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      in World Politics

      Haiti’s Whodunnit Raises Serious Historical Questions

      by

      Not since the former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture successfully revolted against the island’s colonial masters has Haiti’s politics inspired anyone’s admiration. Toussaint’s quixotic adventure predictably ended badly for himself and perhaps even worse for his nation, whose political independence he single-handedly crafted. The French duly liberated the slaves several decades after Toussaint’s revolution but replaced the chattel slavery with economic slavery that would last for nearly two centuries and has left indelible traces today.

      Last week, chaos returned in the most absolute form to a nation in a perpetual state of chaos. A hit squad assassinated President Jovenel Moise in the middle of the night. Days later, the media are left wondering about the “continuing mystery over who was behind the attack on Mr. Moïse’s residence.”

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      In the immediate aftermath, Al Jazeera reported the “shock and revulsion to the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise” by world leaders. Colombia’s notably urged “the Organization of American States [OAS] to send an urgent mission to Haiti to ‘protect the democratic order.’”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Democratic order:

      Arbitrarily imposed military and economic control by any powerful nation or group of nations that claims to believe in the principles of democracy without the inconvenience of having to practice them

      Contextual Note

      The author of the message urging the OAS intervention was none other than Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez, who deplored “a cowardly and barbaric act against the entire Haitian people” and expressed his “solidarity with the sister nation and the family of a great friend of Colombia.”

      Almost simultaneously with Duque’s impassioned call for democratic order in Haiti, the BBC reported on condemnation of Colombia by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for “‘excessive and disproportionate’ use of force in response to this year’s anti-government protests, in which dozens died.” Since April, Colombia has been riddled by daily protests calling for Duque’s impeachment. The New York Times explained: “The fuse for the protests was a tax overhaul proposed in late April by Mr. Duque, a conservative, which many Colombians felt would have made it even harder to get by in an economy squeezed by the pandemic.” Duque has been consistently supported by the US, which sees him as the key to undermining the current government of Venezuela.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Covering the events in Haiti, CNN reporter John Berman asked the White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, an extraordinary question that clearly reveals how both the political class and the media see everything that lies beyond the borders of the US. “What is the United States willing to do,” he asked, “to keep that island stable?”

      The first thing a quibbler might notice is that Haiti is not an island. Instead, it occupies just over one-third of the surface of the island of Hispaniola. The Dominican Republic occupies the other two-thirds. A more obvious problem lies in Berman’s uncritical supposition that the US has the capacity to guarantee another nation’s stability. Worse, Berman’s suggestion that it is a question of keeping the nation “stable” reveals his ignorance of the growing instability that surrounded the personality of Moise and his style of governance.

      Moise’s combination of action (consolidating his personal power, removing judges from the supreme) and inaction (allowing parliamentary rule to expire while insisting on his right to remain in office for another year) produced conditions that led to severe unrest. In such circumstances of grave democratic disorder, no one should be surprised that the assassination of a contested leader might take place.

      Psaki, apparently at a loss for words, called it a “tragic tragedy.” Her pleonastic epithet is revealing. In the language of Washington, DC, the death of any politician who is not an enemy of the US is by definition a tragedy. But the death of one who had been cooperating with the US and depends on its aid — however corrupt and unpopular that leader may be among the people — merits the dual qualification of “tragic tragedy.”

      Colombia’s Duque, the White House, the OAS and American media appear to agree that any government supported by the US — no matter how fundamentally chaotic or despotic its mode of governance — can be thought of as an example of “democratic order.” The US supported Moise’s controversial election back in 2016, an election in which only 18% of the electorate voted.

      The United States also supports Duque’s contested leadership in Colombia and Jair Bolsonaro’s in Brazil, where today a clear majority wants to see him impeached. At the time of the 2018 presidential election, the US knew that Bolsonaro’s chances of victory depended on a fabricated accusation of corruption (since annulled by the courts) against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a group of politicians who were truly and visibly corrupt. US support of assaults on popular democracy in Bolivia and Ecuador reflects the same trend.

      Most Haitians understood that, according to the terms of the constitution, Moise’s term expired at the beginning of 2021. Tamanisha John, writing for The Conversation, explains that in March, “the U.S. State Department announced that it supported Moïse’s decision to remain in office until 2022, to give the crisis-stricken country time to ‘elect their leaders and restore Haiti’s democratic institutions.’”

      In all fairness, given Haiti’s permanently dysfunctional history, the case could be made that Moise was doing his damnedest to reform a dysfunctional system and pushing for a long-term solution. That was the official view Haiti’s ambassador in Washington formulated in February. But the reality of the situation in Haiti has long been evident. As Maria Abi-Habib points out in The New York Times, “Haiti is less a failed state than what an analyst called an ‘aid state’ — eking out an existence by relying on billions of dollars from the international community. Foreign governments have been unwilling to turn off the spigots, afraid to let Haiti fail.”

      The US, of course, has been foremost among them. But besides providing aid that goes into the pockets of politicians, it notoriously used its brutal, if not sadistic, sanctions against Venezuela to deprive Haiti of that nation’s generous offer to provide oil on favorable conditions. The US sanctions policy magnified the crisis not just in Venezuela, but also in Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

      Historical Note

      CNN’s John Berman clearly has a weak understanding of Haiti’s geography. But when he assumes the US can simply step in to restore stability, there is a precedent in this sometimes forgotten historical fact: “Following the assassination of the Haitian President in July of 1915, President Woodrow Wilson sent the United States Marines into Haiti to restore order and maintain political and economic stability in the Caribbean.”

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      For its readers, The New York Times sums up Haiti’s history in three chapters: “Haiti’s troubled history goes deep, lying in its roots as a former slave colony of France that gained its independence in 1804 after defeating Napoleon’s forces, and later suffered more than two decades of a brutal dictatorship, which ended in 1986.” Then it mentions the 2010 earthquake, an occasion for a display of charity by the Clinton Foundation.

      For The Times, Haiti disappeared from history between the 1820s and “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s reign of terror, largely supported by the US, that began in 1957. What events has The Times forgotten between 1804 and 1986? France’s second abolition of slavery followed Napoleon’s restoration of the institution first abolished by the French Revolution in 1794. But France’s definitive abolition in 1838 saddled the nation with a monumental debt in the guise of reimbursing slaveowners. The repayment of that debt, finally acquitted in 1947, crippled Haiti’s economic development. The Times also forgets another significant event: the US occupation of Haiti that resulted in decades of forced labor, an effective modern version of slavery.

      Ever the optimist, Toussaint L’Ouverture famously proclaimed: “In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty; it will spring up again from the roots, for they are numerous and they are deep.” Were he in a position to look back from today’s vantage point, he would probably end up agreeing with Mexico’s 19th-century dictator, Porfirio Diaz: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.”

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Chile Has an Opportunity to Write a New Chapter

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      Chile is going through political change. In May, Chileans voted to elect an assembly that will write a new constitution. Those elected to redraw the country’s magna carta feature a large contingent of independents. Left-wing parties are most favorably positioned among institutional actors, but right-wing parties did not reach the one-third threshold needed to enjoy veto power.

