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      Is Mexico’s Recall Election “Democracy of the Highest Order”?

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      The vote has the potential to upend the country’s political system. But many fear it will amount to nothing more than a tool for propaganda.MEXICO CITY — Strolling through Mexico’s capital these days, it would be easy to assume the country’s president is at imminent risk of losing his job.City streets are littered with signs, fliers and billboards urging Mexicans to vote on whether to remove President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from office in a recall election this Sunday.Only it isn’t the opposition telling people to rush to the polls. It’s the president’s loyalists.“Support President López Obrador,” reads one flier. “If you don’t participate, the corrupt ones will take away the scholarships, assistance, and pensions that we receive today.”For the better part of a century, Mexican presidents have served out six-year terms without fail, whether or not they were fairly elected — or came to be despised by much of the population. The recall election, proposed by Mr. López Obrador and the first of its kind in Mexico, has the potential to upend the country’s political system, by giving citizens a powerful new avenue to hold their leaders accountable.On Sunday, voters will be asked to decide whether Mr. López Obrador “should have his mandate revoked due to loss of confidence,” or “continue in the presidency of the Republic until his term ends.” To become binding, 40 percent of the electorate must participate.The one wrinkle is that the vote’s most enthusiastic promoter — and the person most keen on putting the president’s well-established popularity to the test — has been the president himself. Opposition leaders have told their followers to boycott the exercise, and analysts believe turnout could be too low for the results to even count.A supporter of the president in Mexico City, giving out information on where and when to vote in the referendum.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesSo, while Mr. López Obrador has called the recall “an exercise in democracy of the highest order,” many fear it could amount to something far less significant: a marketing tool aimed mainly at bolstering the president’s claim to power.“This is supposed to be a mechanism for civic control of power, but it has become instead an instrument of political propaganda,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst and critic of the administration. The governing party, Mr. Bravo Regidor said, “wants this to be a show of force, of muscle, and capacity to bring people into the streets and make explicit their support for López Obrador.”On a balmy Monday in Mexico City, volunteers in the president’s camp fanned out across a residential neighborhood armed with fliers and wide grins, cheerfully advertising nearby polling stations and telling anyone who would listen to go vote in the recall.Allan Pozos, one of the group’s leaders, said he hoped the exercise would “set a precedent” so future leaders could be kicked out if needed. This time, though, he just wants the president to know he’s loved.“It’s to show Andrés Manuel that he has the strong backing of the people,” said Mr. Pozos. “Andrés often feels alone, because he has to go against an entire system and doesn’t have support.”Allan Pozo, a leader of volunteers campaigning for the president in Mexico City.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesSuch a show of support could not come at a better time for the president, who has passed the midpoint of his term while struggling to deliver on key campaign promises that swept him into office in a landslide victory in 2018. He vowed a “transformation” of the country that would drive down poverty, jump start the economy and tackle endemic violence at its roots.But after a pandemic and a global recession, poverty rates remain stubbornly high, economic growth is anemic and homicides are still hovering near record levels.But Mr. López Obrador has remained very popular, with more than half of Mexicans approving of his performance, polls show. His government has sought to improve the lot of the poor, raising the minimum wage four times and boosting welfare spending.Mr. López Obrador has also won points with symbolic gestures, like turning the presidential mansion into a museum open to the public, and flying commercial, even when visiting the United States.A sign supporting Mr. López Obrador on the side of a bus.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesHis high favor with voters is also a tribute, supporters and critics agree, to his relentless broadcasting of an official narrative in which he portrays himself as a lone warrior for the people, going up against a corrupt establishment.“The results have been below the expectations of the government itself,” Jorge Zepeda Patterson, a prominent Mexican columnist who has supported the president, said, referring to Mr. López Obrador’s achievements during his tenure.“Polarization is very profitable politically, especially if you don’t have results,” said Mr. Zepeda Patterson, adding, “at least you can build the narrative that you are fighting.”The main risk of the recall for the president is the possibility that large swaths of the country just ignore the exercise altogether, especially as it takes place on Palm Sunday. By law, for the vote to become binding, at least 37 million Mexicans need to participate in it — significantly more than the number of people who voted for the president in the 2018 elections that swept him into office in a landslide.A demonstration in support of Mr. López Obrador, in Mexico City on Wednesday. Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesBut Mr. López Obrador has already identified a scapegoat in case of low turnout: the country’s electoral watchdog.For months, he has been attacking the National Electoral Institute over what he sees as a failure to dedicate enough resources to advertising and administering the recall vote.