With seven opposition presidential candidates imprisoned and held incommunicado in the months leading up to the vote and all the remaining contenders but one from miniscule parties closely allied with President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the results of Nicaragua’s November 7 presidential elections were a foregone conclusion. The government declared after polls closed that Ortega won 75 percent of the vote and that 65 percent of voters cast ballots. The independent voting rights organization Urnas Abiertas, meanwhile, reported an abstention rate of approximately […]

by Steve Ellner 

LAP’s Political Report 1459 titled “The Washington Consensus Arrives in Brazil,” takes an uncritical look at Jair Bolsonaro and his policies. At first glance, the article appears to be neutral and the authors, Marc Castillo and Sírio Sapper, impartial analysts. Neither of these initial impressions are the case and indeed elsewhere both authors have defended the policies of the Bolsonaro government. A careful reading of Political Report 1459 reveals that the article, albeit for the most part subtly, justifies Bolsonaro’s policies and his presidency. At the same time, there is absolutely nothing in it […]

Nearly two months after Pedro Castillo’s narrow victory in Peru’s second-round runoff, the new president has only just managed to get his first cabinet appointed. The 73 to 50 vote through which the Peruvian Congress approved the ministers on 27 August came at the end of several weeks of obstruction and outcry from the opposition. This included a prolonged refusal by Keiko Fujimori, the defeated candidate, to acknowledge the result, as well as yet more of the hysterical redbaiting that had marked the presidential campaign. The turbulent weeks since the […]