      At the end of 2019, months of social protest and days of violence across Chile gripped the country. At the time, mainstream political forces and President Sebastian Pinera’s government managed to appease the protesters and halt social upheaval. In return, he gave in to growing calls for a vote on whether or not Chile should get a new constitution.

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      Almost a year later, in October 2020, Chileans voted in a national referendum and chose to abandon their current constitution, which was inherited from the era of General Augusto Pinochet. Now, the people have elected an assembly that is in charge of writing and proposing a new charter.

      Tectonic Shift

      In a race that represented a political earthquake, 155 constituents were elected to form a Constitutional Convention. Chile’s traditional political elite lost significant ground to independent candidates, political influencers and social movements.

      Center-right and center-left parties, which led the transition to democracy in the 1990s, took the hardest hit. Chile Vamos, a center-right coalition led by the president, failed to reach the one-third of seats it expected. Pinera has led the country since 2018 and had previously governed between 2010 and 2014. The loss means Chile Vamos cannot veto reforms perceived as too left leaning.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Apruebo Dignidad, a new, more militant left-wing coalition, outperformed the traditional center left, known simply as Apruebo. Now, Apruebo Dignidad has senior-partner status and a more favorable position within the Constitutional Convention than the Apruebo coalition. A faction of the Apruebo Dignidad coalition, known as the Frente Amplio, first entered the political stage in 2017, emerging from student movements with a militant agenda.

      Independent candidates are the biggest winners. The convention is controlled by 64% of constituents who do not belong to a political party — only 36% of them are party militants, excluding the 17 seats reserved for indigenous peoples. However, it is fair to say that most of these independent constituents have left-leaning affinities.

      The next step in the country’s constitutional process includes the swearing-in of the convention, which will be on July 4. This will be followed by nine months of discussions and the drafting of the new magna carta. Once the new constitution is ready, a national plebiscite or referendum will be held in which Chileans will vote on whether to adopt it.

      Participation and Abstention

      During the referendum in 2020, 79% of voters favored drafting a new constitution. Despite this, electoral participation has been weak throughout the entire process. In 2012, Chile abandoned compulsory voting. Since then, the fact that many Chileans choose not to vote might become an issue in the mid-to-long term. This could have an impact on how representative the Constitutional Convention is of public sentiment. The highest rate of voter participation throughout the constitutional review process was achieved during the initial referendum in 2020, in which 50.8% of registered voters took part.

      Last month, just 43% of the 15 million registered voters cast their ballot, representing just over 6 million in a country of around 19 million people. Taking into account the number of null-and-void votes and blank ballot papers, only 38.3% of registered voters chose their preferred candidates for the composition of the Constitutional Convention. The numbers were even worse in the election of governors, which took place on June 13, in which only 19.6% of voters participated. This was the worst rate ever recorded in Chile.

      A survey conducted two days after the May elections found that people did not vote for four main reasons. Some Chileans cited transportation problems to reach a voting site, while others mentioned election fatigue due to the number of votes that have taken place lately. Some were not sure who to vote for. Others said they had a general lack of interest in politics or in these polls. Election fatigue was compounded by the fact that the vote for the convention was held at the same time as regional and local elections — the latter of which were part of the regular electoral schedule.

      Short-Term Fallout

      Only after the May election did important developments take place. On May 19, three days after polls closed, parties had to register their candidates for the presidential primaries, which will be held in July. The primaries will determine who runs in the general election in November. Whoever wins that contest would be in charge of implementing Chile‘s constitutional transition.

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      Thus, the last few weeks have represented a political earthquake for traditional coalitions. In particular, the historically dominant center left dropped several presidential candidates for November’s contest. It also broke historical alliances and failed to reach broad agreements to nominate a single coalition candidate for the general election. Only the center-right Chile Vamos and the left-wing Apruebo Dignidadregistered their candidates for the primaries on July 18. To the surprise and concern of many, communist candidate Daniel Jadue will, according to the latest polling, make it to the presidential election’s runoff.

      Meanwhile, the June election for the 16 governors of Chile’s regions, which is an early indicator for the presidential race, shifted territorial power to the moderate left.

      The outcome of the presidential and parliamentary elections will be significant in the short term as it will determine the checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government. This, in turn, will affect the practical workings of the Constitutional Convention. It will also have an impact on whether Chile’s political shift to the left is structural or temporary.

      The End of the Chicago Boys

      With this in mind, it is currently difficult to predict the makeup of Chile’s next government. The question is whether it will be dominated by left-wing forces or if the Chile Vamos coalition manages to distance itself from the unpopular Pinera and secure another term in office. Nevertheless, as the work of the Constitutional Convention gets underway, it is evident that the resulting charter will represent a much more socioeconomically progressive framework than what Chile has had since its transition to democracy in 1990.

      Chile’s new constitution will undoubtedly turn the page on the country’s laissez-faire orthodoxy inherited from the “Chicago Boys,” who shaped the country’s economy under Pinochet. The constitution will likely also have an impact on other issues, including gender equality, the recognition of indigenous peoples, the social safety net and environmental concerns.

      It remains to be seen whether Chile’s constitutional revisions will set it on a path of more equitable growth or one of uncontrolled state spending. But one thing is clear: Chile’s post-Pinochet model has become unsustainable. It is now up to the statespersons of South America’s most prosperous and advanced economy to ensure that this chapter does not go down in history as a missed opportunity.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The US Must Commit to Protecting Central Americans

      by

      Recent comments by US Vice-President Kamala Harris over migration from Guatemala are part of an unfortunate pattern. Like Harris, other members of the Biden administration have been telling Central American migrants — many of whom are forced to leave home — “do not come” to the United States because they will be turned away at the US-Mexico border.

      Harris walked back these statements last week, partly in response to criticism from groups like Refugees International that swiftly highlighted the right to seek asylum and international protection. In an interview following her trip to Guatemala and Mexico, she said, “Let me be very clear, I am committed to making sure we provide a safe haven for those seeking asylum, period.” But it remains an open question whether this commitment will be reflected in concrete policy change.

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      It is time for the United States to show a stronger commitment to the protection needs of Central American migrants. The Biden administration can do so by taking five important steps.

      Rights of Central American Migrants

      First, the administration must commit to increasing resettlement. Politicians who want to emphasize protection sometimes speak about having migrants apply for asylum from home. This confuses asylum, which is requested at the border or from within the US, with resettlement, which is usually applied for from a third country rather than the home country, where it is too dangerous for people seeking protection to await processing.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Unfortunately, no significant US refugee resettlement program for Central Americans currently exists. Harris did not discuss plans to create one, even for the women the administration acknowledges flee violence in Guatemala. The statement that Guatemalans should not come undermines not only the right to seek asylum under US law, but it also bolsters a long history of American refusal to recognize Guatemalans as refugees or the role of US policies in causing forced displacement in the region.

      The Biden administration has allocated some additional refugee visa slots for Central Americans and established a Migration Resource Center in Guatemala to advise people about the availability of refugee resettlement. However, much more needs to be done by the State Department, Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress to build a substantial resettlement program for Guatemalans. The administration should work with Congress to ensure that more Central Americans are referred and are eligible for refugee resettlement.

