Americas – December 1, 2018

Americas – December 1, 2018

December 1, 2018

Each day, 21votes gathers election and political news from a different region of the world. Saturdays we explore the Americas.

Less than a month until Bolsonaro's inauguration

Change, much of it controversial, is already afoot following Brazil’s elections. Right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, who takes office January 1, has re-opened Brazil’s debate on firearms, and schools are becoming a battleground in the culture war. His cabinet already contains five military men.

Brazilian lawyer Caio C. V. Machado writes for the Council on Foreign Relations about how the use of social media has has fundamentally Brazilian campaigning, and how disinformation threatens Brazil’s democracy.

Whither AMLO

Left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes office Sunday as Mexico’s president. AMLO, as he is widely known, has big plans. But will he achieve them? How will he actually govern?

In Foreign Policy: “‘His reputation by everybody who talked about him, even those who didn’t like him, was that he was a great mayor,’ said Earl Anthony Wayne, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2011 to 2015….The question of which way AMLO ultimately leans matters more than it did with other Mexican presidents. With majorities in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, fueled by popular disgust at rampant corruption and insecurity, AMLO has the ability to turn a lot of his campaign aspirations into policies that stick. In addition to a big bloc among his own coalition, both of the main opposition parties—the PRI and the National Action Party—are in utter disarray. ‘With his big majorities in Congress, he has the ability to do a lot,’said Wayne.

But even with his fondness for a centralized government, AMLO’s congressional coalition is a patchwork spanning the political spectrum, raising questions about what economic policy the government will ultimately pursue.”

Political crisis

Richard Feinberg at Brookings has written a report on the historical underpinnings of Nicaragua’s current political crisis. 

Recent Elections in the News
Brazil
Change, much of it controversial, is already afoot following Brazil’s elections. Right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, who takes office January 1, has re-opened Brazil’s debate on firearms, and schools are becoming a battleground in the culture war. His cabinet already contains five military men.

Brazilian lawyer Caio C. V. Machado writes for the Council on Foreign Relations about how the use of social media has has fundamentally Brazilian campaigning, and how disinformation threatens Brazil’s democracy.

Mexico
Left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes office Sunday as Mexico’s president. AMLO, as he is widely known, has big plans. But will he achieve them? How will he actually govern?

In Foreign Policy: “‘His reputation by everybody who talked about him, even those who didn’t like him, was that he was a great mayor,’ said Earl Anthony Wayne, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2011 to 2015….The question of which way AMLO ultimately leans matters more than it did with other Mexican presidents. With majorities in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, fueled by popular disgust at rampant corruption and insecurity, AMLO has the ability to turn a lot of his campaign aspirations into policies that stick. In addition to a big bloc among his own coalition, both of the main opposition parties—the PRI and the National Action Party—are in utter disarray. ‘With his big majorities in Congress, he has the ability to do a lot,’said Wayne.

But even with his fondness for a centralized government, AMLO’s congressional coalition is a patchwork spanning the political spectrum, raising questions about what economic policy the government will ultimately pursue.”

Other Regional News and Views
Nicaragua
Richard Feinberg at Brookings has written a report on the historical underpinnings of Nicaragua’s current political crisis. 

21votes doesn’t necessarily endorse all of the views contained in all of the linked articles.

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