Briefings & Intelligence

Brazil: Bottoming out – or just falling?

Macri strikes at the heart of Kirchnerismo

Macri hits the ground running in Argentina

Speculation abounded about what measures Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri would take first after his investiture on 10 December. The consensus view was that economic reforms would come first. Macri did not disappoint. His government wasted no time in issuing decrees ending most tariffs on agricultural and industrial exports, and then took the plunge by lifting currency controls. What nobody anticipated was that he would also issue a decree in the judicial sphere, appointing two supreme court magistrates. This move was highly controversial, prompting fierce criticism from the opposition, and unease from political allies. Just days earlier Macri had promised during his inaugural address that “there will be no Macrista judges in my government”, an allusion to the propensity of his Peronist predecessors to stack courts with politically loyal justices.

Bolivarian Revolution suffers biggest reverse in 17 years

Not in 17 years of government has Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution suffered an electoral setback on the scale of that inflicted by the opposition on 6 December. The previous reverse in a 2007 referendum pales in comparison. The opposition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) won 65% of the popular vote and secured a coveted two-thirds ‘supermajority’ in the national assembly. But this was an emphatic rejection of the government led by President Nicolás Maduro not a ringing endorsement of the MUD. Maduro has ruled out cooperating with the MUD-controlled legislature but if the MUD’s response is to misuse its newly gained power to confront his government it will rapidly lose borrowed popular support.

First steps by the Alfonso Prat-Gay team

Threats turn to action as Brazil begins impeachment process

After months of tortuous political uncertainty, an impeachment process will begin against Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff. Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of the federal lower chamber of congress and fierce opponent of Rousseff, finally took the plunge on 2 December and went ahead with what he has long threatened. What appears to have pushed Cunha over the edge is the increased likelihood that he himself will be stripped of his post for lying to congress. On the face of it, the impeachment process is unlikely to succeed, but whatever the ultimate outcome the proceedings mean congress will be focused more on Brazil’s political crisis than on its increasingly disastrous economic performance.