Duque and Latin American Politics

Iván Duque defeated Gustavo Petro in the Colombian runoff election yesterday, 54%-42%. Boz has some good points about the outcome, including the importance of centrists. Adam Isacson also has a post worth your time on how this affects the peace agreement.

I'd like to chime in on the broader view. It will be tempting to view this as part of an overall conservative wave in Latin America, and I fully expect that kind of assertion to spread, especially since this was a clear cut contest between candidates who self-identified as left and right. It has already started, really.

But that is misleading and does not pay sufficient attention to the specific Colombian context. The FARC effectively prevented any real political left from developing in Colombia. It was too hard for the left to convince people it wasn't going to be soft on the FARC, or even tied to it. Look back at 2010, when Antanas Mockus ran and won only 27.5% in a runoff after being clobbered in the first round. It was just too easy to tie the left to the FARC, to Hugo Chávez, to Fidel Castro. Etc.

Petro was openly struggling against this. And the fact that he got 42% of the vote means he succeeded far more than anyone else in the past. Not enough to win, obviously, but enough to breath life into the aspirations of the left. It's fair to say that it won't be long before a leftist can win the presidency, and that's something that just has not been true before.

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Immigrant Children as Hostages

The Trump administration is separating children from their parents when they are apprehended, a practice considered too harsh and horrible by previous administrations. There has been considerable public response and the administration's stance is indicative of dysfunction and deceit.

President Trump blames congressional Democrats. His logic is the same as hostage taking. Kidnap someone and demand ransom. If the ransom is not paid, you hurt the hostage and blame the side that would not give you money. The real answer is that the hostage never should have been taken in the first place. You do not need a law or any reform to end it. He can do so right this second.

But it gets worse. Attorney General Jess Sessions contradicted Trump by taking full ownership over separating families and saying the Bible defends the practice. White House advisor Stephen Miller also contradicted Trump and took ownership, saying it was a "simple decision." They happily label it as deterrence--treat people so inhumanely that word will get out and people will stop emigrating. As Steve Bannon says, it is a conscious zero tolerance policy that needs no justification. For xenophobes, it is simply common sense--hurting brown-skinned foreigners is good.

Melania Trump weighed in, saying through a spokesperson that she "hates" the practice and calling immigration reform, echoing the inaccurate assertion that you need a new law to end it.

But one of the truly craziest responses was Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who said it's not a policy at all. High level administration officials have already said it is a policy and the increase of the practice has been very public.

And that's where we are in 2018.

Update: the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics labeled it as "child abuse."

New Update: Not long after I posted this, President Trump and other administration officials changed the story a bit, saying that the parents were fake and were in fact criminals posing as parents.

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Podcast Episode 54: The Nicaraguan Crisis

In Episode 54 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk with Christine Wade, who is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College. She studies Central America and recently published Captured Peace: Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador and also the ninth edition of Latin American Politics and Development. We discuss the Nicaraguan crisis. FYI, she mentions an article that just came out at NACLA that she recommended: here is the link. Among other things, we talk about the diffuse nature of the opposition, what's up with security forces, and how much this is all affecting the average Nicaraguan.

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NAFTA and North Carolina

Patrick Duddy has an op-ed in the Raleigh News & Observer about the impact of NAFTA on North Carolina. It just fell flat for me. He argues that NAFTA benefits the state, but he also bends over backward to praise the Trump administration. For example:

In the last quarter century all three economies have evolved in important ways. Hence, the Trump administration’s determination to force improvements on our partners is not unreasonable. The Trump administration’s goal is a better deal for U.S. workers and industry.

and

Trump is not necessarily wrong when he asserts that much of the world has ridden our coattails to an era of greater prosperity. We would be wrong, however, to ignore the corollary to that assertion: the U.S. has – in the aggregate – become more prosperous as well. The aim of the current negotiations should be to create a better trading regime, one that eliminates distortions without sacrificing benefits.

"Forcing improvements on our partners" means a trade war. It's not clear to me how we can consider that reasonable. And the whole "ridden our coattails" thing is simplistic and implies unreasonably that we are "owed." The United States has benefited massively from the post-World War II economic order. There's no way around that.

The piece seems aimed at the NC congressional delegation but the combined praise of NAFTA and Trump makes it difficult to see precisely what he's advocating.

 

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The Latin Americanist and UNC Press

I am excited to announce that starting January 1, 2019 The Latin Americanist will be published by the University of North Carolina Press. It's a perfect fit, especially since the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies, which owns the journal, is a southern-oriented organization. And it's great to be working with an academic press. If you have a manuscript, you should consider us!

