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Mexico election diary
The final polls
Jun 28th 2012, 20:48 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY
MEXICO’S three-month election campaign came to an end yesterday, ahead of polling day on July 1st. For the next few days candidates are banned from further campaigning. The welcome break from their slogans will be marred only by the ley seca, or “dry law”, which bans the sale of alcohol over the weekend in order to limit the chance of drunken arguments over the fine details of fiscal reform.
Along with the suspension of campaigning, the last days before the election see a ban on opinion polls, so the ones published yesterday are the last we will see before the results are announced.
South American airlines
LAN, TAM, merger plan
Jun 28th 2012, 17:30 by The Economist online
GULLIVER, our sister blog, has published a post about the takeover of TAM, Brazil's biggest airline, by LAN, the Chilean flag carrier. Read it here.
This week in print
Impeachment in Paraguay, Canada's housing market, Colombia's immunity law, drug legalisation and women in Brazil
Jun 28th 2012, 17:28 by The Economist online
THE president of Paraguay was removed from office on June 22nd following an impeachment procedure that took just 31 hours. This week's issue of The Economist explains how and why it happened so fast and argues that it should still be condemned even though it was not a coup. The issue also includes stories on Canada's efforts to cool off its housing market, a botched immunity law in Colombia, the potential legalisation of marijuana in Uruguay and women in Brazil's labour market.
Mexico election diary
The growing metropolitan divide
Jun 26th 2012, 18:45 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY
WITH election day looming, it looks as if the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is likely to win the presidency by a fairly wide margin. But a different party is expected to win an even more crushing victory in Mexico City. Miguel Ángel Mancera, the mayoral candidate of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), is predicted by most polls to win about two-thirds of the vote, an extraordinary share in a four-horse race.
The expected strong showing of the left in Mexico City’s election underlines the big differences between the capital and the rest of the country.
Mexico election diary
A June banana skin
Jun 26th 2012, 0:07 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY
MANY Mexico-watchers have wondered if the government might pull off a “June surprise” by making a major strike against organised crime just before the election on July 1st. Instead, in the past few days it has found itself surprised by two other pieces of security news, both unwelcome.
The first came on June 22nd, when marines announced that they had captured one of the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzmán, Mexico’s most wanted man. Jesús Guzmán, known as “El Gordo”, or “Fatty”, was paraded before cameras after being nabbed in the state of Jalisco.
Paraguayan politics
Out Lugo
Jun 25th 2012, 21:45 by S.G.
WHEN Fernando Lugo was elected as Paraguay’s president in 2008, it was hailed as a crucial step forward for democracy in the landlocked South American country. Even after the 35-year rule of Alfredo Stroessner, a military dictator, came to an end in 1989, candidates from his conservative Colorado Party won the next three presidential elections. The victory of Mr Lugo, a former bishop, was the first time in modern history that Paraguay underwent a peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party.
But Mr Lugo’s hold on power was always precarious. He depended on an awkward legislative coalition between his leftist allies and the more centrist Liberal party.
Mexico's presidential election
Fresh face, same old party
Jun 25th 2012, 12:19 by The Economist online
OUR correspondent lays out the options for Mexican voters in the country's upcoming elections and asks whether the front-runner represents a backward step
This week in print
Mexico's presidential election, mining in Peru and Canada's wheat board
Jun 21st 2012, 22:28 by The Economist online
MEXICO is poised to elect as its next president a candidate from the same party that ruled it autocratically for 70 years. This week's issue of The Economist takes stock of the country on the eve of the election, and argues that Enrique Peña Nieto, the front-runner, still has to show he is a force for reform. It also includes stories on protests over mining in Peru and the demise of Canada's wheat board.
Politics and crime in Colombia
Double agent
Jun 21st 2012, 1:09 by S.B. | BOGOTÁ
EVEN when Mauricio Santoyo was the head of the security detail for Álvaro Uribe, Colombia’s former president, a cloud of doubt hung over his reputation. He had been sanctioned for allegedly having ordered some 1,500 illegal wiretaps on human-rights activists when he was the head of the anti-kidnapping unit of the national police in Medellín in the late 1990s. The sanctions were eventually suspended, and he was promoted to general and then named police attaché in Italy. But few observers of Colombian politics have forgotten the incident.
Last week an American federal court revealed altogether different accusations against the now-retired general.
Mexico election diary
#YoSoy132 at a crossroads
Jun 20th 2012, 23:49 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY
MEXICO’S presidential candidates have had two official televised debates, one in May and another earlier this month. On June 19th there was a third, unofficial one, hosted by a student movement called #YoSoy132. The pressure group, which was born in May after a disastrous visit by Enrique Peña Nieto, the leading candidate, to a Mexico City university, got the candidates together for two hours of discussion ahead of the election, which is now little more than a week away.
It was a decent debate.
Mexico election diary
State-level pickups for the PRI
Jun 20th 2012, 5:49 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY
ALL eyes are on Mexico’s presidential battle. But when voters go to the polls on July 1st they will elect 2,127 people to political office, from federal congressmen to local mayors. Among the most important are six governors, or seven if you include the head of the capital’s Federal District, whom we tend to describe as the mayor of Mexico City but who effectively has the powers of a governor.
Four of the seven contests look likely to result in no change of party control. The Federal District is all but certain to pass to Miguel Ángel Mancera, who was the attorney general under the current administration of Marcelo Ebrard.
This week in print
Elections in Venezuela and Mexico, crime in Honduras, Brazil's public-sector wages and the Falklands
Jun 14th 2012, 18:52 by The Economist online
MOST presidents running for re-election are mainly concerned with beating their opponent. Hugo Chávez must vanquish two adversaries: the challenger, Henrique Capriles, and cancer. This week's issue of The Economist explores how this most unusual campaign is shaping up. It also includes stories on Mexico's presidential election, crime in Honduras, public-sector wages in Brazil and a self-determination referendum in the Falkland Islands.
Mexico election diary
Inside the Estado de México
Jun 14th 2012, 17:23 by T.W. | ATLACOMULCO
ONE of the most frequently heard comments about Enrique Peña Nieto, the front-runner in Mexico’s presidential race, is that in spite of his fame, no one really knows much about the man beneath the carefully styled quiff. I’m not sure that’s true. Last year Mr Peña finished a six-year term in charge of the biggest state in Mexico. The Estado de México, or Mexico state, has a population of 15m, making it bigger than Guatemala and not far off the size of Chile. His time in charge there ought to offer plenty of clues about how he would manage the country if he wins July 1st’s election.
Organised crime in Jamaica
Dudus gets his due
Jun 13th 2012, 20:07 by M.W.
NUMBER 23, which is accompanied by a picture of a black man on the poster for Jamaica’s Cash Pot betting game, was the contest’s winning pick on June 9th. Small gamblers in Tivoli Gardens, a poor district in Kingston, the capital, cleaned up on bets as small as fifty cents. But that number was not so lucky for Christopher “Dudus” Coke, Tivoli’s former “don”, or gang leader. The day before, he received a 23-year prison sentence in a New York court.
Mr Coke was Jamaica’s most prominent mobster. At his sentencing hearing, which began last month, Jermaine “Cowboy” Cohen, a former associate of Mr Coke’s, shed new light on his organisation’s operations.
In this blog, our correspondents provide reporting, analysis and opinion on politics, economics, society and culture in Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada.
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