Jesús “Chuo” Torrealba predicted a “likely victory for the opposition” in the parliamentary elections scheduled for the second half of the year, driven by what he sees as the yawning breach growing between the government of Nicolás Maduro and Venezuelans suffering severe economic hardship. 

The dirty money scandal plagues the Chilean Right a year after it suffered a crushing defeat, while the Chilean Senate votes to end the Pinochet-era electoral system. 

President Dilma Rousseff begins her second term with a divided country, an economy in crisis, and a massive corruption scandal at Petrobras. 

Most of the candidates who would be president have made it to the Atlantic coast for vacation and political exposure. 

President Juan Manuel Santos faces many challenges in the year ahead, including completing the peace process, navigating between opposition on the right and left, and maintaining national unity before regional elections.  For Mayor Petro, the most high-profile politician on the Colombian Left who was temporarily pushed from his office last year, time is running out

Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has decided to take a more active role in PT dialogue with social movements and promises to help them press President Dilma Rousseff to meet their demands, while Franco-Brazilian thinker and academic Michel Löwy, who was on tour for the release of his new book on Weber and

Members of the PRD were responsible for the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students, and this has devastated the party.  Yet President Peña Nieto and his cabinet seem to have lost the confidence of many former supporters.

Though APRA appears to have “returned to the center of the political stage,” in reality it could be “weaker than ever.” 

Obama’s announcement on Cuba deprives the Uribistas of their best arguments against the peace process. 

“Believing that Chilean society has turned to the Left can be a fatal error.”