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LASA Resolution on Nicaragua

I know, I know, organization resolutions don't "matter" in a policy way. But I still like having the key organization for Latin American Studies get things right. For a long time it was a muddled morass.

Here is its statement on Nicaragua. For example:

As academics who have spent our careers researching Central America and working with the people of Nicaragua, we want to express our profound concern for the extreme violations of basic human rights that have occurred in Nicaragua. No government should violently repress its own citizens for expressing their opinions, nor should it try to prevent the press from covering such protests.

Nice, clear, declarative. In the past, condemnations of government wrongdoing got all tangled with ideology--you can't really criticize Venezuela because of the 2002 coup, blah blah blah. This statement includes the proper caveat about U.S. policy.

We hasten to add that these measures should be carried out at the initiative of the Nicaraguan people and their constituted representatives. Given the long and tragic history of US imperialism in Central America, and the many regional problems that have their roots in foreign interventions, we are well aware of the need to respect Nicaragua’s sovereignty. That, however, does not preclude criticism of government-condoned violence against unarmed protesters.

Good. U.S. policy has done terrible damage to Nicaragua in its history but that should not give its governments a pass when they're killing their own citizens. And no one wants to give the impression they're asking for U.S. meddling.

Here's one of the worse resolutions, from five years ago.

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Venezuela Election Apologists

You see periodic efforts to defend the integrity of elections in Venezuela. John Polga-Hecimovich takes aim at one and breathes fire at it.

Mr. Kovalik professes to support Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution for helping the poor. But 82% of the country is now below the poverty line, which indicates it’s more important for him to blindly follow an ideology than update his priors and criticize a “revolutionary” government.

He delicately concludes:

Venezuela is a dictatorship whose economic problems are the result of irresponsible policymaking. The more Mr. Kovalik and others see conspiracies where there are none, the more they allow themselves to become apologists for a dictator.

I assume his essay will be dismissed as the work of an imperialist pawn.

BTW, see Geoff Ramsey's post just prior to the election as well. Defenders of the election tend to skirt past most of the substance.

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Maduro Looks Longingly at the Trump-Kim Summit

I was talking to someone about why Nicolás Maduro was letting political prisoners out and especially Joshua Holt. My basic and not particularly original answer was that he trying to make some sort of gesture to ease pressure and open the door to dialogue (of whatever sort, if only to gain time).

But after seeing the spectacle of Donald Trump meeting Kim Jong-un, I realized I was missing what was in front of my eyes all along. Trump's foreign policy consists in large part of alienating allies and embracing--even bromancing--adversaries. He famously loves Vladimir Putin and now he loves Kim too (he loves his country!). With them, he openly gives concessions without getting anything concrete in return. This summit was pure gold for an isolated Kim.

So Maduro, who also feels isolated, much wonder: how do I get Trump's love? And indeed, why shouldn't he think that way? Kim sets the standard for being a horrible human being who terrorizes his own population, and Trump loves him. Trump excoriates Maduro and calls him a threat. How is that fair?

So maybe Maduro is thinking that if he gives a little with some releases, just like Kim did, he can be bros with Trump too. Maybe even be invited to the White House. Kim has Dennis Rodman as celebrity go-between, and Maduro can use Danny Glover.

I am authoritarian, I am screwing up my country, and my government is responsible serious human rights abuses, so why don't you love me too?

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Arepas Grill

In my very occasional reviews of Latin American restaurants in Charlotte, today I had lunch at Arepas Grill, which bills itself as the only place in the city to get Venezuelan arepas*. I was there with my wife and kids, so between us we got several different kinds, including the Pelua (shredded beef), the La del Gato (plantains and avocado), the traditional Queso de Mano, and the Revoltillo (screambled eggs and beef). All of us were in universal agreement that they were delicious, just crispy on the outside, hot and stuffed with food inside. They have a guasacaca sauce that is hot and tasty to add if you want.

Incidentally, it is directly across the street from the Woodlawn train station, perfect if you are on light rail.

* This should not be too surprising because the population is still relatively small. According to Census Bureau estimates, there are about 17,778 people in Mecklenburg County who were born in South America (I don't know offhand how many are Venezuelan but we have quite a few migrants also from Colombia and Ecuador in particular). That constitutes just 11% of all foreign born people in the county and 23.4% of the Latin America-born population. Those numbers have been increasing in recent years and I have to wonder how much the Venezuelan crisis is contributing.

Before, I went to Tamales la Pasadita.

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Venezuela's OPEC Problem

OPEC meets on June 22. The Venezuelan government is asking that it denounce sanctions:

“I kindly request solidarity and support from our fellow members,” Venezuelan Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo wrote in a copy of the letter seen by Bloomberg News. OPEC should discuss “the constraining effects of unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States of America, which represent an extraordinary aggression, financially and economically, for our national oil industry’s operations and the stability of the market.”