      Second, the United States must make it possible for additional at-risk youth from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to qualify as refugees through the Central American Minors (CAM) program. On June 15, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced an expansion of the renewed program, which existed under the Obama administration. It allows parents based in the United States to apply to have their children come to the country from Central America as refugees.

      This is welcome news. But the devil is in the details. It remains to be seen if, unlike during the Obama-era CAM program, significant numbers of Guatemalan parents will actually be eligible and helped to apply and if US officials sent to interview children will recognize them as refugees. It is also unclear if, this time around, the US government will ensure the safety of children while they are interviewed in Guatemala and provide them with needed support after they arrive in the US. The Biden administration must revise eligibility, retrain adjudicators and commit resources to make this program a true pathway to security for Guatemalan kids.

      Third, the Biden administration must also restore asylum at the border. Harris’ description of the border as closed does not accurately represent precisely what is happening, only further adding to the confusion. On the one hand, newly arriving migrants cannot ask for asylum at ports of entry along the US southern border and they could be expelled under an unjustified COVID-19-related order. On the other hand, the administration has exempted unaccompanied minors from Central America from this order and is admitting rather than expelling the majority of arriving families. Yet single adult asylum seekers who enter between ports of entry are an enforcement priority. These migrants are either expelled without any screening for their protection needs or detained at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities for long periods.

      Further, the Biden administration recently announced that asylum-seeking families admitted at the border will have their cases adjudicated on a faster timeline in immigration court without ensuring they will have access to counsel. Refugees International encourages the administration to end the COVID-19 expulsion policy, process asylum seekers at ports of entry, release asylum seekers to pursue their claims at their destination locations, and expand access to legal counsel for asylum seekers.

      Fourth, the Biden administration must listen to the voices of Central Americans. Harris’ comments will likely do little to affect migration and may take away from other issues that are of the utmost importance for Guatemalans. Smugglers are not swayed by such remarks and continue to profit off a booming business that feeds on the lack of legal pathways available to Central Americans.

      Guatemalans themselves often have no control over the conditions that force them to migrate, little of which have to do with US immigration policies. Two devastating hurricanes, pervasive violence and crime, and endemic corruption are some of the main reasons why people flee. These drivers will take years to diminish. In the meantime, the United States should work to build trust with Guatemalan civil society and prioritize support to areas that Guatemalans are specifically calling for help. Most notably, the US needs to support Guatemala in reducing corruption, as several prominent organizations in the country have asked for.

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      Finally, the Biden administration must work with Mexico on a holistic approach to migration that goes beyond deterrence and the prevention of northward movement. For decades, the US has asked the Mexican government to help keep migrants from the border through increased enforcement at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala and ramped up detention and deportation in Mexico. This limits many with international protection concerns from seeking asylum in Mexico or the US.

      It remains to be seen whether policy changes like the proposed US-Mexico “Operations Group on Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking” will offer protection to victims of human trafficking at the border, whose needs have been ignored in the past. On his trip to Mexico last week, Secretary Mayorkas met with officials from the National Institute of Immigration (INM), but not with representatives of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). Nor did the delegation from the United States traveling with Mayorkas include officials focused on asylum and humanitarian concerns. In bilateral discussions about migration with Mexico, the Biden administration needs to increase emphasis on access to protection.

      Following Through

      If President Joe Biden is serious about providing protection to Central Americans, his administration must more clearly and consistently articulate its commitment to this goal. It must follow through on the commitment via increased access to refugee resettlement and asylum and to humble and holistic cooperation with regional partners.

      Harris’ approach was a political mistake and a lost opportunity. Other plans announced by the administration indicate a more productive approach that can be best fulfilled by adopting the five steps we have outlined.

      *[Yael Schacher is a senior US advocate and Rachel Schmidtke is an advocate for Latin America at Refugees International.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Joe Biden Faces Many Challenges in Latin America

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      Donald Trump, the 45th US president, broke with decades of a relatively bipartisan foreign policy consensus by wreaking havoc on US bilateral relations with China and the European Union. Latin America was an exception to the Trump playbook.

      It is true that US relations with Mexico were rocky during the beginning of the Trump administration. Immigration from Central America and Mexico was a bone of contention. Paradoxically, despite a tumultuous beginning, both leftist Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Trump found a strong common ground to work together. In fact, Lopez Obrador developed a close relationship with his US counterpart.

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      The Mexican president might even have wanted Trump reelected. AMLO, as Lopez Obrador is popularly called in Mexico, took longer than most world leaders to recognize Joe Biden’s election victory in November 2020. Curiously, AMLO and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro recognized Biden’s win after hesitating for six weeks and receiving much criticism. The AMLO-Trump camaraderie indicates that Trump made no radical break in US policy toward Mexico despite his inflammatory rhetoric.

      The same holds true for Venezuela. Trump regularly called for action against this oil-rich nation and threatened military intervention, but the main thrust of his policy was to tighten sanctions imposed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Only with Brazil and Colombia did Trump change US policy somewhat. Trump saw Bolsonaro as a fellow populist of the right and embraced the Brazilian leader in a manner previous administrations would not have. Trump was also very supportive of the right-wing government of Colombia because of ideological reasons. 

      What Issues Need Urgent Attention?

      Unlike US policies toward the EU, China and Iran, President Biden’s Latin America policy does not need radical redefinition. Yet the Biden administration will have to address some issues in the short term and others in the medium or long term. 

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      There are three pressing short-term issues in the region that will require Biden’s attention. The first is the US border problem with Mexico. If Mexican authorities stop the flow of immigrants from Central America, the United States will have less of a crisis on its southern border. The second issue is the shoring up of weakened regional institutions, especially the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). The third issue involves developing a comprehensive policy to manage the Venezuelan crisis. 

      The first issue involving the southern border has reached crisis proportions because Mexico and Central American states have responded inadequately to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also a public perception in these countries that the US will pursue a more open-border policy under Biden, leading to immigrants flocking to the US. The border issue has dented Biden’s popularity and many Americans believe it has not been handled well. In fact, March was the worst month in US history regarding the number of child refugees knocking at the US border. It was nearly 19,000 in that month alone.

      The key to any solution is held by Mexico. The country controls the flow of immigrants from Central America and can restrain people from reaching the US border. During the last three years of the Trump administration, the United States and Mexico had an informal agreement, as per which the latter served as a secondary gatekeeper for the US border. Mexico regulated the flow of immigrants to the US border and even absorbed significant numbers of migrants itself. This mechanism stopped as soon as Biden entered the White House. Mexico would use the resuscitation of this mechanism as leverage to gain concessions on other issues. 

      On December 29, 2020, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras had signed the Asylum Cooperation Agreement (ACA). The ACA was significant because more than 71% of migrants apprehended on the US southwest border came from these three countries. The ACA aimed to confront “illegal migration at the source” from a region in Central America that has come to be known as the Northern Triangle. Waves of migrants are fleeing poverty, violence and other challenges in this region and making their way to the US. The longer-term solutions that stop such waves of migrants will require resources to mitigate poverty and violence and will have to wait. 