“They should have promoted the referendum from the start, not acted dishonestly, keeping silent, not promoting the vote so that people wouldn’t know about it, putting polling booths as far away as possible,” the president said at a recent news conference, referring to the electoral institute. “They’re openly against us, against me.”The institute asked the federal government for more money to oversee the contest, to little avail. With only about half the budget it said it needed, the watchdog installed about a third of the polling stations it would in a normal election.Supporters of Mr. López Obrador at a rally on Wednesday.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesLorenzo Córdova, the leader of the electoral institute, known by its Spanish acronym I.N.E., says he’s being set up to fail.“It’s not just the president,” Mr. Córdova said, “there is an orchestrated, systematic and well designed campaign to discredit the I.N.E.” The point, he said, is to “damage the referee, and eventually pave the way for its political capture.”The nation’s Supreme Court has said political parties cannot advertise the recall, and yet, Mr. López Obrador’s face has cropped up on signs around the country.Mr. Córdova says the electoral institute has not determined who is paying for all of the ads, but said there are at least twice as many of them in states where the president’s party will compete in elections for governor in June.“It makes you suspect there’s political intentionality,” behind the marketing campaign, Mr. Córdova said.The nation’s Supreme Court has said political parties cannot advertise the recall, and yet, Mr. López Obrador’s face has cropped up on signs around the country.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesThere are, of course, strategic benefits that could come from asking the country to weigh in on whether or not they like the president at this particular moment. Mr. López Obrador founded his political party and has an obvious interest in doing everything possible to ensure its victory in general elections to replace him in 2024.The voting patterns in the recall will tell the president where his side’s weaknesses are — and which of the potential candidates for president can get people to the polls.“It’s a kind of experiment, a rehearsal,” said Blanca Heredia, a professor at CIDE, a Mexico City research institution. “Looking ahead to 2024, he can measure the capacity of his operators to mobilize the vote.”Whatever happens on Sunday, for many in Mexico, it’s hard to see how the country’s first-ever presidential recall will seriously damage this president.“Andrés Manuel has this thing where even when he loses, he wins,” said Ms. Heredia. “He always has a way of turning a defeat into a triumph.”The recall election, the first of its kind in Mexico, has the potential to upend the country’s political system by giving citizens a powerful new avenue to hold their leaders accountable.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesOscar Lopez More

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      ‘Traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go’: huge numbers of people stuck at US border

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      ‘Traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go’: huge numbers of people stuck at US border Title 42, enacted under Trump and kept in place by Biden, has led to hundreds of thousands being denied their right to asylum since the start of the pandemicWhen Henry Ruiz* and Raquel Hernandez boarded a bus heading north to America with their two young children, they knew there would be no going back.It was June 2021, and a few weeks earlier Ruiz, a 28-year-old banana farmer from central Mexico, had been abducted by a group of armed men and taken to an isolated ranch where 15 others – 13 men and two women – were being held.The assailants were members of an ultra-violent Mexican cartel fighting to take over the local banana industry, and needed to recruit locals as informants and hitmen in order to push out a rival gang and community self-defense force.Ruiz was beaten with planks of wood and wire, leaving him with two broken ribs, gashes across his back and unable to see out of his right eye. Photos seen by the Guardian confirm the injuries.According to Ruiz, he and five others were forced to kill and bury the rest of the detainees while gang members filmed the macabre acts. They took Ruiz’s motorbike, wallet and bank details before abandoning him on the road near his home. His bank account was emptied a few days later.The family fled as soon as Ruiz was strong enough to travel and arrived in Sonoyta, a small border town in the state of Sonora, hoping to seek asylum in the US.But the border was closed due to Title 42 – an arcane public health order issued in March 2020 by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under pressure from the Trump administration.“We were traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go,” said Ruiz, tearing up while recounting his experiences.Title 42, which the Biden government has elected to keep in place, has led to hundreds of thousands of people being denied their legal right to seek asylum since the start of the pandemic.The order effectively replaced Remain in Mexico – another controversial Trump-era deterrent policy also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – and has used the pretext of Covid to authorize more than 1.4m expulsions at the border in the past two years.“By and large immigration policy hasn’t changed under Biden, and that’s the problem,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the Washington-based American Immigration.Across the border, huge numbers of people are stuck – unable to move forward or go back.Ruiz said: “Title 42 has prevented us from living, everyday I wake up and nothing has changed. But the pandemic is just an excuse, as if people without papers can get Covid and those with papers are immune.”For the past eight months, the family has lived in a shelter, unable to venture more than a few blocks in fear of being apprehended by Mexican authorities or criminals. Their daughter, a bright shy girl with a big smile who just turned seven, misses school and her grandparents; their one-year-old son recently learned to walk.