In particular, Venezuela naturally does not want prices to decrease. Meanwhile, the United States is asking Saudi Arabia to increase production precisely to keep prices down while it sanctions Iran.

But, Saudi Arabia and Russia probably can’t simply allot themselves more production allowances without risking a full-blown revolt from the rest of the group. So, they will likely need to allocate more production to everyone, but even the act of deciding on a formula will also be highly contentious. Still, it will be somewhat of a formality for most members since they can’t increase production anyway.

Nonetheless, Russian output is already increasing. In part, Russia just wants lower prices but it also does not want OPEC's share of output to decrease, which would happen if OPEC went down just as U.S. production continued to increase.

This is pressing for Nicolás Maduro for existential reasons. It is pressing for Donald Trump for political reasons, particularly the midterm elections. This is not new--two years Barack Obama pushed OPEC in the same way, and it ticked Maduro off.

Oil markets think production will indeed increase. This would be bad news for the Venezuelan government, which needs prices to stay as high as possible since output is declining due to incompetence (oh sorry, I meant because of the empire).

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Tim Wendel's Summer of '68

Reading Tim Wendel's Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball, and America, Forever is a reminder that our current era has parallels for awfulness. The book is the story of a year, but it tends to focus a lot on the Tigers and on the World Series they played (and won) against the Cardinals. Wendel doesn't really come to any particular conclusions--he weaves some different sports in though they don't form part of a broader narrative.

The Tigers are an appropriate subject because their run for the championship helped unite the city to an extent, which has experienced riots the year prior. Baseball didn't fix or heal racial divides, but even the players themselves--black or white--felt like they were truly playing for their city. They were misfits, not smooth and athletic like the Cardinals.

If there is any theme, it's that the "real world" touches on and draws from baseball whether the players know it or not. Politicians from both parties wanted to comment on or attend games. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a sports fan per se but of course understood how race relations in major sports impacted public policy. Football was only just taking off at that point, and it's interested how it has overtaken baseball in terms of political importance. Donald Trump is whining about the NFL and to an extent the NBA, but not MLB.

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John Belohlavek's Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies

I read and reviewed John Belohlavek's Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and theMexican-American War for The Americas (2017). Here is my concluding paragraph:

An important contribution of the book is that for the first time it highlights the countless ways women on both sides of the conflict were central to it. For better or worse, the war could not have been waged without them. Women were taking care of business at home, traveling with armies, opening businesses, and working in factories (especially textiles). They were also writing stories, plays, and music. War changed gender roles, though Belohlavek is careful to explain that such transformations were not drastic. Yet the war represented “an incremental step toward advancing greater gender awareness and promoting female involvement within the Mexican and American societies” (243). He succeeded in that effort. Historical studies of U.S.-Latin American relations would benefit from more of this understanding.

If you like histories of U.S.-Latin American relations, you might want to check it out. Women don't tend to have much of a role in those histories so it's a refreshing look.

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The Boston Group in Venezuela

David Smilde and Hugo Pérez-Hernáiz look at some of the important issues in post-election Venezuela. One merits special attention because of how much we can generalize it. It's the sometimes hidden importance of informal diplomatic relationships.

However, the Joshua Holt release shows the potential of cross-national, back-channel networks among politicians (see a stellar series of articles by AP’s Josh Goodman who reported on this development in March, and as the Holt release evolved here and here). 

All parties agree that the key player in the Holt release was Senator Bob Corker’s chief of staff Caleb McCarry. McCarry was a member of the Boston Group, a network of US and Venezuelan legislators who engaged each other back during the 2002-04 period. This group included Maduro, then a legislator, his wife Cilia Flores, as well as then politician and now businessman Pedro Díaz Blum. Díaz Blum brought Lacava into the network which brokered Holt’s release. Senator Orin Hatch of Holt’s home state of Utah was also involved in the dialogue and described his experiences in Time Magazine. 

The entire experience shows the power this type of cross-national back channels can have to broker deals. More broadly, the Boston Group and other efforts to open networks with members of the Maduro government could become fundamental conduits for channeling pressure into a transition back to democracy.

This is why the dismantling of diplomacy these days is so devastating. The Boston Group was a legislative initiative intended to promote dialogue and had bipartisan support from the U.S. Congress and the Venezuelan government. It involved difficult discussions and was careful not to do anything that might jeopardize its existence. From a leaked cable:

In response to a request from Ortega, McCarry explained the mechanics of NED project funding, emphasizing the organization's bipartisan support within the U.S. After debating the topic, the group members agreed to refrain from making any public statements about GOV accusations that the USG is spending millions of dollars to assist opposition groups since it might affect the Boston Group's own existence. In response to McCarry's outline of the proposed Boston Group television project, Rangel promised support and resources.

