Issue Oct 09-15 2024: Colombian electoral authorities of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) launched an inquiry into President Gustavo Petro’s 2022 campaign for allegedly overstepping financing caps en route to the Casa de Nariño. Petro responded, as he has in the past, that a “soft” coup d’état is afoot. The president maintains that such investigations

Issue Oct 02-08 2024: On October 6, 2024, Brazil held municipal elections nationwide, after which many cities must still hold runoffs to determine their next mayors, including fifteen state capitals, and some 103 district capitals. These contests were expected to indicate, once again, the relative political weight of both President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s

Issue Sep 25-Oct 01 2024: On October 1, 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum took the oath of office as Mexico’s first female president, replacing her popular predecessor and political mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador as head of state for the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country. Sheinbaum, a leftist and former Mayor of Mexico City, has a PhD in

Issue Sep 18-24 2024: Tensions between competing factions of Bolivia’s ruling Movimiento al Socialismo Party (MAS) boiled over in late September 2024. One faction, led by former President Evo Morales, alleged that he has been illegally prohibited from running for reelection, among other complaints. The other, headed by current President Luis Arce, claims that Morales

Issue Sep 11-17 2024: On September 11, 2024, former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori died at the age of 86. The controversial leader of Japanese origin had a massive impact on the recent history of Peru in the years after he was elected president in 1990. Fujimori is remembered as a symbol of 1990s absolutism and

Issue Sep 04-10 2024: The regime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua has forced 263 journalists to leave Nicaragua since 2018, while Nicaragua’s Congress approved a law empowering domestic courts to pass rulings against people and entities abroad that are found to promote sanctions against the internationally criticized government. What is more, the regime has intensified

Issue Aug 28-Sep 03 2024: On August 30, 2024, Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre De Moraes ordered the suspension of Elon Musk’s social media platform X in Brazil after the company refused to comply with his order to appoint a legal representative. De Moraes also moved against other Musk assets, including Starlink. Commentators in

Issue Aug 21-27 2024: In late August 2024, the presidents of Latin America’s major countries still could not agree on how to deal with the crisis in Venezuela over its July 28 presidential election. In particular, those who place themselves on the left are beginning to criticize each other’s actions, especially the degree to which

Issue Aug 14-20 2024: Venezuela, and Latin America in general, remained in crisis a month after Venezuela’s contested July 2024 presidential election. Though the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de Venezuela (TSJ) ratified the results proclaimed by the Maduro regime, major players around the region, the hemisphere, and the world rejected the unsupported claim of victory,

Issue Aug 07-13 2024: In mid-August 2024, Latin American leaders remained divided and unsure of how to respond to claims by the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela that it won the recent presidential election, while other international observers worried about human rights violations and repression of protesters. Editorialists and commentators rose to the occasion yet