“I don’t know whether to cry or scream, we’re stuck and have no idea when this will end,” said Hernandez, 23, Ruiz’s wife.Sonoyta is an unremarkable desert town with 20,000 people, a booming asparagus industry, and a minor border crossing popular with American snowbird retirees and tourists heading to the beach.The town also has four shelters where almost 200 Mexicans and Central Americans had been stuck for months or more, hoping the Biden administration would rescind title 42.But last month, about a third left after immigration attorneys visiting the migrant resource centre told them that the border would likely remain shut unless pending litigation succeeded in exempting families from title 42.It’s not clear where they all went, but some tried their luck seeking asylum at other border crossings like Reynosa, Tamaulipas (which borders Phar, Texas), where the state governor banned Biden from expelling families with children under seven. Others paid coyotes or smugglers to cross the Sonoran desert – where thousands of people have died trying to traverse the remote, punishing terrain.“Title 42 has nothing to do with Covid, it’s a terrific vehicle for stopping immigration,” said John Orlowski from Shelters for Hope, a non-profit which helped set-up the resource centre that provides meals, clothes, internet and medical care. “For people here the situation is worse under Biden: there’s no progress, few exceptions, and no updates.”In essence, title 42 has prohibited the vast majority of Mexicans and Central Americans from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – the countries which historically account for most migrants and refugees – from being allowed to seek asylum in the US.Across the southern border, just over half of all arrivals have been turned away and expelled to Mexico or flown home on charter flights since the start of the pandemic, including thousands of Haitian asylum seekers. (Millions of Americans and those with visas enter the country overland and by plane every month.)But in south-west Arizona, where Trump constructed a 30ft border wall across the Sonoran desert through sacred Indigenous land and protected national parks, more than 80% of people have been expelled without the opportunity to make their case.“The Tucson sector has one of the highest expulsion rates along the border and the exemptions have no rhyme or reason which leaves people desperate. The Biden administration keeps hiding behind the CDC but the evidence suggests that title 42 has become part of the deterrent policy, and has nothing to do with public health,” said Reichlin-Melnick.There’s a major US customs and border protection (CBP) station between Sonoyta and Ajo, Arizona – a former mining community now popular with retirees, artists and humanitarian groups.But desperate people do desperate things, and this area has seen the highest level of desert deaths ever recorded.On a hot cloudless day last week, the Guardian accompanied volunteers from Ajo Samaritans on a tough hike to drop gallons of water and cans of beans in two remote areas where people are currently passing through.It was deep into the desert – a two-hour drive from Ajo, followed by a nine-mile round trip on foot through Organ Pipe Cactus national monument and Cabeza Prieta wildlife refuge – with virtually no shade. In the summer, temperatures regularly top 100F (38C).As migrants are forced to take longer, harder routes to avoid surveillance technology and border patrols, humanitarian groups struggle to keep up and get water to the right places.But amid the vast desolate cacti forest there were signs of recent human activity: empty energy drink cans, a pair of ripped beige jeans, a black cardigan and several worn out carpet shoes – makeshift denim slippers to avoid leaving footprints. Three gallons of water left by the volunteers a week earlier – their first drop at this location – were gone.The group came across two degraded bones in separate locations. Each was photographed and sent to the Pima county coroner, the location tagged on GPS, and the spot marked with a dated red ribbon. This was followed by a moment’s silence to reflect on the 3,830 immigrants who have died in the Arizona Sonora desert, and the disappeared not yet found.The coroner later confirmed that neither bone was human. Still, two degraded human remains have been found during water drops by these volunteers in the past fortnight. In January, 15 bodies were found across the desert, most months after they had died, according to Humane Borders and Pima county. In 2021, 226 mostly recently deceased bodies were recovered, a record high.“This isn’t just about title 42 or Remain in Mexico, it’s the prevention through detention (PTD) policy and continued increase in militarization of the border since 1994, which has forced people further and further into the desert. The PTD legislation is designed to kill people, and since its implementation the number of deaths has increased every year,” said Jo, a seasoned volunteer who asked for her surname be withheld.In his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden’s promise to reform immigration was met with derision by advocates.“President Biden is not just carrying out the toxic, white supremacist legacy of the Trump era, but unbelievably in some instances he has doubled down,” said Erika Andiola of the advocacy group Raices, in response to the speech.Both the White House and the CDC recently relaxed guidance on Covid public health measures as part of the “new phase” of the pandemic, without mentioning title 42.Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA, said: “The Biden administration is promoting a policy of learning to live with the virus, yet continues applying title 42 to turn away people seeking protection in the US … This is an outrageous double standard.”While the administration asked the supreme court to overturn a lower court decision blocking the end of Remain in Mexico, it has also expanded the pool of immigrants to which the policy applies. The CDC, which exempted unaccompanied children from title 42 soon after Biden took office, said it continues to review whether the order remains necessary to protect the public health every 60 days.Back in Sonoyta, Ruiz and Hernandez don’t have the money to pay a coyote to try and cross the dangerous desert or even get them to a different port of entry where they may be allowed to apply for asylum. Even if they could borrow the money, there’s no way of knowing if they would be granted a rare exemption or simply turned away.Ruiz said: “I had a good job, we were happy. But now we have no choice, we must wait for an opportunity to sit down with someone and explain what happened and why we can never go back.”*Names have been changed for safetyTopicsUS immigrationMexicoUS politicsAmericasJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      En Latinoamérica, la izquierda asciende