These below-the-surface interactions, which really need support from the involved governments to work, can pay enormous dividends. I hope the Trump administration is open to such arrangements in the future, but the treatment of the State Department does not currently offer optimism.

In an interview, former Ambassador Patrick Duddy talks about how the Boston Group's connections persisted well after its members ceased meeting.

Shortly after the April 14 election and Maduro’s investiture as president, the foreign ministry announced that former Chavista legislator Calixto Ortega would be heading to Washington to become Venezuela’s new chargé d’affaires. Ortega had been a part of what was once known as “The Boston Group” which was founded in 2000 to try to promote improved understanding between Venezuelan legislators and their U.S. congressional counterparts. 

So this was formed during the Clinton administration and those relationships resolved a problem 18 years later. Are we building anything now to help solve crises in the future?

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Somoza and Ortega: Brothers in Arms

Nicaragua's La Prensa has an interesting story paralleling the end of Anastasio Somoza's regime with Daniel Ortega's current situation.

Los asesinatos de miles de nicaragüenses en manos de la sanguinaria Guardia Nacional eran el pan de cada día. Nicaragua estaba harta. La formación de una junta con intelectuales y empresarios, la llegada de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, un intento de diálogo con el gobierno de Somoza Debayle, la presión de los Frentes guerrilleros en los departamentos del país. Esto se vivió en los últimos años, meses y días de la dictadura somocista.

But there are major differences. The most important is that the Sandinistas were a well-organized fighting force, whereas the current opposition is not. Right now Nicaragua has protests rather than a guerrilla insurgency. Then the assassination of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro threw gasoline on the fire and got the OAS involved.

I think it's more useful to compare Nicaragua today to more recent examples than to its own history. Bolivia in 2003 comes to mind, when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned after government violence and months of protests. But there is also the Venezuela example, where Nicolás Maduro has weathered protests up to this point and remains in power. Overall, this is about internal regime cohesion (esp. the army) as opposed to losing a civil war.

Nonetheless, Nicaraguans do have their own history in mind, a most ironic one given Ortega's role back then and the way he compares to Somoza now.

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Cuba Sonic Thing Gets Bigger and Weirder

We all know about the weird "sonic crisis" with Cuba, which is one of the oddest episodes in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations. Now it's in China too.

But with Americans now exhibiting similar symptoms in Guangzhou, American officials have raised suspicions about whether other countries, perhaps China or Russia, might be to blame.

Back in February I looked at all the players. I had of course included Russia but not China. If this is indeed the same phenomenon, could Russia really be doing it as a third party in two different countries? I don't think there's precedent for this in Russia-China relations, which historically have been rocky. This development doesn't make anything clearer at all.

Meanwhile, scientists can't agree on what's even going on and what's possible. The argument has spilled over into the academic world and academic journals, where it can get really nasty!

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Review of Francisco Cantú's The Line Becomes a River

You're a hard person if Francisco Cantú's The Line Becomes a River (2018) does not move you. It is a memoir of a sensitive Mexican-American who joined the Border Patrol so that he could understand the border situation better, and was traumatized by the experience.

The book is about his struggle to understand it all. Why are people violent? Why don't people care? How can you successfully struggle against the incarceration/deportation machine of the United States government? And when people do care, why? These questions become especially pressing when someone he knows--a husband, a father--is deported and he tries to help him. He does not come up with firm answers but does a wonderful job of describing what he feels and what he sees, from the Border Patrol, to the prison, to the courthouse, and to Mexico.

It's about helplessness, really, but that's the reality of our current immigration system, not to mention the corruption of the Mexican government, which is also a theme. But it is a reminder to keep humanizing migrants as individuals rather than aggregate numbers, trying to re-connect their lives.

Update 6/12/18: I had been unaware of the controversy surrounding the book. I must say I did not get even the slightest sense he was trying to praise the Border Patrol or in any way profit from suffering. I just didn't.

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Podcast Episode 53: AMLO in Perspective

In Episode 53 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I talk with my good friend and colleague JürgenBuchenau, who is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at UNC Charlotte. He is an expert on the Mexican Revolution and has published numerous books on the topic. We talk about Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, who is the front runner in the Mexican presidential race. We look at him from a historical perspective to see how he fits into Mexican political history. Jurgen also shows how he can take any topic and show how the Mexican Revolution is relevant to it--if you ever see him, try it out.