      The second issue facing the Biden administration is restoring the influence of the OAS and the IADB. During the 1990s and the 2010s, these two organizations increased in importance. They were able to promote democracy and economic growth in the region. The OAS played a key role in political crises such as Peru in 1992 and Honduras in 2009. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, two institutions created by the OAS, promoted and protected human rights in the American hemisphere. In recent years, both the OAS and the IADB have weakened.

      The late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his allies created new regional organizations to counter the OAS and the US. These organizations, such as UNASUR, ALBA and CELAC, sought to limit US influence in the region. Today, they have withered away. Yet the polarization in the region has chipped away at the credibility of the OAS. Its capacity to mediate in conflicts or mobilize the region on important issues has been affected. The OAS has been largely silent on the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions about its irrelevance.

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      As well as the OAS, the IADB was born with very strong regional roots. By the end of the 20th century, the bank incorporated new members from outside the region. European nations, Japan and even China joined the IADB. Political controversies have plagued the organization for years. In recent times, they have gotten worse.

      In 2019, Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido, whom many countries recognized as interim president, appointed Harvard University economist Ricardo Hausmann as the country’s representative to the IADB. China sided with Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan regime and barred Hausmann from attending the IADB meeting in Chengdu. In response, the IADB canceled its meeting in China that was meant to mark its 60th anniversary. Needless to say, recent developments have weakened the IADB.

      The Biden administration will need to relaunch both the OAS and the IADB. Washington will have to restore their credibility and efficacy. Both organizations will be essential for solving the longer-term issues facing the region.

      The Venezuela Conundrum

      The third issue that the Biden administration has to address is Venezuela. As per many analysts, the country is on the brink of collapse. Criminal gangs and other armed non-state actors control not only remote parts of Venezuela but also shantytowns and working-class neighborhoods in the national capital, Caracas. The economy is in a dire state. US economic sanctions and reserves mismanagement have led Venezuelan oil production to fall to its lowest level since the 1940s.

      After low figures of infection in 2020, COVID-19 has now spiraled out of control. In per capita terms, Venezuela has vaccinated the least number of people in Latin America. Even Haiti is doing better. As per The Lancet, “Venezuela does not have a known national COVID-19 vaccine plan, and the supply of vaccines is spasmodic, insufficient, and unplanned.” The reputed publication also observes that “the health-care system has collapsed and is incapable of responding to the ever-increasing number of patients who require hospitalisation.”

      Maduro has rejected most plausible options for mass vaccination. Only the Venezuelan elite, Maduro’s close supporters and the regime’s Cuban advisers have been vaccinated. The government rejected a deal with opposition leader Guaido to import the AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX mechanism of the United Nations at the last minute. Despite popular clamor for mass vaccination, it is unclear how the process will advance even though the funding for vaccination is available.

      Hunger has been on the rise and diseases like malaria are back. Such is the dire state of affairs that Venezuelans are fleeing the country. Over 5 million of them have left. This has led to the worst refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere and rivals the Syrian crisis. Countries in Latin America have largely been hosting these refugees, but they are increasingly overstretched. Emulating the Biden administration, Colombia has designated “temporary protected status” for Venezuela.

      The Maduro regime has lost control of the country. Its military strikes against armed groups are only exacerbating an already terrible situation. The military’s offensive against Colombian illegal armed groups near the Venezuela-Colombia border has led to more Venezuelans fleeing the country. Venezuela’s recent economic measures to revive the economy such as reversing Chavez’s total control over PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, and privatization of a selected number of state-owned enterprises have not worked. The government suffocates business and has no talent for economic management.

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      Paradoxically, the COVID-19 pandemic has benefited the government in one significant way. By imposing a radical quarantine, the Maduro regime and its cronies exercise tight social control over the population’s movements in areas of their control. After putting the ruling elite in a difficult position and isolating it internationally during 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, the opposition has run out of steam. Nominally led by Guaido, the opposition is highly fragmented and has failed to come up with a common strategy.

      Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy of using sanctions to topple Maduro’s regime did not work. Cuba, Russia and China have ganged up to support Maduro and ensure his survival even as Venezuela increasingly becomes a failed state. The Biden administration needs fresh thinking and a new strategy for a state that is threatening the stability and security of Latin America.

      What Are the Long-Term Challenges?

      If short-term prospects are grim for Latin America, then the mid-term ones are anything but rosy. The commodities boom that enabled the region to grow continuously for nearly two decades is over. This boom brought tens of millions out of poverty. As per the International Monetary Fund, Latin America bounced back from the COVID-19 in 2020, but the pandemic’s resurgence “threatens to thwart an uneven recovery and add to the steep social and human costs.”

      Countries like Peru, which managed to grow at high rates despite a dysfunctional political system, have plunged back into grinding poverty and, lately, political chaos. The prospects in most other Latin American countries are similar. Economic hardship will inevitably heighten social and political tensions. Over the last two decades, many protests that mushroomed across the region against corruption or injustice quietened as public services improved. When the pandemic recedes, these protests may come back with a vengeance, reclaiming the relative prosperity the people have lost.

      Economic woes might also create new perils for democracy. Already, there is a worldwide trend of declining democracy. In Latin America, countries like Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua are worrisome examples of this trend.

      Bolsonaro, the populist right-wing politician, famously won the Brazilian election in 2018 on an anti-corruption agenda that implicated a host of politicians, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was the most popular politician in decades and whose policies brought millions out of poverty. Bolsonaro has rolled many of those policies back. More importantly, he has mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 490,000 Brazilians have died. This number is the second-highest after the US. With more than 17.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, Brazil ranks third-highest in the world. Protesters blame Bolsonaro’s disastrous policies from downplaying the threat of COVID-19 and opposing lockdowns to mishandling vaccination and causing the near-collapse of the health system.

      In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has strengthened his grip over the legislature and the judicial system. His party has voted to “remove the magistrates of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court.” Earlier, Bukele ordered heavily armed troops to occupy the parliament to pressure legislators into voting to better equip the troops. 

      If the threats to democracies in Brazil and El Salvador come from the right, those to Bolivia and Nicaragua come from the left. In Bolivia, former President Evo Morales began dismantling democratic institutions when he sought to win a fourth consecutive term in 2019. In doing so, he contravened the provisions of the constitution. Bolivians had voted against Morales’ attempt to amend the constitution so that he could run for a fourth term, but he got around this vote by appealing to the nation’s highest court that was packed with his cronies. After a disputed election, Morales fled to Mexico after the military asked him to stand down, and Jeanine Anez took over as interim president. Anez promptly set out to persecute and prosecute Morales and his supporters.

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      Another election followed in 2020 and the socialist candidate Luis Arce won. He had served as economy minister under Morales. As president, Arce has turned upon Anez and other political rivals. They have been arrested for participating in a coup against Morales. This cycle of political vendetta has left Bolivia highly polarized, and the country’s political crisis is far from over.

      In Nicaragua, the decades-long president, Daniel Ortega, just recently imprisoned the four most important contenders of the opposition, in practice moving into a one-party system. Mexico also faces challenges too, but in more milder forms.

