The ruling Chavistas are said to be turning to a “campaign of fear” in their desperation about the coming “punishment vote.” 

President Ollanta Humala said sterilization was a “policy for reducing the numbers of poor people before they are born.”  This policy “should make us ashamed.” 

The country’s political discord is driven by popular anger, which President Rousseff’s post-election bait and switch to austerity only amplified. 

Former President Álvaro Uribe’s rightwing Centro Democrático party hoped for an election result in 2015 “equal to that of 2014,” but they discovered that these “were very different battles.”  At the same time Horacio Serpa, the leader of the Liberal Party, injudiciously bet his famous mustache on the election. 

The tragedy of Iguala, in which the 43 student teachers (or “normalistas”) from Ayotzinapa disappeared, did more that expose the corruption and complicity of police forces and local government authorities with organized crime. 

Nicolás Maduro admits the political “emergency” and denounces the coming “coup.” 

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urged the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) to back fiscal austerity measures in Congress, endorsing the efforts of Finance Minister Joaquim Levy to plug a gaping deficit. 

Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani spoke out again against abortion, even in case of rape. “No exception allows humans to kill a helpless creature in the womb,” he insisted. 

In an interview, President Michelle Bachelet defended her government’s efforts, as well as its push for constitutional reform. 

It privileges the interests of entrepreneurs and producers to justify a new system of state security.