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Mike Pompeo on Venezuela

Here is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's speech to the OAS calling for, among other things, Venezuela's suspension. Unlike his predecessor and his boss, he was smart enough not to use inflammatory language. Instead, he stays away from military references and only emphasizes holding elections. What we can't know is how his private interactions went. The administration has indicated that it wants to twist arms pretty hard on this issue. That can only get you so far and veers toward the petty (e.g. literally "we're having a fun party and you can't come"). With Haiti is openly imperial.

There will be a vote today and the ultimate test will be whether the needle moves at all, especially with Caribbean countries. My hunch is that it won't move a lot--chances are pretty good that Haiti ultimately gives in, but there are plenty of Caribbean states who either still get a bit of oil and/or who have lingering positive feelings about Hugo Chávez, if not Nicolás Maduro.

Update (6/7/18): The vote was 19-4, with 11 abstentions, to open the door for an eventual vote on expulsion, which would require 24 in favor. Getting 11 abstentions into 5 more "yes" votes would not be simple. Nonetheless, Nicaragua is an abstention so even some hardcore supporters shifted.

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Minor League Migrants and Remittances

I've written about migrants and remittances more times than I can count.* But we don't tend to think of remittances when it comes to baseball. You hear about the players from Latin America who sign big contracts but not so much about the guys in the minor leagues. In this vein, Patrick Cusick has a good post at East Village Times, a site focusing on San Diego sports, especially baseball (East Village is the area where Petco Park is). He writes about Latin American players on the Lake Elsinore Storm, the Padres' A-level minor league team.

What caught my eye in particular was a former player who now works with the team say that since players don't know English and want to send money home, sometimes you might eat less. It's such an ordeal to order in an unfamiliar language.

“You can go to a city, and not be familiar with what they have. So sometimes, you don’t eat because it’s easier,” Pagan revealed. “I wouldn’t eat very well, so I would send that money to my family because it would help them much more.” Pagan would continue, “We would wait for the meal money and send it to our families because it was like an advance and it was easier than having those conversations.”
 Pagan estimates that nearly 80 percent of most Latin American player’s paychecks are going back to their families. Granted, some players have been fortunate enough to see big bonuses on signing day, but that is not the norm. For every big bonus given out by a team, there are many other players signed for much less. That stress can take a toll on a person, let alone a player outside of their comfort zone that is expected to save a franchise.

The vast majority of players will not hit the big contract. Players in the minors earn very little and Latin American immigrants are scraping by to send remittances back, just the same as immigrants in other occupations. Baseball seems glamorous but the money is bad in the minors. Add culture shock and language barriers and it's rough.

*This is not true. I could actually count if I wanted to.

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US Policy and Human Rights in Colombia

Paul Angelo, who worked with the Colombian military on Plan Colombia, has a piece up at Global Americans about the scope of the Colombian military's murder of civilians. His argument is that the United States has a positive role to play in implementing the peace agreement but we cannot ignore the need for accountability.

This is a much needed counterweight. James Stavridis, former head of SouthCom, recently had an op-ed at Bloomberg with the rah-rah version of U.S. policy toward Colombia. He does not mention human rights at all. No homicides, no displaced people, no accountability, nothing.

The lessons of Colombia would stand America in good stead as we consider our level of support in Syria, for example. Or how we move forward in Afghanistan.

If you completely ignore human rights, then you will create new problems. Blindly copying Colombia in the Middle East is just dangerous.

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Venezuela From The Left

This is fascinating in its own way. An article in Monthly Review tries to look at the food crisis in Venezuela in a more people-centered and nuanced way. "Nuance" turns out to be largely a combination of inaccuracies, omissions, and odd logic.

For example it begins with:

[t]he three national elections of 2017 demonstrated a strong show of support for the continuation of the revolution under its current leadership. 

To put it mildly, this is difficult to support empirically given the authoritarian moves of the government.

The authors argue that food lines are not nearly as bad as the international press claims because there are at least some things left on the shelves.

For while precooked corn flour has gone missing, corn-based porridge has remained available; milk powder disappeared from the shelves, but fresh dairy products like cheeses can still be found, and so on.

The authors argue that an involuntary diet shift is a positive thing--foodies would be jealous (I am not making that up. It is in there). And of course the source of the shortages is not the Venezuelan government but the United States by "using the revolutionary potential of the masses to frighten the middle class." There are references to "elites" but not much recognition that the government and elites are often one and the same--the article suggests that such elites are just agribusiness leaders rather than Chavistas lining their pockets. There is no discussion about policy making, with a particularly glaring omission of any reference to currency controls.