      Finally, there remains the thorny issue of Cuba that every US president since John F. Kennedy has had to face. In 2016, Barack Obama tried to turn back the clock on the Cold War by visiting Cuba and inaugurating a new era of engagement. Trump reversed almost all of Obama’s policies. Now, Biden has to craft a new policy on Cuba, a country that remains influential throughout the region. Along with Venezuela, Cuba is a magnet for attracting the attention of the two big external powers: Russia and China. This tripartite meddling of Russia, China and the US in Latin America could sow instability in the region.

      Already, Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The new generation of Cubans has lost faith in the communist regime. The Cuban leadership is going through a highly choreographed transition of power to a younger generation. Given the flux, the Biden administration would be well advised to bide its time. Eventually, it may want to craft a new policy that avoids the bitter confrontation of the Trump era and the open engagement of the Obama years.

      In the long-term, the Biden administration needs a robust OAS and a strong IADB to restore democracy and rebuild the economy in Latin America. The region will need a robust reconstruction plan once COVID-19 recedes. If the US ignores Latin America, Russia and China will continue to make inroads. They will undermine the relative stability Latin America has enjoyed for the last few decades. Biden has no choice but to pay attention to a region that lies in the same hemisphere as the US and remains crucial to American strategic calculus.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Democracy Is Down but Not Out

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      Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarussian dictator, snatches a dissident from midair. Military strongman Assimi Goita launches another coup in Mali. Benjamin Netanyahu escalates a military conflict to save his own political skin in Israel. In the United States, the Republican Party launches a full-court press to suppress the vote.

      Authoritarianism, like war, makes headlines. It’s hard for democracy to compete against political crackdowns, military coups and unhinged pronouncements. Sure, democracies engage in periodic elections and produce landmark pieces of legislation. But what makes democracy, like peace, successful is not the unexpected rupture, such as the election of Barack Obama, but the boring quotidian. Citizens express their opinions in public meetings. Lawmakers receive constituents in their offices. Potholes get fixed. That’s not exactly clickbait.

      Because the absence of war doesn’t make headlines, as Stephen Pinker has argued, the news media amplifies the impression that violence is omnipresent and constantly escalating when it splashes mass murder, genocide and war crimes on the front page. Peace may well be prevalent, but it isn’t newsworthy.

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      The same can be said about democracy, which has been suffering for some time from bad press. Democracies have been dragged down by corruption, hijacked by authoritarian politicians, associated with unpopular economic reforms and proven incapable (so far) of addressing major global problems like the climate crisis. After a brief surge in popularity in the immediate post-Cold War period, democracy according to the general consensus has been in retreat.

      Judging from recent quantitative assessments, the retreat has become a rout. The title of the latest Freedom House survey, for instance, is “Democracy Under Siege.” The report details how freedom around the world has eroded for the last 15 years, with 2020 featuring the greatest decline yet. The Economist Intelligence Unit, which produces a Democracy Index every year, promoted its 2020 report with the headline, “Global Democracy Has a Very Bad Year.” The authoritarian responses to the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the worst showing so far for the model, with the average global score plummeting from the previous year. Meanwhile, the Rule of Law Index for 2020 also registered a drop for the third year in a row.

      If we extrapolate from the current trend lines, democracy will be gone in a couple of decades, melted away like the polar ice. But it’s always dangerous to make such extrapolations given history’s tendency to move in cycles not straight lines. So, let’s look at some reasons why democracy might be in for a comeback.

      The Pandemic Recedes in America

      Much of the reason for democracy’s dismal record in 2020 was the expansion of executive power and state controls in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Some of those power grabs, such as Vladimir Putin’s constitutional changes in Russia, are still in place. Some countries, like India and Brazil, are still struggling with both COVID-19 and powerful authoritarian leaders.

      But even with the continued high rate of infection in a number of countries, the overall trajectory of the disease is downward. Since peaking in late April, the reported number of global cases has dropped nearly by half. So, two trend lines are now intersecting: the lifting of pandemic restrictions and the backlash against hapless authoritarians.

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      Americans, for instance, are coming to terms with both the retreat of COVID and the removal of Donald Trump from the White House, Facebook and Twitter. The Biden administration is undoing many of Trump’s undemocratic moves, including those imposed during the pandemic around immigration and refugees. The attempts by the Republican Party to tamp down voter turnout proved spectacularly unsuccessful in 2020, which despite the pandemic featured the largest-ever increase in votes from one election to the next. In terms of the voting-age population, you have to go back to 1960 to find an election with a higher percentage turnout than the 62% rate in 2020.

      This surge in voters helped put Joe Biden over the top. It has also motivated the Republican Party to redouble its efforts, this time at the state level, to suppress the vote. It is doing so under the false narrative that electoral fraud is widespread and that President Biden’s victory is somehow illegitimate. And it is setting the stage to orchestrate an authentic election theft in 2024.

      The backlash against these anti-democratic moves has been encouraging, however. When the state of Georgia passed its voting restrictions in April, pressure from voting rights advocates forced prominent Georgia corporations like Coca-Cola and Delta to reverse themselves and come out against the bill (though only after the bill had already passed). Major League Baseball pulled its all-star game from Atlanta, and Hollywood has also threatened a boycott.

      These moves motivated Texas-based companies to protest that state’s version of voting restrictions before the legislature scheduled a vote. None of that stopped Texas Republicans from pushing ahead with the bill. So, last weekend, Texas Democrats had to deploy the nuclear option of walking out of the chamber to stop the vote suppression bill from passing. These courageous Texans, up against a powerful and determined state Republican Party, are now looking to the federal government to safeguard voting rights.

      At the federal level, the Democrats have put forward for the second time a comprehensive voting reform bill, the For the People Act, to expand access, reduce corruption and limit the impact of money on politics. The House approved a version of this bill in 2019, but it died in the Republican-controlled Senate. The House passed the reboot in March, but it again faces a difficult road to passage in the Senate because filibuster rules require at least 60 votes to pass and Democrats can muster only 50 (plus the vice-president’s).

      A failure to find “10 good Republicans” for this bill, the cadre that Senator Joe Manchin naively expected to step forward to pass legislation creating a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, may finally push the Democrats to scrap or at least significantly modify the filibuster rules, which were famously used to block further enfranchisement of African-Americans in the 20th century.

      High voter turnout and efforts to secure voting rights are not the only signs of a healthy US democracy. Last year, the largest civic protests in US history took place as tens of millions of Americans expressed their disgust with police violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Civic organizations stepped forward to fight the pandemic and ensure more equitable access to vaccines. Young people, in particular, are engaged in large numbers on the climate crisis, gun control and reproductive health. After a long winter of discontent under Trump, perhaps it’s time for an “American Spring.”

      Mixed Record Elsewhere for Democracy

      Europe, meanwhile, is coming out of the pandemic in slightly stronger shape politically. The budget compromise that took place at the end of 2020, which ended up providing considerable relief to the economically disadvantaged countries of the southern tier, effectively saved the European Union from disintegrating out of a lack of solidarity. Alas, the compromise also watered down the EU’s criticism of its easternmost members, particularly Poland and Hungary, for their violations of the bloc’s commitments to human rights and rule of law.

