … to a second coming of the leftist insurgency, dressed not in camouflage but in judicial robes,” writes Will Freeman in Foreign Affairs.
Experts also point to a surge in illicit campaign financing using public funds, reports the New York Times.
“The toxic combination of these facts, together with the lack of effective control of political financing and electoral spending, shows a growing contamination of the electoral process and a lack of confidence in the institutions in charge of guaranteeing its integrity,” write Daniel Zovatto and Manfredo Marroquín in the Wilson Center’s Weekly Asado.
Only 17% of Guatemalans say they trust the electoral system, and in recent years the second round of presidential elections has had a turnout of 40%. (NPR)
Two of the disqualified candidates, Carlos Pineda, a conservative agribusinessman and TikTok starm and Thelma Cabrera, an Indigenous Maya Mam grassroots leader, have urged followers to spoil their ballots on Sunday, reports the Guardian.
InSight Crime published an in-depth, seven-chapter investigation into the political power networks with a stake in the Guatemala elections, that delineates the evolution of organized crime in Guatemala. The report emphasizes the way organized crime has penetrated the political and judicial systems as the country heads to the polls. It also documents the broader climate of corruption now undermining the elections, democracy, and the rule of law in Guatemala.
According to InSight Crime, there are four major political power blocs to keep an eye on for this election — Vamos, Valor, UNE, and Cabal — “all of them have connections to powerful corrupt-criminal interests.”
“Though these blocs hold diverse interests and compete for access to state resources and judicial favors, they are also all part of a broader multi-party, multi-institutional alliance that seeks to perpetuate corruption. Often referred to euphemistically as the Pacto de Corruptos, this is not a formal pact. Still, they have all benefited from the climate of impunity and, regardless of the election outcome, will likely continue working together to avoid upsetting the status quo.”
More Guatemala
The New York Times reports that Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal magistrate Blanca Alfaro went to the U.S. Embassy last year and presented “a cash package” —50,000 quetzales; about $6,000 USD— that a presidential operator allegedly gave her and other magistrates on behalf of President Alejandro Giammattei.
Though the operator and Alfaro denied the report, El Faro English received separate confirmation by three sources that the Embassy meeting happened. “The account that Giammattei has quite literally put cash on the table at the TSE has circulated for months in Guatemala City and Washington, D.C.”
Regional Relations
Brazilian President Luiz Inñacio Lula da Silva said richer nations with their "historic debt" to the planet should foot the bill for environmental damage that is being hoisted on poorer countries. He spoke in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, at the "Power Our Planet" event. (Reuters)
The Pacific Alliance designed to deepen economic integration between Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, has been caught in a rift between Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Dina Boluarte — Americas Quarterly.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's recent visit to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, could be instrumental for the Latin American countries affected by heavy U.S. sanctions, which, like Iran, are seeking to "open up cracks" that will allow them to continue trading in the international market, argues Douglas Farah in Confidencial.
Spain is hoping to advance closer ties with Latin America, but the region “also embodies the most contentious foreign-policy question facing the EU: Is free trade still a wise idea in the new age of deglobalization and great-power rivalry?” — Politico
Lula said the European Union should stop adopting a protectionist stance if it wants to reach a long-delayed trade deal with the Mercosur bloc. (Reuters)
Chile
Chile’s government released its national lithium strategy this week — outlining the Boric administration’s plans to create a state-lithium company, albeit steering clear of nationalizing the sector. The plan says the government plans to award more mining leases and will require some of the new projects to be joint partnerships with a state-owned company, reports the Latin America Brief.
Regional
Latin America’s economies have not yet taken advantage of the momentary fluidity of global supply chains, but the near-shoring window of opportunity is closing, warns Shannon K O’Neil in Americas Quarterly.
Climate change impacts on Central America’s forests could cost the region between $51 billion and $314 billion per year by 2100, according to a new study in Nature. (Mongabay)
Argentina
The deadline for Argentine political parties to inscribe presidential candidates is tomorrow at midnight.
The ruling Frente de Todos coalition — rebranded as Unión por la Patria for this year’s presidential elections — still has not settled on who Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro’s running mate will be, though it is widely reported that it will be Tucumán governor Juan Manzur. (La Política Online)
Juntos por el Cambio hopeful Horacio Rodríguez Larreta is expected to announce Jujuy governor Gerardo Morales as his running mate today. This week, Morales is at the center of a controversy over a provincial constitution reform criminalizing certain forms of protest, and the bloody repression of ensuing protest. His hawkish stance could strengthen Larreta who faces off in his coalition’s primary against the iron-fist proponent Patricia Bullrich. (Infobae)
Bullrich tapped former Mendoza lawmaker Luis Petri, of the UCR party, to accompany her bid for the Juntos por el Cambio presidential nomination. (BATimes)
Whether Argentina’s outsider libertarian firebrand Javier Milei can actually score a surprise win in October “is beyond the point,” argues Eduardo Levy Yeyati in Americas Quarterly. “He is liberal democracy´s wake-up call. His very presence synthetizes many of the drivers of anti-politics, and the shortcomings that need to be addressed to revive the basic social contract of our democracies.”
Colombia
Colombia's Congress approved raising the government's 2023 budget by about $4.1 billion in overnight votes last night, with education and health to receive the biggest boosts to funding. (Reuters)
Colombia's government is preparing to help energy companies revive at least 21 suspended oil and gas contracts with a $38 million initiative aimed at solving security and community relations problems, reports Reuters.
Uruguay
Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou backed away from a plan to meltdown a Nazi relict recovered in the Rio de la Plata, after thousands signed a petition calling for it to go to a museum instead. “If you want to generate peace, the first thing you have to do is to generate unity, and clearly this has not generated that,” he said. (New York Times)