A more nuanced analysis would start with two assertions. First, first shortages are entirely bad under all circumstances. Second, the government of a given country is primarily responsible for food shortages. Don't rationalize food shortages and people waiting in lines.

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Teresa Solana's A Not So Perfect Crime

Teresa Solana is a Spanish mystery novelist whose book was translated from the original Catalan. A Not So Perfect Crime takes place in Barcelona and, like Alicia Giménez Bartlett's novel, look at the upper class, though in this case it is also the political class. The background is also a little more outlandish, as there are twin (but not identical) brothers but one is something of a lovable shyster who brings his brother into an occasionally lucrative detective practice, even while they claim to the world that they are just close friends rather than brothers. It borders on too cute but it does work.

The tone is lighthearted but the more serious issue of social class is pervasive. There is north of Diagonal and south, like the proverbial train tracks. Class and status is central to the reasons why so many people hate the murdered woman, who was the wife of a prominent (and wealthy) Catalan politician. Class is also central to the twist of plot at the end.

It was a good read, perhaps not quite as good as Giménez Bartlett, and particularly good if you want the Barcelona backdrop.

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Race 5: King Tiger 5K

As part of my ongoing year of running (see my initial post here) I did the King Tiger 5K not too far from where I live. It is a hilly course so I was slower than the Barcelona 5K last week but I still got just under an 8 minute mile pace. Fortunately it was not nearly a humid as I thought it might be.

My wife got an award for 5th female overall and my 10 year daughter for third in her age group. We ran this 10 years ago and had all three kids in baby joggers.

Next up: a 4 miler on July 4.

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Latino Voters in Charlotte

I was interviewed for Spectrum, a local TV news station, about Latino turnout in last month's primary election. The upshot is that registration and turnout jumped in Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte is). It's still small, but moving upward.

Some quick numbers:

May 8, 2018 midterm election: 1.5% of voters in Mecklenburg County were Latino versus 0.64% in the 2014 midterm election

As of today, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections 4.2% of all voters in Mecklenburg County are Latino versus 3.8% for the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, as of today 2.7% of NC voters are Latino.

Mecklenburg County is more urban and votes more Democratic, which makes it more likely to have a greater share of Latino voters. Both the party itself and independent activists have made strides to register voters and get them to the polls. In NC as a whole, 29% of the Latino population is registered, whereas it is 32% in Mecklenburg County.

So this cohort is still a "sleeping giant" but some important advances have been made.

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Summing Up Post-Election Venezuela

With some help from Hugo Pérez-Hernáiz, David Smilde writes up a summary of some recent analyses of the post-election situation in Venezuela. I feel a little funny writing a summary of a summary, but it would basically be the following:

High abstention rates, which included Chavistas, weaken Nicolás Maduro, but do not stop him. The opposition needs to get its act together, and unanimity about election fraud could (finally!) provide a first step.

In short, things will limp along. About two weeks ago I wrote:

The most likely outcome is more poverty, more blustering, more emigration, more suffering and disease. Regime insiders will get rich. Maybe the military becomes discontent enough to force change but there is no sign of that now.

At least from what we can see, things have ground to a halt. At this point, the biggest danger to the government is a united opposition. This is more important than sanctions or regional response. One continuing problem is actually uniting around fraud--Henri Falcon called foul on elections but now is asking for...more elections. That is sure to keep the opposition fractured for the time being.

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Blacks in Argentina

Erika Edwards is a colleague of mine in the History department here at UNC Charlotte. She works on Argentine history and has a great post at the Urban History Association blog about the disappearance of the black population. Argentina had a policy--common elsewhere as well--of whitening (blanqueamiento).

In effect, Sarmiento, and similar intellectuals joined the larger Latin American process of blanqueamiento, or whitening. Blanqueamiento serves as an operative word to describe the late-nineteenth-century state-led modernization process. Like Argentina, many other Latin American countries looked to European immigrants as the way to bring civilization. Historians have argued that this ideological erasure is one of the main reasons for the disappearance of people who identified as black in Argentina.

Go check out the whole thing.

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Nicaragua in Flames

Back in October 2016 I wrote a post at Global Americans on Daniel Ortega, comparing him to Richard Nixon in terms of being too paranoid and going too far to ensure a victory that would have come anyway.

There really is no doubt that Ortega will win in November. The broader question is whether the coalition that supports him—which transcends ideology—will stand with him as political power in the country devolves almost entirely to him and his family. As Richard Nixon once famously said, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” Ortega appears to agree, and we can only wait to determine whether the same hubris and paranoia has the same disastrous outcome in the long term for Nicaragua’s Nixon.

