Canning Insights

Guatemala’s Cicig makes the ultimate accusation

The United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) has made the most dramatic claim since its creation nearly a decade ago. Cicig, together with the attorney general’s office (AG), directly accused President Otto Pérez Molina and his former vice-president, Roxana Baldetti, of heading up the corruption ring, ‘La Línea’, uncovered in the tax authority (SAT) in April [WR-15-19] – the first of various scandals to rock the political establishment. Pérez Molina’s Partido Patriota (PP) government is in total disarray after six ministers resigned in the wake of the allegations. The supreme court (CSJ) ordered the 158-member unicameral legislature to determine whether to strip Pérez Molina of his immunity in order to face investigation. The institutional and political crisis comes with just over a week until the general elections on 6 September.

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Chile’s Bachelet in fight-back mode

Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet, struggling with low opinion poll ratings, concern over corruption, and a weaker-than-expected economy, is trying to get back on track and get the balance right between adjusting her policies where necessary, on the one hand, and sticking to her guns, on the other. The government’s slogan of the moment is ‘realismo sin renuncia’. This can be roughly translated as ‘realism without surrender’. The big problem for Bachelet is that not all parties within the ruling Nueva Mayoría coalition have interpreted its meaning in the same way.

Venezuela’s supreme court gives Maduro pre-electoral boost

Venezuela’s supreme court of justice (TSJ) has issued two rulings in the last two weeks which are likely to have a significant influence on the legislative elections on 6 December. On 5 August the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) expelled the traditional right-wing Comité de Organización Polٕítica Electoral Independiente (Copei) from its ranks after the TSJ imposed a new Copei leadership committee days earlier which the MUD leadership claimed would act like “a Trojan horse” for the “regime”. Then, on 7 August, the TSJ rejected a suit to force the central bank (BCV) to make inflation figures public. Since inflation began spiralling out of control (even by Venezuelan standards) last February, the BCV has stopped publishing figures which, given that wage increases are far from keeping pace, could have reduced support for the government led by President Nicolás Maduro as elections approach.

Peru’s Humala faces complex final year in power

tenure. When Humala took office on 28 July 2011 there was a visceral fear among the private sector and business community that he would abandon his conciliatory rhetoric, revert to his nationalist roots and set Peru on the path taken by Venezuela. Instead, Humala pursued an agenda of free trade and fiscal rectitude, shedding his leftist allies who stood aghast as he used his final state-of-the-nation address to congress four years later to lay claim to the legacy of Peru’s first great social reformer. Humala, whose political inexperience has been exposed in his dealings with congress, seldom gets credit for his achievements, especially against Sendero Luminoso (SL) and the illegal drug trade, but this is a big claim. The prospect of enhancing his ‘legacy’ is also bleak as the political opposition assumes control of the legislature.

El Salvador under siege as maras go on killing spree

El Salvador’s deteriorating public security situation is taking a sharp turn for the worse. In the course of 72 hours this week mara gang members murdered seven bus drivers and paralysed public transport in and around the capital San Salvador with an enforced strike, in order to ratchet up the pressure on the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén. As the number of homicides has spiralled in recent months to levels not seen since the country’s brutal civil war (1980-1992), the government has refused to hold talks with the maras. It remains defiant. Sánchez Cerén is promising to pour more military on to the streets to support the police, while he and other senior officials in the ruling left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) are making increasingly wild claims of a multifaceted destabilisation campaign orchestrated by the main right- wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena).