Will Freeman

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Por qué el modelo Bukele no va a funcionar en otros países de América Latina

MundoAmérica

Esta semana, los electores de El Salvador le dieron a su presidente de mano dura contra la delincuencia una indicación clara: mantener el curso.

Aunque todavía se están contando los votos, el presidente Nayib Bukele se adjudicó una victoria aplastante las elecciones y afirmó que ganó con más del 85 por ciento de los votos. Si esos resultados se mantienen cuando se anuncie el conteo oficial, ni siquiera los presidentes populistas más conocidos de América Latina, como el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez o el boliviano Evo Morales, habrán estado cerca de ganar unas elecciones con esos márgenes.

El ascenso sin precedentes de Bukele se explica debido a un factor: el sorprendente descenso en la tasa de delincuencia de El Salvador.…  Seguir leyendo »

At a currency exchange in Buenos Aires, February 2019. Agustin Marcarian / Reuters

MundoAmérica

“Central America is the most important place in the world for the United States today”. You would never expect a White House official to say those words in 2023. But when Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations, made that statement in 1981, it was not so controversial. Even the president agreed with her.

From the late 1950s, with the outbreak of the Cuban revolution, to the late 1980s, when civil wars raged in Central America, Latin America found itself in the cross hairs of great power competition. Geopolitics mattered to Latin America, and Latin America mattered to geopolitics.…  Seguir leyendo »

El candidato presidencial Fernando Villavicencio ondeando una bandera ecuatoriana durante un acto de campaña en una escuela minutos antes de ser asesinado en Quito, Ecuador, el 9 de agosto. API vía Associated Press

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Pedro Briones, candidato al Congreso y líder político en Ecuador, fue asesinado el lunes. El ataque se produjo a unos días de que Fernando Villavicencio, candidato presidencial y firme crítico de la corrupción, fuera asesinado al salir de un mitin de campaña en Quito, la capital del país. Las muertes, tan cercanas a las elecciones generales de Ecuador previstas para el domingo, han conmocionado a los ecuatorianos y han suscitado la condena mundial. La ola de violencia demuestra que nadie, ni siquiera un candidato presidencial, está a salvo en Ecuador.

Christian Zurita, periodista de investigación, excolega y amigo cercano de Villavicencio, será su reemplazo en la contienda.…  Seguir leyendo »

The presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio waving a national flag during a campaign event at a school minutes before he was shot to death outside the same school, in Quito, Ecuador, on Aug. 9. API, via Associated Press

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On Aug. 14, Pedro Briones, a congressional candidate and local political leader in Ecuador, was shot down. The assassination came less than a week after Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate and vocal critic of corruption, was shot dead as he left a campaign rally in the country’s capital, Quito. The killings so close to Ecuador’s general election, scheduled for Sunday, have shocked Ecuadoreans and drawn global condemnation. The slayings show that no one — not even a presidential candidate — is safe in Ecuador.

Christian Zurita, an investigative journalist and a former colleague and close friend of Mr. Villavicencio, was chosen by their political party to run in his place.…  Seguir leyendo »

Demonstrating after courts suspended Carlos Pineda’s presidential candidacy, Guatemala City, May 2023

MundoAmérica

From 1996 to 1999, Guatemala’s Commission for Historical Clarification faced the daunting task of counting the dead. The country was just emerging from a 36-year internal armed conflict ended by UN-sponsored peace talks between the government and the remnants of a few leftist guerrilla groups. The final death toll came to around 200,000, according to the commission. Nine in ten victims, the majority of them indigenous, had been killed by the state security forces or their paramilitary allies. Even in Latin America, where brutal Cold War–era counterinsurgencies were widespread, Guatemala’s state-led terror had no equal.