And the answer increasingly appears to be no. "Hubris and paranoia" are in full view as Ortega's government supporters attacked Mother's Day protesters even while his daughter was scheduled to attend "Miami Fashion Week." Amnesty International wrote a scathing report about government repression.

This doesn't automatically mean he's finished. Indeed, Ortega's chameleon changes are legendary. I become a broken record* with this observation, but we don't know the attitude of the military beyond the fact that it does not want to suppress protests. This is why civilian supporters are engaged in the repression, which also allows Ortega some deniability (which TeleSur swallows whole and spits back to its audience).

I don't know how long he will remain in power, but I can say he is making mistake after mistake. There was no reason to cheat so much to win in 2016, and there was no reason to shove damaging pension reform down the country's throat, and there is no reason to engage in such high levels of repression. The consummate political strategist is losing his touch.

*BTW, do people under the age of, say, 35 still use this phrase and know what it means?

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Mexico Presidential Poll Update

The Americas Society/Council of the Americas has a nice poll tracker for Mexico that Carin Zissis keeps updating. You can see five different major polls and how they've changed over time. Here is the latest on intention to vote for AMLO and the difference between him and Ricardo Anaya, the PAN candidate who is second in every poll.

Consulta Mitofsky: AMLO 32.6%, up 12.1 (20% don't know/don't respond)
El Financiero: AMLO 46%, up 20 (does not include 38% who were undecided)
Parametría: AMLO 39%, up 14 (2% none or don't know)
Reforma: AMLO 52%, up 26 (does not include 17-18% don't know)
Buendía y Laredo: AMLO 32%, up 6 (20% don't know/no response)

It is worth noting that the share saying they plan to vote for AMLO has increased over time, though at the same time the number of Mexicans who either haven't decided or don't want to say is still sizable. We can speculate on where those voters will go (some have even analyzed Google searches) but we just don't really know. And we don't know the impact of election meddling, either from within or outside the country.

As a reminder, there is no runoff in Mexican presidential elections. Plurality wins: Enrique Peña Nieto only won with 38.2% in 2012, for example). So with one month to go, AMLO is in the driver's seat.

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, and Latin America

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson traveled to Latin America (which itself was a circus) and has quite the op-ed describing it. He has two main arguments. The first is that despite the occasional problem with cannibalism, Britain has a long shared history with Latin America. The second is that the European Union distracted Britain from its proper relationship with the region.

Did you know – I bet you did not – that thanks to mining interests the UK is the second biggest global investor in Peru? The very boundaries of Peru were once mapped by Col PH Fawcett (identified by my mother as a distant relative), who later disappeared, presumed eaten. 

In spite of this difficult experience, the people of the region retain, as one of our excellent ambassadors put it, a keen and growing appetite for all things British. 

So Latin America gets pulled into the Brexit debate. This is not a compelling argument. It is indeed true that when you hear about extra-hemispheric trading partners, Britain is not often mentioned. However, the EU is. Britain could easily increase its presence in Latin America within the EU, and in fact it might actually be easier because so much work has already been done.

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India Will Ignore US Sanctions Against Venezuela

India, which for years has been talking about deepening trade relations with Latin America, says it will ignore U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.

But [Foreign Minister] Swaraj said New Delhi did not believe in "reactionary" policies and would not be dictated to by other countries.
 "We don't make our foreign policy under pressure from other countries," she told a news conference.
 "We believe in UN sanctions but not in country-specific sanctions."

At the same time, India will not use the Petro (actually, who will?) and the Venezuelan government has already said it will accept rupees.

Of course, this is a key problem with unilateral sanctions. If you don't have the support of other countries with large economies, then they can ease the pressure. This doesn't mean Venezuela won't hurt, because it will. But it reduces the chances that the economic pain will be sufficient to overthrow the government.

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Separatism in Catalunya

I understood the basics of the Catalunya controversy before going to Barcelona, though I had not followed it closely. Once there, we saw that politics becomes very public. Many people hung the Catalan independence flag (differentiated from the regular Catalan flag by its star) from their apartment balconies.

Other pro-independence residents put up variations on a yellow ribbon, signifying support for the independence leaders who were put in prison. In the Gothic Quarter there were even English-language versions:

By contrast, in the wealthier northern part of the city, like La Bonanova, we saw no flags at all. I don't know the socio-economic or geographical breakdown of support for independence, though my impression had been that it was rather jumbled (as is ideology). In a southern part of the city I noticed there were a lot more Spanish flags, whereas most elsewhere those were not flown at all.

We had a perfect example of how politics is part of everyday public life at a Catalan restaurant in Barcelona. The waiter brought a bottle of Catalan wine and even a printout of a map of Catalunya to show us exactly where the grapes were grown. He labeled the areas around Catalunya as France, Mediterranean, and Spain. In other words, as far as he was concerned we were not in Spain.