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      Los candidatos con plataformas izquierdistas han logrado victorias en una región con dificultades económicas y una desigualdad que va en aumento.RÍO DE JANEIRO — En las últimas semanas de 2021, Chile y Honduras votaron con determinación por presidentes de izquierda para reemplazar a líderes de derecha, con lo que se extendió un cambio significativo que lleva varios años ocurriendo en toda América Latina.Este año, los políticos de izquierda son los favoritos para ganar las elecciones presidenciales en Colombia y Brasil, sustituyendo a los presidentes en funciones de derecha, lo que pondría a la izquierda y a la centroizquierda en el poder en las seis economías más grandes de una región que se extiende desde Tijuana hasta Tierra del Fuego.El sufrimiento económico, el aumento de la desigualdad, el ferviente descontento con los gobernantes y la mala gestión de la pandemia de COVID-19 han impulsado un movimiento pendular que se distancia de los líderes de centroderecha y de derecha que dominaban hace unos años.La izquierda ha prometido una distribución más equitativa de la riqueza, mejores servicios públicos y redes de seguridad social ampliadas. Pero los nuevos líderes de la región se enfrentan a graves limitaciones económicas y a una oposición legislativa que podría restringir sus ambiciones, así como a unos votantes intranquilos que se han mostrado dispuestos a castigar a quien no cumpla lo prometido.Los avances de la izquierda podrían impulsar a China y socavar a Estados Unidos mientras compiten por la influencia regional, dicen los analistas, al presentarse una nueva cosecha de líderes latinoamericanos desesperados por lograr el desarrollo económico y con más apertura hacia la estrategia global de Pekín de ofrecer préstamos e inversiones en infraestructuras. El cambio también podría dificultar que Estados Unidos siga aislando a los regímenes autoritarios de izquierda en Venezuela, Nicaragua y Cuba.Con el aumento de la inflación y el estancamiento de las economías, los nuevos líderes de América Latina tendrán dificultades para lograr un cambio real en los problemas profundos, dijo Pedro Mendes Loureiro, profesor de estudios latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Cambridge. Hasta cierto punto, dijo, los votantes están “eligiendo a la izquierda simplemente porque en este momento es la oposición”.Los niveles de pobreza se encuentran en el nivel más alto de los últimos 20 años en una región en la que un efímero auge de las materias primas permitió a millones de personas ascender a la clase media tras el cambio de siglo. Varios países se enfrentan ahora a un desempleo de dos dígitos, y más del 50 por ciento de los trabajadores de la región están empleados en el sector informal.Los escándalos de corrupción, el deterioro de la infraestructura y la ausencia crónica de fondos en los sistemas de salud y educación han erosionado la confianza en el gobierno y las instituciones públicas.Personas sin hogar en fila para recibir el almuerzo de los voluntarios en São Paulo en agosto. “El tema ahora es la frustración, el sistema de clases, la estratificación”, dijo un analista.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesA diferencia de lo que ocurrió a principios de la década de 2000, cuando los izquierdistas ganaron presidencias decisivas en América Latina, los nuevos gobernantes tienen que hacer frente a la deuda, a presupuestos magros, a escaso acceso al crédito y, en muchos casos, a una oposición vociferante.Eric Hershberg, director del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos y Latinos de la American University, dijo que la racha ganadora de la izquierda nace de un sentimiento generalizado de indignación.“En realidad se trata de los sectores de la clase media baja y de la clase trabajadora que dicen: ‘treinta años de democracia y todavía tenemos que ir en un autobús decrépito durante dos horas para llegar a un centro de salud malo’”, dijo Hershberg. Citó la frustración, la ira y “una sensación generalizada de que las élites se han enriquecido, han sido corruptas, no han actuado en favor del interés público”.La COVID-19 asoló América Latina y devastó economías que ya eran precarias, pero la inclinación política de la región comenzó antes de la pandemia.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, exlíder de izquierda de Brasil, tiene una ventaja considerable sobre Bolsonaro en un cara a cara, según una encuesta reciente.Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEl primer hito fue la elección en México de Andrés Manuel López Obrador, que ganó la presidencia con un resultado arrollador en julio de 2018. Durante su discurso de la noche electoral, declaró: “El Estado dejará de ser un comité al servicio de una minoría y representará a todos los mexicanos, a ricos y pobres”.Al año siguiente, los votantes de Panamá y Guatemala eligieron gobiernos de centroizquierda, y el movimiento peronista de izquierda de Argentina tuvo un sorprendente regreso a pesar del legado de corrupción y mala gestión económica de sus líderes. Con la promesa de “construir la Argentina que nos merecemos”, Alberto Fernández, profesor universitario, celebró su triunfo frente a un presidente conservador que buscaba la reelección.En 2020, Luis Arce se impuso a sus rivales conservadores para convertirse en presidente de Bolivia. Se comprometió a ampliar el legado del exlíder Evo Morales, un socialista cuya destitución el año anterior dejó brevemente a la nación en manos de una presidenta de derecha.En abril del año pasado, Pedro Castillo, un maestro de escuela de provincia, sorprendió a la clase política peruana al derrotar por un estrecho margen a la candidata derechista a la presidencia, Keiko Fujimori. Castillo, un recién llegado a la política, arremetió contra las élites y presentó la historia de su vida —un educador que trabajó en una escuela rural sin agua corriente ni sistema de alcantarillado— como una encarnación de los defectos de la clase gobernante.En Honduras, Xiomara Castro, una candidata de plataforma socialista que propuso el establecimiento de un sistema de renta básica universal para las familias pobres, venció con facilidad en noviembre a un rival conservador para convertirse en presidenta electa.Xiomara Castro, que ganó las elecciones en Honduras, ha propuesto un sistema de renta básica universal para las familias pobres.Daniele Volpe para The New York TimesLa victoria más reciente de la izquierda se produjo el mes pasado en Chile, donde Gabriel Boric, un antiguo activista estudiantil de 35 años, venció a un rival de extrema derecha con la promesa de aumentar los impuestos a los ricos para ofrecer pensiones más generosas y ampliar enormemente los servicios sociales.La tendencia no ha sido universal. En los últimos tres años, los votantes de El Salvador, Uruguay y Ecuador han desplazado a sus gobiernos hacia la derecha. Y en México y Argentina, el año pasado, los partidos de centroizquierda perdieron terreno en las elecciones legislativas, socavando a sus presidentes.Pero en general, Evan Ellis, profesor de estudios latinoamericanos en el Colegio de Guerra del Ejército de Estados Unidos, dijo no recordar una América Latina “tan dominada por una combinación de izquierdistas y líderes populistas antiestadounidenses”.“En toda la región, los gobiernos de izquierda estarán particularmente dispuestos a trabajar con los chinos en contratos de gobierno a gobierno”, dijo, y posiblemente “con respecto a la colaboración en materia de seguridad, así como a la colaboración tecnológica”.Jennifer Pribble, profesora de ciencias políticas de la Universidad de Richmond que estudia América Latina, dijo que el brutal número de víctimas de la pandemia en la región hizo que las iniciativas de izquierda, como las transferencias de efectivo y la atención universal a la salud, fueran cada vez más populares.“Los votantes latinoamericanos tienen ahora un sentido más agudo de lo que el Estado puede hacer y de la importancia de que el Estado participe en un esfuerzo redistributivo y en la prestación de servicios públicos”, dijo. “Eso condiciona estas elecciones, y está claro que la izquierda puede hablar más directamente de eso que la derecha”.Gabriel Boric, quien fuera activista estudiantil, ha prometido una amplia expansión de los servicios sociales en Chile.Marcelo Hernandez/Getty ImagesEn Colombia, donde las elecciones presidenciales se celebrarán en mayo, Gustavo Petro, exalcalde izquierdista de Bogotá que perteneció a un grupo guerrillero urbano, ha mantenido una ventaja constante en las encuestas.Sergio Guzmán, director de la consultora Colombia Risk Analysis, dijo que las aspiraciones presidenciales de Petro se hicieron viables después de que la mayoría de los combatientes de las FARC, un grupo guerrillero marxista, dejaron las armas como parte de un acuerdo de paz alcanzado en 2016. El conflicto había dominado durante mucho tiempo la política colombiana, pero ya no.“El tema ahora es la frustración, el sistema de clases, la estratificación, los que tienen y los que no tienen”.Justo antes de Navidad, Sonia Sierra, de 50 años, se encontraba fuera de la pequeña cafetería que regenta en el principal parque urbano de Bogotá. Sus ingresos se habían desplomado, dijo, primero en medio de la pandemia y luego cuando una comunidad desplazada por la violencia se trasladó al parque.Sierra dijo que estaba muy endeudada después de que su marido fuera hospitalizado con covid. Las finanzas son tan ajustadas que hace poco despidió a su única empleada, una joven venezolana que solo ganaba 7,50 dólares al día.“Tanto trabajar y no tengo nada”, dijo Sierra, cantando un verso de una canción popular en la época navideña en Colombia. “No estoy llorando, pero sí, me da sentimiento”.En Recife, Brasil, se complementan los ingresos recogiendo mariscos.Mauricio Lima para The New York TimesEn el vecino Brasil, el aumento de la pobreza, la inflación y una respuesta fallida a la pandemia han convertido al presidente Jair Bolsonaro, el titular de extrema derecha, en un candidato débil de cara a la votación programada para octubre.El expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, un izquierdista que gobernó Brasil de 2003 a 2010, una época de notable prosperidad, ha conseguido una ventaja de 30 puntos porcentuales sobre Bolsonaro en un cara a cara, según una encuesta reciente.Maurício Pimenta da Silva, de 31 años, subgerente de una tienda de suministros agrícolas en la región de São Lourenço, en el estado de Río de Janeiro, dijo que se arrepentía de haber votado por Bolsonaro en 2018 y que ahora tiene la intención de apoyar a Da Silva.“Pensé que Bolsonaro mejoraría nuestra vida en algunos aspectos, pero no lo hizo”, dijo Da Silva, un padre de cuatro hijos que no tiene relación con el expresidente. “Todo es tan caro en los supermercados, especialmente la carne”, agregó, lo que lo llevó a tomar un segundo empleo.Con los votantes enfrentados a tanta agitación, los candidatos moderados están ganando poca influencia, lamentó Simone Tebet, una senadora de centroderecha en Brasil que planea presentarse a la presidencia este año.“Si miramos a Brasil y a América Latina, estamos viviendo un ciclo de extremos relativamente aterrador”, dijo. “El radicalismo y el populismo se han impuesto”.Ernesto Londoño More

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      in Elections

      Leftists Are Ascendant in Latin America as Key Elections Loom

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      Growing inequality and sputtering economies have helped fuel a wave of leftist victories that may soon extend to Brazil and Colombia.RIO DE JANEIRO — In the final weeks of 2021, Chile and Honduras voted decisively for leftist presidents to replace leaders on the right, extending a significant, multiyear shift across Latin America.This year, leftist politicians are the favorites to win presidential elections in Colombia and Brazil, taking over from right-wing incumbents, which would put the left and center-left in power in the six largest economies in the region, stretching from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego.Economic suffering, widening inequality, fervent anti-incumbent sentiment and mismanagement of Covid-19 have all fueled a pendulum swing away from the center-right and right-wing leaders who were dominant a few years ago.The left has promised more equitable distribution of wealth, better public services and vastly expanded social safety nets. But the region’s new leaders face serious economic constraints and legislative opposition that could restrict their ambitions, and restive voters who have been willing to punish whoever fails to deliver.The left’s gains could buoy China and undermine the United States as they compete for regional influence, analysts say, with a new crop of Latin American leaders who are desperate for economic development and more open to Beijing’s global strategy of offering loans and infrastructure investment. The change could also make it harder for the United States to continue isolating authoritarian leftist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.With rising inflation and stagnant economies, Latin America’s new leaders will find it hard to deliver real change on profound problems, said Pedro Mendes Loureiro, a professor of Latin American studies at the University of Cambridge. To some extent, he said, voters are “electing the left simply because it is the opposition at the moment.”Poverty is at a 20-year high in a region where a short-lived commodities boom had enabled millions to ascend into the middle class after the turn of the century. Several nations now face double-digit unemployment, and more than 50 percent of workers in the region are employed in the informal sector.Corruption scandals, dilapidated infrastructure and chronically underfunded health and education systems have eroded faith in leaders and public institutions.Homeless people lining up to receive lunch from volunteers in São Paulo in August. “The issue now is the frustration, the class system, the stratification,” one analyst said.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesUnlike the early 2000s, when leftists won critical presidencies in Latin America, the new officeholders are saddled by debt, lean budgets, scant access to credit and in many cases, vociferous opposition.Eric Hershberg, the director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, said the left’s winning streak is born out of widespread indignation.“This is really about lower-middle-class and working-class sectors saying, ‘Thirty years into democracy, and we still have to ride a decrepit bus for two hours to get to a bad health clinic,’” Mr. Hershberg said. He cited frustration, anger and “a generalized sense that elites have enriched themselves, been corrupt, have not been operating in the public interest.”Covid has ravaged Latin America and devastated economies that were already precarious, but the region’s political tilt started before the pandemic.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist ex-leader, has a sizable advantage over Mr. Bolsonaro in a head-to-head matchup, according to a recent poll.Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe first milestone was the election in Mexico of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who won the presidency by a landslide in July 2018. He declared during his election night address: “The state will cease being a committee at the service of a minority and it will represent all Mexicans, poor and rich.”The next year, voters in Panama and Guatemala elected left-of-center governments, and Argentina’s Peronist movement made a stunning comeback despite its leaders’ legacy of corruption and economic mismanagement. President Alberto Fernández, a university professor, celebrated his triumph over a conservative incumbent by promising “to build the Argentina we deserve.”In 2020, Luis Arce trounced conservative rivals to become president of Bolivia. He vowed to build on the legacy of the former leader Evo Morales, a socialist whose ouster the year before had briefly left the nation in the hands of a right-wing president.Last April, Pedro Castillo, a provincial schoolteacher, shocked Peru’s political establishment by narrowly defeating the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori for the presidency. Mr. Castillo, a political newcomer, railed against elites and presented his life story — an educator who worked in a rural school without running water or a sewage system — as an embodiment of their failings.In Honduras, Xiomara Castro, a socialist who proposed a system of universal basic income for poor families, handily beat a conservative rival in November to become president-elect.Xiomara Castro, who won election in Honduras, has proposed a system of universal basic income for poor families.Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesThe most recent win for the left came last month in Chile, where Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student activist, beat a far-right rival by promising to raise taxes on the rich in order to offer more generous pensions and vastly expand social services.The trend has not been universal. In the past three years, voters in El Salvador, Uruguay and Ecuador have moved their governments rightward. And in Mexico and Argentina last year, left-of-center parties lost ground in legislative elections, undercutting their presidents.But on the whole, Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College, said that in his memory there had never been a Latin America “as dominated by a combination of leftists and anti-U. S. populist leaders.”“Across the region, leftist governments will be particularly willing to work with the Chinese on government-to-government contracts,” he said, and possibly “with respect to security collaboration as well as technology collaboration.”Jennifer Pribble, a political science professor at the University of Richmond who studies Latin America, said the brutal toll of the pandemic in the region made leftist initiatives such as cash transfers and universal health care increasingly popular.“Latin American voters now have a keener sense of what the state can do and of the importance of the state engaging in a redistributive effort and in providing public services,” she said. “That shapes these elections, and clearly the left can speak more directly to that than the right.”Gabriel Boric, a former student activist, has promised a vast expansion of social services in Chile. Marcelo Hernandez/Getty ImagesIn Colombia, where a presidential election is set for May, Gustavo Petro, a leftist former mayor of Bogotá who once belonged to an urban guerrilla group, has held a consistent lead in polls.Sergio Guzmán, the director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a consulting firm, said Mr. Petro’s presidential aspirations became viable after most fighters from the FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group, laid down their weapons as part of a peace deal struck in 2016. The conflict long dominated Colombian politics, but no more.