      But there’s hope on the horizon here as well. Eastern Europe appears to be on the verge of a political sea change. Voters brought down Bulgaria’s right-wing populist leader Boyko Borissov in elections in April, and the new caretaker government has begun to dismantle his political system of cronyism. In Slovenia, tens of thousands of protesters have massed in the capital of Ljubljana, the largest demonstration in years, to demand the resignation of the Trump-like prime minister Janez Jansa. The near-total ban on abortion orchestrated by the right-wing government in Poland has motivated mass protests by women throughout the country, and even “Polish grannies” have mobilized in support of a free press and the rule of law. A finally united opposition in Hungary, meanwhile, is catching up in the polls to Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of elections next year.

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      The far right, with their contempt for human rights, free media, rule of law and political checks and balances, are the greatest threat to democracy within democracies. Fortunately, they are not doing very well in Western Europe either. The anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland has witnessed a significant drop in support in Germany, while Lega in Italy has also declined in popularity. Golden Dawn has disappeared from the scene in Greece. Vox is still the third most popular party in Spain, but it hasn’t managed to rise much above 15% in the polls, which is the same story for the Sweden Democrats (stuck at around 19%). Only in France and Finland are the far-right parties continuing to prosper. Marine Le Pen currently leads the polls against French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of next year’s election, while the Finns Party leads by a couple of percentage points in the polls but with elections not likely before 2023.

      Elsewhere in the world, the pandemic may result in more political casualties for far-right populists, as they get caught in the ebbing of the Trump wave. Brazilians are protesting throughout the country under the banner of impeaching Jair Bolsonaro, a president who, like Trump, has compiled a spectacularly poor record in dealing with COVID-19. Bolsonaro’s approval rating has fallen to a new low under 25%. The still-popular former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, recently cleared by the courts to run again for office, appears to be assembling a broad political coalition to oust Bolsonaro in the elections set for next year.

      Hard-right leader Ivan Duque has achieved the distinction of being the least popular leader in Colombian history. Politically, it doesn’t matter so much, since he can’t run again for president in next year’s election. But the public’s disgust with the violence in Colombia and the economic inequality exacerbated by the pandemic will likely apply as well to any of his would-be hard-right successors.

      The extraordinary mishandling of the pandemic in India has had a similar effect on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, which has also recently fallen to a new low. However, after seven years in office, he remains quite popular, with a 63% approval rating.

      Modi’s Teflon reputation speaks to the fragility of democracy in many parts of the world. Many voters are attracted to right-wing nationalists like Modi — Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador — who promise to “get the job done” regardless of the political and economic costs. Such leaders can rapidly turn a democratic country into a putatively democratic one, which makes the step into authentic authoritarianism that much easier.

      The coups in Mali and Myanmar, China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, the enduring miseries in North Korea, Venezuela and Eritrea — these are all reminders that, however fragile democracy might be in formally democratic states, politics can always get a lot worse.

      Lukashenko: Strong or Weak?

      Take the example of Belarus, where Alexander Lukashenko has ruled supreme since 1994. Thanks to his own ruthlessness and the patronage of neighboring Russia, Lukashenko has weathered mass protests that would have ousted leaders of weaker disposition.

      His latest outrage was to order the grounding of a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania as it was flying over Belarus — just so that he could apprehend a young dissident, Roman Protasevich, and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega. Virtually everyone has decried this blatant violation of international laws and norms with the exception, of course, of Putin and others in the Russian president’s orbit. The editor of the Russian media conglomerate RT, Margarita Simonyan, tweeted, “Never did I think I would envy Belarus. But now I do. [Lukashenko] performed beautifully.”

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      Lukashenko indeed came across as all-powerful in this episode. But this is an illusion. Putin has not hesitated to assassinate his critics, even when they are living outside Russia. Lukashenko doesn’t have that kind of reach or audacity, so he has to wait until dissidents are within his own airspace to strike. I’d like to believe that the opposition in Belarus takes heart from this desperate move — is Lukashenko really so scared of a single dissident? —  and doubles down on its efforts to oust the tyrant.

      Outside of Putin and his toadies, Lukashenko doesn’t have many defenders. This elaborate effort to capture a dissident only further isolates the Belarussian strongman. Even putatively democratic states, like Poland and Hungary, have unequivocally denounced Lukashenko.

      Anti-democratic actions like the Ryanair stunt capture headlines in ways that pro-democratic efforts rarely do. Honestly, had you even heard of Roman Protasevich before this affair? Along with all the other depressing news of the day, from Texas to Mali, this brazen move suggests that democracy is teetering on the edge of an abyss.

      But all the patient organizing against the strongmen that doesn’t make it into the news will ultimately prove the fragility of tyranny. When it comes to anti-democrats like Lukashenko, they will one day discover that the military, the police and the party have abandoned them. And it will be they who teeter at the abyss, their hands scrabbling for a secure hold, when along comes democracy to give them a firm pat on the back.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Violence Against Women in Mexico Rises

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      Home is not a safe space for many women around the world and coronavirus-era quarantines and lockdowns have increased the risk of gender-based violence. In Mexico, statistics reflect this reality and women additionally face the rising risk of becoming targets amid violent drug crime and the militarization of the state security forces.

      According to the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSPC) last year, 3,752 women were violently killed. Of these were 969 classified as femicides — defined as the violent death of a woman because of her gender — a slight increase on the previous year’s figure. According to data compiled by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico has the second-highest total number of femicides in the region — after Brazil — whilst nearby El Salvador and Honduras have the highest rates per capita. The prevalence of violent crime, a culture of machismo and weak implementation of measures designed to protect women mean Latin America is home to 14 of the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicide in the world.

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      The first months of the coronavirus pandemic were particularly dangerous for Mexican women, according to Maissa Hubert, the executive sub-director of Equis Justicia Para Las Mujeres, a Mexico City-based NGO. “During the first months of the pandemic, we saw a rise in various forms of gender-based violence,” she says. “In total, 11 women killed each day, compared to 10 per day at the start of 2020.”

      In March 2020, the emergency call centers received 26,000 reports of violence against women, the highest ever in Mexico. The number of women leaving their homes to take shelter in the National Refuge Network quadrupled.

      Outside the home, however, the continued growth of Mexico’s transnational criminal organizations and the militarized response of state security forces have further increased risks to women. While crime dropped in the first months of the pandemic, the security vacuum has increased clashes between 198 active armed groups in the country’s “hyper-fragmented criminal landscape,” according to International Crisis Group.

      Gangs and Militarized State Security

      “Organized crime has aggravated the situation with regards to the murder of women,” says Maria Salguero, a researcher who created the National Femicide Map. “The crime gangs use the dead bodies of women to send messages to their rivals. In states where there is a lot of organized crime, such as Juarez, Chihuahua, Guerrero and Naucalpan, we see high incidences of femicide, disappearances and rape.”

      The situation is exacerbated by the further militarization of state security. The Bertelsmann Transformation Index’s (BTI) country report on Mexico notes that “the army has been called upon to perform internal security tasks and is receiving large amounts of resources in the context of the war against drug trafficking.” It adds that the widening of the military’s mandate to include civilian tasks could have worrisome implications for consensus building in the country. As noted in the BTI report, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador‘s government risks losing public support if it cannot solve the challenges of corruption and violence in the country. It points out that “the fact that the army, which has so far not signified a threat to democracy, is required to undertake ever more tasks may be a threat in the future.” Such a breakdown in trust for institutions and the security forces could have knock-on effects for all violent crime.

