Claudia Sheinbaum became Mexico’s first female president today, inheriting the mantle from her political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who bequeaths her his “Fourth Transformation.”
Sheinbaum shared her government’s logo yesterday an image that seeks to recognize generations of “women who have been rendered invisible by history, but who have continued to fight for their rights, dreams and desires," the future president's team explained in a fact sheet. (Animal Político)
The 62-year-old former Mexico City mayor and lifelong leftist campaigned on a promise of continuity, but is expected to bring her own technocratic governance style to the presidency, reports the Associated Press.
“Two seemingly antagonistic words, continuity and change, will be the keys to his mandate, although it is not yet clear which of them will prevail,” reports El País.
“Analysts say Ms. Sheinbaum’s administration will try to blend her technocratic and pragmatic approach to governing with Mr. López Obrador’s populist rhetoric,” reports the New York Times.
Half of the incoming presidential cabinet is composed of AMLO officials, reports Animal Político.
Sheinbaum must implement a number of complicated constitutional reforms passed in the past month, her political mentor’s final legacy: judicial reform that will involve electing more than a thousand judges next year, and the formalization of militarized internal security, now with the legal ability to investigate crime and arrest people, reports Animal Político.
Sheinbaum inherits AMLO’s Fourth Transformation — El País reviews the state of Mexico, looking at labor, access to health, education and public security.
Immediate crises include the Sinaloa Cartel War in Culiacán and hurricane ravaged Acapulco (see below briefs.)
More Mexico
AMLOs efforts to investigate the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa students caved to political pressure, argues Omar Gómez Trejo, former Special Prosecutor for the Ayotzinapa case, in El Faro. “…The investigation uncovered so much evidence of the collusion between authorities —including soldiers— and organized crime that there was internal pressure to stop it.”
Municipal police Mexico’s Sinaloa state have been pulled off the streets after the army seized their guns. “Historically, the Mexican army has seized the weapons of local police forces they distrust, either because they suspect some local cops are working for drug gangs or because they suspect they are carrying unregistered, private sidearms that would make abuses harder to trace,” reports the Associated Press.
Seventeen people were killed along Mexico’s southern Pacific coast after “John” struck the coast once as a hurricane and again as tropical storm last week, reports the Associated Press.
Hunger in Haiti
Nearly 6,000 people in Haiti are starving, with nearly half the country’s population of more than 11 million people experiencing crisis levels of hunger or worse, according to a new by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
The 5,636 people who are facing starvation, the worst level, live in makeshift shelters across the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, which is hostage to gangs who have prevented vital supplies from reaching the capital. The report noted that another 2 million Haitians face severe hunger. (Associated Press)
The IPC also cited a high inflation rate as an aggravating factor, at a time when spending on food accounts for up to 70% of household budgets, reports Reuters.
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The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern regardingthreats made against AyiboPost’s editor-in-chief Widlore Mérancourt by Haitian gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier over his article about a Reuters journalist giving Cherizier gifts of balaclavas, alcohol, and cigarettes.
Brazil
A Brazilian judge convicted Edilson Barbosa dos Santos of obstructing the investigation into the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco and sentenced him to five years in prison. It’s the first conviction in the case, though former policeman Ronnie Lessa has confessed to killing Franco as part of a plea bargain. (Associated Press)
Nicaragua
Humberto Ortega Saavedra, the former chief of Nicaragua’s armed forces, died yesterday. The younger brother of President Daniel Ortega was under house arrest, after publicly questioning his sibling’s “dictatorial” rule, reports the New York Times.
Local media had reported in May that police had surrounded Humberto Ortega’s home, the same day Infobae published lengthy interview, in which Humberto Ortega discussed his at times tense relationship with his brother, reports the Associated Press.
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” policy has suffered a string of setbacks, pushing the administration towards partial agreements instead, aimed at reducing violence and returning state governance to areas under the control of armed groups. “To some veteran Latin America observers, this shift will be a disappointment. But hard realities forced Petro’s hand, and incrementalism may in fact have a better chance of successfully curbing Colombia’s violence,” writes Elizabeth Dickinson in Foreign Affairs.
“Colombian police intelligence likely purchased Israeli software Pegasus during the country’s national strike in 2021, during which police killed over 60 protesters.
The sale was never declared in Colombia,” according to Pirate Wire Services.
Regional Relations
Renewed migration from Venezuela “will supercharge the issue in domestic politics throughout the hemisphere. The region's leaders can still contain the damage,” argues Theodore Kahn in Americas Quarterly.
Brazilian and Mexican authorities said yesterday they see the need to revise and expand their current trade agreements, in a push to strengthen the ties between the two largest economies in Latin America, reports Reuters.
Argentine President Javier Milei received his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, in the Pink House yesterday. They met behind closed doors and there was no press conference, reports El País.
The two governments have pledged to collaborate on security issues. In June their security ministers signed an agreement to cooperate “in the exchange of information and legal instruments and joint training of Security Forces,” reports the Buenos Aires Times.
Argentine Vice President Victoria Villarruel broke ranks and lambasted a UK-Argentina Falkland Islands agreement announced last week. The pact, announced on the sidelines of the UNGA, includes resuming flights to the islands, restarting negotiations on a humanitarian project plan, and organizing a trip for relatives of fallen soldiers of the Falklands war to visit their graves. “Do they take us for fools? They are getting material, concrete and immediate benefits, while they are offering us crumbs as emotional consolation and weakening our ability to negotiate,” said Villarruel. (Guardian)
Argentina
A massive mobilization tomorrow in Argentina aims to support a recent law guaranteeing financing for universities, which Milei has promised to veto. It will be the second public demonstration against attempts to cut public university funding, reports Página 12.
Cuba
Cuba's government said its economic policies to help growth in the midst of crisis are advancing, but too slowly as millions of Cubans remain without water, electricity, or both, reports Reuters.
Regional
The Center for Strategic and International Studies analyzes the nexus between Chinese-owned or operated ports in the region and organized crime groups.
Venezuela
“Tren de Guayana, one of Venezuela’s oldest illegal mining groups, allegedly has used ties to President Nicolás Maduro’s administration to push out other criminal groups and solidify its power in the state of Bolívar,” reports InSight Crime.
Ecuador
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa's approval rating is hovering around 50% in the polls, he is more popular than the candidates challenging his reelection bid. But he faces significant challenges, including drought, fires, power outages, debt, and security threats, which will chip away at his electoral chances in February, according to Latin America Risk Report.
Noboa has vowed to build more high-security facilities in remote areas. But local communities fear for their ancestral lands – and their own safety, reports the Guardian.
Histories
A ceremony in Buenos Aires’ legislature, yesterday, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert, who had received political asylum in Argentina following the Pinochet coup in 1973. The killing is considered one of the first of the Plan Condor. (Página 12)