Pushback against Mexico's judicial reform con't
Aug. 22, 2024
Mexico’s electoral authority must determine the final composition of the country’s incoming national congress, today. The council is likely to maintain it’s longstanding criteria of distributing seats by party rather than coalition, which would give the ruling coalition a comfortable supermajority (permitting unilateral constitutional reform) in the lower chamber, and leave it just three votes shy of two-thirds in the Senate. (El País)
The ruling comes as all eyes are on the advance of a reform plan that includes judicial overhaul making judgeships elected. Judges and magistrates yesterday joined a strike begun early this week by federal court employees to oppose the proposal, reports the Associated Press. (See Tuesday’s post.)
Yesterday Morgan Stanley issued an "underweight" warning on Mexican shares due to concerns about planned changes to the judiciary and electoral system, reports Reuters. Markets reacted to the strike and the warning, the peso fell by 2%. (Reuters)
Leading American business associations including the American Petroleum Institute and National Mining Association warned that the reform and others proposed by Mexico’s outgoing president risked harming bilateral trade and investment, reports the Financial Times.
Sheinbaum insisted yesterday that the reform should not scare investors, as it targets the corruption they know firsthand and aims to strengthen Mexico’s rule of law. (Animal Político)
More Mexico
Mexican feminists are optimistic about Sheinbaum’s presidency, particularly promises to extend public healthcare to informal workers and Monday’s announcement that there will be a cabinet level Women’s Secretariat, reports El País.
Mexico’s federal attorney general’s office said Joaquín Guzmán López is the main suspect in the kidnapping Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and announced an arrest warrant for the son of Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán for the crimes of kidnapping and treason. Both Guzmán López and Zambada are currently detained in the U.S. (El País)
The move gives credibility to Zambada’s version of how he came to be arrested in the U.S., and accusations linking the episode to the murder of Héctor Cuén, a Sinaloa politician for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) while dismissing the version of events provided by state authorities regarding the homicide, reports El País.
The federal prosecutors’ statement also included an unusually harsh and revealing description about evidence presented by prosecutors in the northern state of Sinaloa that has since proved to be false, apparently aimed distancing Governer Rubén Rocha from the killing of Cuén, a local political rival, reports the Associated Press.
In the meantime, a Cold War is raging within the Sinaloa Cartel after Zambada’s detention, reports InSight Crime.
“What are the security risks of running a business in Mexico, and are those risks worsening? How much of an effect is extortion by drug traffickers having on Mexico’s business community? How are corporations responding to the threats, and how much are their profits being affected?” - Latin America Advisor
Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional leader Subcomandante Marcos write a missive lambasting Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose development projects “are just the commercial corridors that are open for organized crime to have new markets.” (El País)
Mexico could boost its annual economic activity by more than 25%, or $390.5 billion, if women participated in the labor force at the same rate as men, according to a report by the Milken Institute. (Reuters)
Venezuela
Venezuela's government-loyal Supreme Court declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the disputed July 28 election. In its ruling read by presiding judge Caryslia Rodríguez, the court said it had "indisputably certified election materials and validates the results of the July 28, 2024 presidential election issued by the National Electoral Council (CNE)," naming Maduro as the winner, reports AFP.
The opposition objects to the Supreme Court ruling on the issue, saying it doesn’t have the mandate to carry out electoral functions, reports Reuters.
“The high court's ruling certifying the results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility,” notes the Associated Press. “Specifically, the outside experts noted that authorities didn’t release a breakdown of results by each of the 30,000 voting booths nationwide, as they have in almost every previous election.”
After a long time operating in the shadows, Venezuela’s colectivos — criminal groups with a symbiotic relationship to the state, with which they systematically collaborate and cooperate — have returned to the limelight in one of the most crucial moments for the government, reports InSight Crime. Since Venezuela’s contested presidential vote, they’ve been mobilized by Maduro’s government, “confirming once again that they are a strategic tool for dispersing protests.”
El Salvador
Several nongovernmental organizations launched a registry of disappeared persons in El Salvador, a tool meant to help families with relatives detained under the country’s extended state of emergency and better measure the number of people disappeared, reports the Associated Press.
Idalia Zepeda, a member of the NGO association, said the 366 missing people reported in the last year would mark an almost 10% increase compared to United Nations and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates for the previous year, reports Reuters.
Ecuador
Ecuador's government said that a request by Vice President Veronica Abad that the country's electoral court remove President Daniel Noboa from his post is an attempt at a "coup,” reports Reuters.
“This ugly fight between the country’s president and vice president is going to last for months to come and will shape Ecuador’s presidential election to be held next February,” wrote James Bosworth earlier this week in World Politics Review.
Regional Relations
Some experts say the unprecedented diplomatic efforts led by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to negotiate a solution to Venezuela’s electoral crisis are fizzling, reports the Associated Press.
Peru
A pilot universal basic income project in Peru’s Amazon explores how alleviating Indigenous poverty could help protect the rainforest, reports the Guardian.
Migration
Guatemalan police arrested seven people accused of having smuggled 53 migrants from Mexico and Central America who died of asphyxiation in 2022 in Texas after being abandoned in a tractor trailer in the scorching summer heat, reports the Associated Press.
Brazil will tighten up entry rules in response to migrants’ increasingly using the South American nation as a stop-over on the way to the United States and Canada, reports Reuters. (See also Associated Press.)
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Six weeks after Hurricane Beryl, devastated islands that form part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines remain in need of help, reports the Guardian.
Bolivia
Journalist José Aramayo discusses how radio plays a central role in the political and social life of Bolivia and its campesino movements - Nacla
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei suffered a stinging defeat in Congress yesterday as deputies in the lower house from a broad spectrum of parties repealed a controversial presidential decree that dramatically boosted discretional funding for the country’s spy agency. (Buenos Aires Times)
The vote shows cracks in Milei’s alliance with the center right parties led by former President Mauricio Macri, notes El País.
“Argentina’s economy unexpectedly contracted in June, shrinking for the fourth time in six months as a deep recession weighs down early signs of recovery,” reports Bloomberg.
Culture Corner
X-men has a new character: Buenos Aires native Valentín Correa, otherwise known as “Ransom,” wears an Argentina futbol jersey and has a “black hole for a heart.” - Buenos Aires Times
A new documentary reintroduces Frida Kahlo to a younger generation. “The documentary’s ace in the hole is that the birth-to-grave narrative is told by the painter herself. It’s an ingenious way to carve out a person from a pile of merch,” writes Luiza Franco in Americas Quarterly.