“The issue now is the frustration, the class system, the stratification, the haves and have-nots,” he said.Just before Christmas, Sonia Sierra, 50, stood outside the small coffee shop she runs in Bogotá’s main urban park. Her earnings had plummeted, she said, first amid the pandemic, and then when a community displaced by violence moved into the park.Ms. Sierra said she was deep in debt after her husband was hospitalized with Covid. Finances are so tight, she recently let go her only employee, a young woman from Venezuela who earned just $7.50 a day.“So much work and nothing to show for it,” Ms. Sierra she said, singing a verse from a song popular at Christmastime in Colombia. “I’m not crying, but yes, it hurts.”In Recife, Brazil, supplementing income by harvesting shellfish.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesIn neighboring Brazil, rising poverty, inflation and a bungled response to the pandemic have made President Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent, an underdog in the vote set for October.Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist firebrand who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, an era of remarkable prosperity, has built a 30 percentage point advantage over Mr. Bolsonaro in a head-to-head matchup, according to a recent poll.Maurício Pimenta da Silva, 31, an assistant manager at a farming supplies store in the São Lourenço region of Rio de Janeiro state, said that he regretted voting for Mr. Bolsonaro in 2018, and that he intended to support Mr. da Silva.“I thought Bolsonaro would improve our life in some aspects, but he didn’t,” said Mr. Pimenta, a father of four who is no relation to the former president. “Everything is so expensive in the supermarkets, especially meat,” he added, prompting him to take a second job.With voters facing so much upheaval, moderate candidates are gaining little traction, lamented Simone Tebet, a center-right senator in Brazil who plans to run for president.“If you look at Brazil and Latin America, we are living in a relatively frightening cycle of extremes,” she said. “Radicalism and populism have taken over.”Ernesto Londoño and Flávia Milhorance reported from Rio de Janeiro. Julie Turkewitz reported from Bogotá. More

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      Biden to reinstate Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ migrant policy

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      US immigrationBiden to reinstate Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ migrant policyDoJ says reinstatement depends on approval from MexicoCourt overturned Biden’s initial decision to suspend policy Amanda Holpuch@holpuchFri 15 Oct 2021 14.57 EDTLast modified on Fri 15 Oct 2021 15.55 EDTThe Biden administration said on Friday it plans to reinstate the Trump-era border policy known as Remain in Mexico, which forced at least 70,000 asylum seekers to stay in Mexico, many for extended periods and in deprived and dangerous conditions, while they waited for their cases to be considered US courts.Senior state department official calls Biden’s deportation of Haitians illegalRead moreJoe Biden suspended the policy formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) in his first days in office, but a federal judge ordered his administration to put it back into place.In a court filing late on Friday, the US justice department said the program’s reinstatement depended on approval from the Mexican government, which is asking for the asylum cases to be settled in six months and for the US to ensure the people affected have timely and accurate information as well as better access to legal counsel. The program is expected to be back in effect in mid-November.Donald Trump introduced Remain in Mexico in January 2019. From the beginning, advocates criticized the program because it put highly vulnerable migrants, mostly from Central and South America, at serious risk of physical harm and illness as they waited in some of the most dangerous cities in the world. It also fails to address the forces pushing people north to the US-Mexico border and the huge backlogs in US immigration courts.Campaign group Human Rights Watch said in a January report about the policy that affected asylum seekers it interviewed, including children, “described rape or attempted rape and other sexual assault, abduction for ransom, extortion, armed robbery, and other crimes committed against them”.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immigrants’ rights policy director, Omar Jadwat, said via Twitter that the news was “appalling” and acknowledged the Biden administration was required by a court order to make a “good faith” effort to restart it.“They had a lot of options here, including re-terminating MPP promptly and seeking to vacate the order,” Jadwat said.To restart the program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to spend $14.1m to reopen temporary courtrooms located in tents in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, which will cost $10.5m a month to operate, according to a court filing.In June, the DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, formally put an end to the policy and in a memo said: “MPP had mixed effectiveness in achieving several of its central goals and that the program experienced significant challenges.”TopicsUS immigrationMexicoAmericasTrump administrationUS politicsBiden administrationUS-Mexico bordernewsReuse this content More

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      Kamala Harris takes heat from both sides in daunting border visit

