Sheinbaum retains strong lead
May 16, 2024
Ruling Morena party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum remains comfortably in the lead ahead of the June 2 election: nearly 49% of the vote, according to a Mitofsky poll published Tuesday. It is a slight decrease over an April Mitofsky poll which gaveSheinbaum with 51.4% of the vote versus her closest opponent Xochitl Galvez's 26.7%. (Reuters)
Mexico’s upcoming general elections is the country’s largest ever, measured in voters and number of posts up for grabs. “The results will determine the political environment in which the next president will operate. They may also define the future of Mexico’s traditional opposition parties, which have been discredited since their last stint in power,” according to the Economist.
More Mexico
“On the eve of Mexico’s presidential elections, Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintains a high approval rating. But his constitutional chicanery and disregard for the law have undermined democracy, and his divisive rhetoric has polarized the country,” write Sarah Birke and Carlos Bravo Regidor in the New York Review of Books. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
AMLO has ignored and discredited the families searching for their disappeared loved ones. “As candidates prepare to discuss their security proposals in Mexico’s third presidential debate on May 19, the search for the disappeared should be front and center,” write Julia Zulver and Gema Kloppe-Santamaría in Americas Quarterly. “Rather than presenting it as a partisan issue, the three candidates need to acknowledge the moral urgency this crisis presents and propose specific steps to address the challenges of impunity and criminal violence behind this tragedy.”
Twenty-six policer officers were injured in Mexico City on Monday in clashes with protesters who threw firecrackers. The protesters were taking part in a demonstration demanding justice for 43 students who disappeared in 2014 from the town of Ayotzinapa, reports the BBC.
Guatemala
A Guatemalan court ordered the release of journalist José Rubén Zamora, jailed for nearly two years on money laundering charges, yesterday, reports the Associated Press. A judge ruled that there was no longer justification to keep him in jail, noting that he was not considered a flight risk or a threat to the investigation. Zamora has rejected the charges as persecution for investigating government corruption. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Haiti
Under-payed, ill-armed and overwhelmed police officers are on the frontline of a lopsided struggle against gangs that run about 80% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, reports the Guardian.
Regional Relations
Kenya is preparing to send hundreds of police officers as the first wave of a multinational force aimed at stabilizing Haiti. “The deployment has divided the East African nation from the onset,” reports the New York Times.
“As far as the plan to “stabilize” Haiti is concerned, the US-Kenya alliance represents a convergence of strategic interests between the United States as an imperial power and Kenya as an increasingly assertive player in the Global South,” according to Jacobin.
Colombia and the U.S. hosted a summit for Afro-descendent leaders in Atlanta, focused on Black communities’ shared challenges in both countries. Social and political leaders participated, along with business people and entrepreneurs. (Infobae, Prensa Latina, El Tiempo, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed Cuba from the State Department’s short list of countries that it deems less than fully cooperative against violent groups, yesterday. (Associated Press)
Cuban American groups are pushing the U.S. Biden administration to follow through on campaign promises to revert Trump-era policies causing significant economic pain in Cuba, a sign of another foreign policy weakness dividing the Democratic Party, reports The Nation.
Far from reverting Trump’s policies, “Biden has increased the pressure on Cuba, greatly worsening the island’s economic difficulties,” reports Jacobin.
Venezuela will not grant safe passage to leave the country to six opposition aides who have taken refuge in the Argentine embassy in Caracas, reports Reuters.
Venezuela
The New York Times has an explainer on the upcoming July elections in Venezuela, the first “in more than a decade in which an opposition candidate has a reasonable — if slim and improbable — chance at winning.”
The real leader in the polls, opposition politician María Corina Machado is barred from running, her challenge is whether she can translate her fame and charisma into votes for Edmundo González Urrutia, who was chosen by the chief opposition coalition after Machado was unable to overcome a ruling blocking her candidacy, reports the Associated Press.
Venezuela’s troop buildup at the border is aimed at scaring Guyana into granting concessions — “but now, the ploy also seems to be seeking to have an effect inside Venezuela given Maduro’s low standings at the polls,” reports the Miami Herald. The latest surveys show Maduro losing the election set for July 28 by more than 40 points, 62% to 20%, against González. (See yesterday’s briefs on the troop buildup.)
The last of Venezuela’s glaciers has disappeared, making it the only country in the Andes range without a glacier — though scientists predict warming temperatures will render the entire Northern Andes, which snakes through Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, glacier-free by 2050, reports the Washington Post.
Brazil
Brazil’s government pledged $10 billion for the country’s flooded southern region, and the BRICS group of countries another billion. Families impacted by the flood will receive aid. (AFP)
Brazilian Supreme Court president Luís Roberto Barroso warned of the rising tide of “authoritarian populism” and lashed out against tech mogul Elon Musk. He said: “There is clearly a far-right articulation in the world. [Musk] might be a piece of it.” (Financial Times)
Migration
The number of minors crossing the treacherous jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darien Gap is on pace to rise by 34% to reach 160,000 this year, according to UNICEF. (Reuters)
Ecuador
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa’s wife suspended a real estate development project that involved erecting four luxury buildings that would have encroached on a forest surrounded by mangroves that are protected under Ecuadorean law, reports El País.
Noboa’s “iron fist” narrative of security has taken hold in public opinion — “the underlying problem is that homicide figures have not significantly decreased,” according to Nacla.
Regional
“A case in which flight attendants working for passenger airlines used their privileged access to transport millions of dollars of fentanyl profits from the United States to the Dominican Republic highlights how money laundering networks continue to use old school, analog tactics,” reports InSight Crime.
Argentina
An Argentine government cabinet member said the country’s social movements, representing unemployed and informal workers, have created an “authoritarian” “system of modern slavery,” reports El País.
Culture Corner
“The fact that many narco corrido singers get paid by narcos is no secret,” writes Ioan Grillo in CrashOut. “The authentic gangster connection puts the corrido scene into an ethical grey area.”