The devaluation is the consequence of accelerated internal public spending funded through oil revenues. Although spending won Hugo Chávez votes, a significant number of voters may now be feeling the negative effects of devaluation.
The second round of the Chilean elections on 17 January 2010 handed victory to the opposition, putting an end to a run of four governments led by the centre-left Concertación por la Democracia coalition, in power since the end of the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90). This is hugely significant because it signals the return of the right wing to the La Moneda presidential palace after no less than 52 years.
Brazil has opted for its own foreign policy in Latin America and clashed at times with the new US Administration. What is the state of relations between Brazil and the US? Can Brazil become the leader of South America and take a place on the world stage?
President Oscar Arias’ party is seeking to stay in power, despite being weakened by the intensive and combative approach of its rivals.
The general election in Honduras on 29 November 2009 was a free and transparent process, whose implications for the Americas as a whole are also analysed in this ARI.
The Bolivian general elections were held in December 2009 in very special circumstances and conditions: they were the first elections under Bolivia’s New Political Constitution, the first (since the reinstatement of democracy) in which a President was eligible for reelection, the first in which biometric voter registration was implemented and the first in which it was possible to vote from outside the country.
A Spanish company at the head of an international consortium has won the major part of the contract for the expansion of the Panama Canal. This analysis sums up the history, the present and the future plan of an oceanic corridor of prime importance in world politics and the world economy.
The resignation of the Peruvian Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, and the congressional repeal of two of the main legislative decrees that opened extensive Amazonian zones to commercial exploitation have provided a merely temporary relief to the reigning tension. The situation is similar, to varying degrees, in the other South-American countries that share the Amazon basin.
The visits to Spain of Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have triggered a major domestic controversy as well as intense external debate, as Spain’s government is accused of seeking to move closer to certain populist leaders.
With the great increases in insecurity in Afghanistan and the overwhelming sense that the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan is not being won, analysts and policymakers are looking for analogies to understand the conflict’s dynamics and devise counter-measures.
Over the past three decades, Latin America has undergone a major process of diversification in its international relations, making it easier for the countries of the region to develop foreign policies that are more autonomous and more focused on the challenges posed by an international society that is increasingly interdependent and global.
The Fifth Summit of the Americas has served to put relations between Latin America and the US back on the agenda.