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      The sun beat down on the 30ft border fence that separates El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as temperatures headed towards 100F on the southern border that stands as a symbol for so much in American politics.The heat was also on for Vice-President Kamala Harris, who was making her first trip to the border since being tasked with immigration policy by Joe Biden more than three months ago.It is not an easy job. She was handed one of the toughest issues in American politics and one that has plagued successive American presidents for several decades, no matter what political party was occupying the White House.Criticism for Harris came from both sides of the political aisle for the length of time it took her to make the trip on Friday. More attacks came from Donald Trump, who had accepted an offer from Texas’ rightwing governor Greg Abbott to tour the border ahead of an attempt by Republican-run Texas to fund the completion of a border wall. “If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!” Trump said.But Trump’s criticism of Harris was hardly the only voice raised against her as she seeks to come to grips with immigration and border security. She was also criticized by immigration activists and many on the left of the Democratic party for the message she delivered during an early June visit to Guatemala.“Do not come. Do not come,” she said. “I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back.”The blunt message was ill-received by those who pointed out that Harris’ parents were also immigrants.“[Her comments] reinforced the years of attacks on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers by the previous administration,” said Dylan Corbett, the director of a local non-profit organization that focuses on immigration policies and aiding migrants in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. “The message should be: ‘How can we, together, build a future where your children don’t have to migrate?’”After touring a border patrol facility to kick off her visit, Harris made an unannounced stop at the Paso Del Norte port of entry, a busy international bridge that connects the downtown centers of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.While there, she met with five girls detained at the bridge’s processing center, aged between nine and 16 and all from Central America. The meeting was closed to the press, but her office described the meeting as positive, with the girls calling Harris an inspiration and drawing photos for her.Approximately 1,600 children just like those girls are being housed in shelters at the US army’s Fort Bliss in El Paso, according to US media, where there are lengthy stays, poor conditions and infrequent meetings with lawyers.But a visit to the controversial shelter on Fort Bliss was not part of the vice-president’s visit, despite the announcement of an investigation of the housing for migrant children.Across the street from her meeting with the girls, a small group of immigration advocates chanted from the corner, “Si, se puede!” after Harris left. She headed back to the airport, where she met with the leaders of immigrants rights organizations. The focus of their discussion was reported as the root causes and drivers of immigration to the United States.Behind the talk, though, is a brutal reality.The trip from Central America for many immigrants is long and potentially lethal, especially for children. There are deaths from heat stroke as migrants trek through triple-digit desert heat, or fall from the 30ft high border wall already in place in high-traffic areas along the international line.Migrants who survive that fall are just a few of the people who are taken to a local non-profit organization, Annunciation House, which operates as a network of shelters, helping to connect migrants with family in the States and legal representation for asylum cases.The injuries range from fractured ankles to head injuries that have left a woman quadriplegic, according to the director of Annunciation House, Ruben Garcia.“We have such little appreciation for what they’re risking to be safe, to put food on the table,” Garcia said. “These people aren’t coming here because they want to put jacuzzis in their houses.”Nor is getting to the border, or even across it, the end of the story. Should migrants survive the trip from their home countries, through Mexico and across the border into the US, in most cases, they are not currently allowed to stay in the US, even when seeking asylum.Nearly 100,000 migrants have been expelled from El Paso, Texas, into Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, since October, according to data provided by the border patrol. The expulsions are still taking place under a policy known as Title 42, implemented by the Trump administration. Thus far, Title 42 has been kept in place by the Biden administration despite outcry from immigration organizations.“The expulsions under Title 42 are still rampant,” Garcia said.The policy falls under the umbrella of public health and was implemented as a response to Covid-19. “We all know it had nothing to do with the pandemic, it had to do with immigration control,” Garcia said. “I tell people: Donald Trump did get his wall. It’s called Title 42.”There was little sign Harris planned to end that. Nor is there much doubt that the debate over immigration and the border in the US will remain toxic after a Trump era when many Republicans – including the former president – made openly racist statements about immigrants.“In the United States, there is an incredibly significant population that doesn’t want you, they speak extremely derogatorily about you,” said Garcia. “They wouldn’t care if you die on the way, they wouldn’t care if you fell off the wall and broke your back.”Harris sought to draw a little of that poison on her trip. “Let’s not lose sight that we’re talking about human beings,” she said.After meeting with Harris, Linda Rivas, the executive director of Las Americas, a non-profit organization that provides legal representation during immigration processes, said she was grateful to share the stories of her clients with the vice-president but also called for more action. “The Biden-Harris administration must improve the asylum process and end the cruel border policies that ripped families apart,” Rivas said.But as the policy debate continues and Harris mulls her next steps, the heat is unlikely to relent – either in US politics or at the sweltering border itself.In a statement last week, US Customs and Border Protection described crossing the border in the desert in the summer. “The terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving,” it said.At the moment, not much looks likely to change that. 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