But the armed conflict had not yet claimed its final victim: Guatemala’s democracy.…  Seguir leyendo »

Demonstrating in Lima, Peru, January 2023. Alessandro Cinque / Reuters

MundoAmérica

Latin America is prone to political instability, but Peru belongs in a category of its own. On December 7, Dina Boluarte was sworn in as the country’s sixth president in as many years. Hours earlier, her unpopular and hapless predecessor, leftist President Pedro Castillo, had tried to shut down the Peruvian Congress and rule by decree. This was all in an attempt to avoid a looming impeachment vote in Congress and prosecution on half a dozen criminal charges. In the maelstrom that followed, the police and the military refused to back Castillo. He was impeached and arrested, and Boluarte, until then the vice president, replaced Castillo, following the constitutional line of succession.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cracking down on anti-government protesters, Lima, Peru, November 2022. Sebastian Castaneda / Reuters

MundoAmérica

In a time of geopolitical upheaval, few parts of the world have weathered greater social and economic upheaval than Latin America. Despite accounting for just eight percent of the world’s population, Latin American countries have suffered more than 40 percent of all deaths from COVID-19; during the first year of the pandemic, they also experienced their greatest economic contraction in more than a century. Then, just as the region was making an economic rebound, it was hit by the twin shocks of Russia’s war in Ukraine and a global inflation crisis. As of October 2022, average inflation across the region was approaching 15 percent—about triple the level of Asia’s and one-third higher than sub-Saharan Africa’s—while public debt levels have soared to more than 70 percent of regional GDP.…  Seguir leyendo »

A tattoo of a lighthouse set on the Strait of Magellan decorates the arm of then-Chilean presidential candidate Gabriel Boric during a rally on Nov. 1 in Santiago, Chile. The tattoo by Chilean tattoo artist Yumbel Gongora shows the famed sea route in southern Chile where President-elect Boric hails from. (Esteban Felix/AP)

MundoAmérica

Latin America is a young region; one-third of its population is between ages 23 and 40. But most recent presidents and party leaders came of age during the Cold War. Now, that’s changing.

On Dec. 18, Chilean voters elected the country’s first millennial president, 35-year-old leftist Gabriel Boric. The country’s Constitutional Assembly also just made 40-year-old María Elisa Quinteros and 33-year-old Gaspar Domínguez its leaders. In 2018, Costa Rica elected its youngest president ever, Carlos Alvarado, at 38. And in 2019, El Salvador elected then-38-year-old Nayib Bukele president. In Colombia, a full six contenders in this year’s presidential race are between ages 38 and 46.…  Seguir leyendo »

Xiomara Castro speaks to her supporters in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Nov. 28 after the presidential vote. (Moises Castillo/AP)

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Xiomara Castro — the leader of Honduras’s leftist opposition — claimed a landslide victory in Sunday’s presidential election. With 52.42 percent of votes counted, Castro held a 20-point lead over her nearest competitor, conservative Nasry Asfura of the incumbent National Party.

She delivered a victory speech Sunday night once her double-digit lead became clear. Honduras’s leading business association, COHEP, congratulated Castro, as did the contest’s third major candidate, Yani Rosenthal. Asfura had also claimed victory but conceded late Tuesday and congratulated Castro on her victory.

Castro is poised to make history as the country’s first female president and end 12 years of undemocratic National Party rule, which has sent, by our calculations, close to 1 in 9 Hondurans fleeing toward the United States in the past decade.…  Seguir leyendo »

Peru's presidential candidate Pedro Castillo addresses supporters from the headquarters of the “Free Peru” party in Lima on June 8. In a June 6 runoff election Castillo beat Keiko Fujimori by a narrow margin. (Sebastian Castaneda/Reuters)

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Free and fair elections, robust growth rates, a dramatic reduction in poverty — no one claimed Peruvian governance was perfect, but these accomplishments put it ahead of the South American pack. This stability also exempted Peru from the “pink tide” that swept leftist candidates to power across most of South America in the 2000s.

Not any longer. In last Sunday’s runoff, Pedro Castillo, the candidate of the far-left Perú Libre party, appeared to eke out the narrowest of victories — a margin of less than 1 percent — over right-wing Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peru’s last strongman. Fujimori alleged fraud and irregularities, although international observers described the vote as free and fair.…  Seguir leyendo »