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      On May 11, 2020, the Mexican armed forces and National Guard were given new authority to play a far greater role in policing violent crime in the country — giving them free rein to assume many of the police force’s duties — without any effective audit mechanism.

      The effect of this process on gender-based violence is only now coming to be understood. “The attitude of this government and its predecessors has been that a military response to the security situation will protect all of us and women in particular,” says Hubert. “But the reality is that the increased circulation of firearms has had a tremendous impact on women.”  

      Firearms were the weapon used in 60% of the total 1,844 murders committed against women in 2020. From 1998 to 2019, the number of women killed by firearms in Mexico rose by 375%. Over 2.5 million firearms have entered Mexico from the US over the last decade, and firearms accounted for the overwhelming majority of the total of 34,515 murders registered in Mexico in 2020, the highest number since 2015.

      An Overlooked Issue

      The continued emphasis on militarized security is sapping state funds at a time when resources for programs addressing violence against women in Mexico are being cut. In recent years, Mexican public policy has had a mixed record with respect to gender-based violence. It took until December last year for President Lopez Obrador to talk about gender-based violence, having previously avoided using the word femicide or acknowledge that women faced specific security concerns. In May 2020, he said that 90% of domestic violence-related 911 calls were false. His team failed to provide evidence to support this claim when requested to by NGOs.

      Despite this intransigence at the executive level, in recent years, there has been greater recognition of the problem at the federal and ministerial level, according to Hubert, with many long-lasting public policies proposed by the National Institute of Women, founded in 2001. However, many of the preventative and reactive policies introduced to tackle gender-based violence have been subject to cuts in government spending as a result of the pandemic.

      “We analyzed the activity of the courts at the start of the pandemic, and we found gender-based violence was not being prioritized,” says Hubert. “Issues such as divorce and alimony are crucial for a woman looking to free herself from a violent situation, but they weren’t being attended to by the courts.” 

      For Saguero, the priority is to keep recording the names and identities of the victims of Mexico’s “shadow pandemic” of gender-based violence. “Only by making the victims visible can we really make the scale of the problem visible,” she says, “but we have a lot of work to do because the numbers remain high.”

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What’s Behind Chile’s Vaccination Success?

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      The deadly impact of COVID-19 has been felt in every corner of the globe. On February 22, the United States reached a tragic landmark of 500,000 deaths. Across the Atlantic, nine of the top 10 nations in deaths per million are in Europe, with tiny enclaves of Gibraltar and San Marino topping the tables. The list of countries that have dealt with the pandemic relatively well is much shorter. Almost a year ago, I wrote about how leaders in Brazil and Mexico were slow in taking tougher action to prevent the spread of the virus. I falsely predicted that Latin America is unlikely to witness the death rates seen in Europe. Unfortunately, the effects of the pandemic were equally devastating in the region, if not worse.

      Images of mass graves in the Amazonian town of Manaus and the dead bodies left in coffins in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, have spread worldwide. More than 260,000 Brazilians and nearly 190,000 Mexicans died because of the virus, placing the two countries second and third in absolute numbers of fatalities. Peru registered 1,421 deaths per million and Panama 1,352 on March 4 — numbers that show the devastation caused by the virus in the region so far. Chile has also experienced a significant death rate of 1,084 per million.

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      The big difference in Chile was that authorities mobilized in advance to secure vaccines, hedging bets on various suppliers in different stages of development. In September last year, President Sebastian Pinera announced the purchase of 10 million doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. Deliveries commenced on December 24, making Chile the first Latin American nation to start its vaccination program. The country has ordered some 90 million doses, more than enough to immunize its 19 million citizens. By March 4, more than 20% of its population received at least one shot, placing Chile fifth in the world when it comes to vaccination rates, just behind Israel, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

      Political Conflict

      On December 29, Argentinians started to receive the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. The pace of immunization in Argentina has been much slower than expected, with several complaints of those not in priority groups receiving the jab before health workers and the elderly. The “VIP vaccination” scandal has caused the resignation of the health minister, drawing protesters onto the streets and generating criticism against President Alberto Fernandez. So far, Argentina has vaccinated only 2.61% of its 45 million citizens. The slower pace seems to be standard in the region, with most nations unable to vaccinate even 1% of their citizens. The cause is not only the shortage of vaccines but lack of planning and, more significantly, internal political conflict. 

      In Brazil, president Jair Bolsonaro has made several statements that undermined efforts to slow the pandemic. In a national broadcast on March 24, 2020, he criticized the restrictive measures adopted by governors and mayors, urging people to return to work and referring to COVID-19 as a “little flu.” The president also highly publicized the unproven anti-malarian drug chloroquine as being effective against the virus, ordering the Ministry of Health to produce four million doses. His insistence on the use of the drug caused the loss of two health ministers, Dr. Henrique Mandetta, fired by Bolsonaro last April, and Dr. Nelson Teich, who resigned less than a month after taking over. Since then, the position has been filled by an army general specializing in logistics, with neither medical education nor experience.

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      Over the course of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has been exchanging public barbs with the state governments, such as over lockdown measures adopted by individual governors last month. On March 1, 16 of the country’s 26 governors, including three Bolsonaro allies, signed a letter criticizing the government and accusing the president of misleading the public about federal pandemic relief funds. Sao Paulo’s governor, Joao Doria, a former ally in the 2018 elections and a potential competitor in 2022, has been the president’s most vociferous antagonist over the handling of the pandemic.

      At the center of the dispute is the Butantan Institute, one of the most prestigious health centers in Latin America, situated in the state of Sao Paolo. Back in June, Butantan signed a partnership with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech to produce the CoronaVac vaccine. Initially, Bolsonaro has signaled that Brazil would not purchase the Chinese vaccine, questioning its efficiency, but in January, the Ministry of Health added the vaccine to the national immunization plan following approval by the health regulator, Anvisa. Last month, Doria announced a deal for a further 20 million doses of CoronaVac to complement the 100 million already secured by Butantan.

      Last August, Pfizer said it offered 70 million batches of its vaccine to Brazil, with a delivery scheduled for December. However, with Brazil dissatisfied with the terms of the contract, the deal is still being negotiated. Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello hopes to secure 100 million doses from Pfizer and 38 million from a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, to start deliveries in May and August respectively. Due to this lack of urgency and an absence of a unified policy between the federal and state governments, Brazil has so far vaccinated just 3,67% of its population.

      Crisis Management

      Chile has also faced political unrest. Since 2019, the country experienced several mass protests calling for education and pension reforms. In a televised address, President Pinera declared a state of emergency, granting powers to restrain freedom of movement and assembly. The measure resulted in violence that cost 18 lives in five days, leading the UN to examine possible human rights abuses. As a result, Pinera’s approval rating fell to just 7%. In 2020, amid the ongoing political crisis, COVID-19 hit the country hard, provoking the resignation of the health minister, Jaime Manalich.

