Leftist parties now hold sway in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, but what it means in the long run is still not clear. 

In recent years in Guatemala, conflicts and demands of different sectors of society have been exacerbated by the lack of response and consensus with Government. 

President Nicolás Maduro recently announced that his government had captured three generals accused of “plotting a coup.” 

President Michelle Bachalet has sent a bill to establish a ministry that would champion the country’s women and contribute to diminishing the gender inequality that runs deep and wide across Chilean society. 

Witness the newly elected President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the FMLN. 

Efren Lemus, Daniel Valencia, and Ricardo Vaquerano reported in El Faro Magazine of San Salvador on the razor thin margin in the final count of the Salvadoran presidential election in which the ruling FMLN party polled 50.11% to the ARENA party’s 49.89%.   

In Colombia Reports of Medellín Daniel E. Freeman wrote that Colombia’s congressional elections on March 9, 2014 “saw an unprecedented amount of voter fraud and vote buying, though violent pressure on voters from armed illegal groups largely abated, according to electoral observers.” 

Ricardo Mendonça noted in Folha de S. Paulo that the typical Brazilian voter in 2014 is between 25 and 34 years old, with a high school diploma and has low monthly family income. 

Tomás Brockenshire pointed out in the Buenos Aires Herald that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner opened the 132nd session of the Argentine Congress with a speech that included tentative olive branches to the political opposition, and only superficially set out the legislative agenda for the coming year. 

Hermann Bellinghausen reported in La Jornada of Mexico City that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) unveiled its new publication, Rebeldía Zapatista, to be directed by Subcomandante Moisés.