Political Report #1465 “Those Who Are Poor, Die Poor” | Notes on The Chilean Elections
Premature obituaries of Chilean neoliberalism abound on the heels of the December 19 run-off presidential election. Gabriel Boric of Apruebo Dignidad (Approve Dignity, AD) – a coalition of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front, FA) and the Partido Comunista de Chile (Communist Party of Chile, PCC) – secured a surprisingly robust victory over his far-right opponent, José Antonio Kast (aka, JAK), of Frente Social Cristiano (Christian Social Front, FSC) – a coalition of Kast’s Partido Republicano (Republican Party, PR) and the Partido Conservador Cristiano (Christian Conservative Party, PCC). […]
Political Report 1464 – Nicaragua: Chronicle of an Election Foretold
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 […]
Political Report #1463 – Venezuela’s November Elections: Washington’s New Strategy but Same Old Assumptions
Latin American Extractivism Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective
from our LAP Classroom Series
On September 26, 2000, during the inauguration of the second summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEP), President Hugo Chávez urged its members to recognize that the “worst environmental catastrophe facing the world is human poverty.” He called for unity through the promotion of a “social and egalitarian model of economic development to […]
Latest LAP issue! The Nicaraguan Crisis and the Challenge to the International Left
Political Report #1462 – Can an Article on Jair Bolsonaro be “Politically Neutral”?
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 […]
Political Report #1461 Castillo’s Path
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 […]
Political Report #1460 – The Census, Skin Color and Social Analysis
by Esteban Morales Domínguez
Although it still causes many prejudices, misunderstandings and challenges, there is no choice but to pay attention to skin color. Above all, in its consideration within the media and national statistics.
Cuban society is a multiracial society, or rather, multicolored, mestizo. And that reality has to be registered statistically. Not by handling the Census as a simply numerical matter, but as a cultural demographic one.
It is about the fact that color is a legacy of slavery. It is not possible to avoid it, since it has marked Cuban society since its origins.
When the Spaniards […]