      However, Pinera managed to turn the situation around. With a degree in commercial engineering from the Catholic University of Chile and a PhD in economics from Harvard, the president is a billionaire businessman, with an estimated net worth of $2,9 billion. He has already led the country once, between 2010 and 2014, earning crucial government nous. Pinera made several concessions to the protesters and supported the calls for a new constitution in an attempt to turn down the political temperature.  

      A referendum on October 25 saw 78% of the population approve a new constitution that will substitute the current one created in 1980 under General Augusto Pinochet. The new Magna Carta will be written by a 155-strong body also elected through a popular vote and with an equal number of men and women. The document will then be confirmed by a popular vote before being implemented.

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      To assuage popular discontent caused by the initial handling of the pandemic in combination with other historical grievances relating to health care, education and pensions, Pinera focused his negotiation abilities to mediate the purchase of million doses of vaccine from different laboratories and suppliers. While most developing nations have been struggling with a lack of supplies, Chile is among the top three countries, along with Canada and the UK, when it comes to the number of doses ordered per capita. Back in September, just before the peak of protests, Pinera announced partnerships on the development and clinical trials between the Catholic University of Chile and Sinovac; the University of Chile, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca; as well as the University of Frontera and another Chinese laboratory, CanSino Biologics. More than that, purchases were agreed with Pfizer, Covax, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.

      But despite perceived goodwill from an unpopular right-wing government, the president still faces an uphill climb when it comes to popularity. By March 1, 83% of the Chileans deemed the massive vaccination as good or very good, 58% asses the general management of the pandemic as positive, but Pinera’s personal approval is still only at 24%.

      The successful vaccination has already yielded positive outcomes. According to Chile’s Health Ministry, the number of new COVID-19 cases has decreased in six of the country’s 16 regions in the last seven days and in eight the last 14 days. Chile hopes to vaccinate at least 15 million people in the first semester, which would allow the country to immunize its entire population by the end of June. These numbers would put Chile way ahead in the vaccination game not only in Latin America but worldwide, suggesting that resolute leadership is as important for the nation’s well-being as a robust medical system.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What Should Business Expect From Bolivia’s New President?

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      On October 18, the Bolivian public went to the polls and elected Luis Arce Catacora as the country’s 67th president in a surprise result that returned the socialist party of former President Evo Morales to power. Morales had previously ruled Bolivia as the leader of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) between January 2006 and November 2019, when he resigned from office and fled the country under pressure from the military following a controversial general election.

      The closeness of that contest — in which the conservative candidate Carlos Mesa missed forcing a runoff against Morales by 0.58% of the official vote tally — meant that 2020 was also expected to be a tight race. In the event, this year’s election saw Arce gain over half a million more votes than Morales had the previous year, with a similar amount bled away from Mesa’s 2019 total, handing Arce an outright victory without the need for a run-off.

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      While it would be tempting to see the Arce administration as a continuation of the Morales era, on the campaign trail, the new president repeatedly stated, “I am not Evo Morales.” Since being elected, Arce has made clear that Morales would have “no role” in his government. Nevertheless, with Arce serving as minister of economy and public finance for most of Morales’ tenure, any consideration of what to expect from the new president must take into account his predecessor’s record. 

      Business Under Morales

      The Morales administration presided over a period of considerable economic growth and social development, which saw the rate of extreme poverty drop by more than half, from 48% in 2006 to 23% in 2018, while gross national income (GNI) per capita — a general indicator of prosperity among the population — more than tripled to reach $3,530 in 2019. GDP growth was also continuous and relatively consistent during this period, fluctuating between 3.4% and 6.8% until 2019, when it dipped to 2.2%. Those figures made Bolivia one of the fastest-growing countries in the region for much of Morales’ presidency.

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      These changes were partly the result of a policy of nationalizing the petroleum, telecommunications and mining industries, enacted by decree early in Morales’ first year in office and less than two years after 92% of Bolivian voters had supported the nationalization of hydrocarbons during a compulsory referendum. While the country’s revenues from hydrocarbons increased dramatically and provided the funds to support poverty alleviation programs, that approach did not lead to a dramatic fall in foreign direct investment (FDI) in oil and gas extraction or mining, as many expected. In fact, both industries saw significant increases in FDI, which subsequently declined again but never below the levels seen before Morales came into office. Throughout this time, it was Arce overseeing these programs and investment, as well as a process of agricultural development and rural land redistribution, which was followed by both a significant increase in cereal and fisheries production. 

      It is important to note that a major policy shift occurred toward the latter years of the administration, with Arce himself stating during Morales’ final term that “our nationalisation agenda is over. … we need FDI, and we respect genuine, new private investment. Today FDI makes up 2 percent to 3% of our GDP. We want to double that by 2020.” In 2017, the country signed deals with foreign investors for hydrocarbon exploitation worth $1.6 billion, supplemented by a further $2.5-billion deal the following year. 

      The fact that the interim presidency of Jeanine Añez, who occupied the office between Morales and Arce, largely coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic makes it incredibly difficult to properly assess its performance, given the massive economic upheaval experienced throughout the region. While the interim government ordered an audit of the previous administration early on, it was soon forced to focus on implementing a range of measures designed to address the closure of businesses and an increase in unemployment.  

      In October, the interim government reported that the economic damage caused by the pandemic totaled around $5 billion, with an economic contraction of at least 4% expected by the end of 2020. While this unprecedented situation might make an assessment of the interim government difficult, it at least provides some important context for Arce’s approach to business and investment, which will be framed by the need to address the deep economic wounds caused by the pandemic.

      Arce’s Approach to Business

      As a candidate, Arce highlighted the efficacy of the economic policies pursued during the Morales administration and his intention to continue them. While this has been met with concern among some commentators, the more FDI-friendly latter years under Morales should give some cause for hope for investment in the country. Arce has proposed a drive for industrialization to replace importing foreign products in order to stimulate the internal market and generate more opportunities for locally-based companies. He has also said that he wants to encourage new company formation in Bolivia in order to stimulate employment.

      Yet Arce has also said that some form of austerity to deal with the country’s economic woes will be needed, even as he has pledged not to reduce public expenditure. In a sign of his pro-FDI approach, he has also highlighted his desire to tap into Bolivia’s massive and unexploited lithium reserves, at a time when demand for the mineral is skyrocketing in the face of the shift toward electric vehicles. Arce has stated that exploitation of those reserves will demand the help of a “strategic partner” and could pour an additional $2 billion into state coffers over the course of his five-year term.

      With the economic uncertainty that continues to swirl due to the ongoing pandemic, it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions about what to expect from the Arce administration, given that it is impossible to know what challenges and obstacles may present themselves in the coming months or years. Nevertheless, his early moves have pointed to a clear desire to stimulate business, with measures taken to provide for deferred credit, refinancing and rescheduling of debts, as well as forbidding additional interest being added to such credit by banks. 

      What is abundantly clear is that Luis Arce understands how critical FDI is to Bolivia’s future development, and that understanding will surely only have deepened in the context of the economic turmoil that has traversed the globe. With Bolivia boasting a host of investment opportunities and unsaturated markets, and with the new president already highlighting his desire to bring foreign investment into Bolivia’s massive untapped lithium reserves, it seems reasonable to expect that his administration will pursue a significant deepening of FDI even while he maintains the high levels of social spending seen under Evo Morales.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More