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Race 4: Guardia Urbana Diagonal 5K

I am in Barcelona for the Latin American Studies Association conference, and my wife and I decided to find a 5K to run. Neither of us had ever done a race outside the United States. The Guardia Urbana Diagonal was incredible. It was capped at 15,000, which is massive, and although I don't know the final count I can say there was a ton of people. It is unique because it goes on Avenida Diagonal, which is perfectly straight and flat, even slightly downhill. I've never run straight that far before and it helped with speed, as I got down to a 7:39/mile pace, perhaps my best ever.

Quick thoughts about this versus a race inside the U.S. There's no food--people are not wolfing things down after the race. There is just water at the end. For the 5K they did not bother with water stops (and indeed, why bother?). There was water right after the fork for people running the 10K, which was most--we knew we'd be up late the night before and did not want to go that far. On the other hand, we saw no jogger strollers at all, and no kids, which stood out given the short distance and the many casual/slow runners. Last point: it was cheap compared to U.S. 5Ks, just 14 euros (about $16) compared to a minimum of $25 in the U.S. The city heavily subsidized it.

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Podcast Episode 52: Security in Latin America

In Episode 52 of Understanding Latin American Politics: The Podcast, I did something different. I organized and chaired a round table on security in Latin America, which I recorded with my iPhone. This is now high tech but it worked out OK. The participants were Brian Fonseca, Orlando Pérez, Jonathan Rosen, and Kristina Mani. It's podcasting on the fly!

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Alicia Giménez Bartlett's Prime Time Suspect

Alicia Giménez-Bartlett's Prime Time Suspect is a murder mystery set in Barcelona, with police inspector Petra Delicado. This is part of a series, some of which has been translated into English. She and her police partner go into the sordid world of celebrities and tabloids in Barcelona and Madrid.

I liked it a lot, as there is great interplay between the two characters, ruminating on solitude, marriage, and relationships while investigating. There is even discussion of women in the police force as they trace a string of related murders. Their boss is a bit of stereotype of the screaming Chief Inspector, but the characters interact well.

I bought it because I am in Barcelona now for the Latin American Studies Association conference, so it's fun seeing the characters moving around where I've been visiting.

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Venezuela Has No Path Forward

The official results according to the Consejo Nacional Electoral:

Nicolás Maduro: 67.7%
Henri Falcon: 21.2%
Javier Alejandro Bertucci: 15.9%
Reinaldo José Quijada Cerdone: 0.4%
Turnout: 46.1%

Turnout in the 2013 presidential election was about 80%. Reporters yesterday showed a lot of empty polling places in Caracas, as many disillusioned Venezuelans stayed home.

What now? Well, nothing. The results came quickly, so there was no obvious sign of internal discontent or military rumblings. The core of the regime is holding up so there will be no change. Maduro clearly has no plans--his many speeches talk of transformations and revolutions that have no form or substance. The economy is crashing and he is mostly just watching it, spending reserves as he sinks more into a morass of debt. Oil production has been falling for a long time and although increasing prices (which may go up more thanks to Trump's Venezuela policy) give him a lifeline, they can only take him so far.

If elections do not function democratically (Geoff Ramsey at WOLA has a nice summary of all the problems), the regime is reasonably united while the opposition is not, the military is either loyal or deserting, and dialogue achieves nothing, then there is little to be done. The certain response is enhanced sanctions, but they will mostly immiserate the Venezuelan population.

The most likely outcome is more poverty, more blustering, more emigration, more suffering and disease. Regime insiders will get rich. Maybe the military becomes discontent enough to force change but there is no sign of that now.

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Latin American Agency

Agency is an issue I've come back to regularly over the years, and which I preach in my U.S.-Latin American Relations course. Given the power and influence of the United States, combined with a history of intervention, it becomes tempting to view Latin American politics as always reacting and responding to the United States.

We need to resist that temptation.

For example, in this news article by Alfredo Corchado, several analysts argue that Donald Trump is a driving force of support for AMLO in the Mexican election. Patrick Iber is one person who pushes back on that:

Patrick Iber, assistant professor of Latin American history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said Lopez Obrador is "drawing on a strong tradition in Mexican foreign policy of respect for the sovereignty of the internal affairs of other nations.... If AMLO is elected, some will say he, like Trump, fits in to the global rise of 'populism.' Others will say he was elected as a reaction against Trump's rhetoric of wall-building and Mexican criminality. But neither will be all that accurate: AMLO is not new to the Mexican scene, nor is he all that much more popular than he was twelve years ago. Support for him has much more to do with the problems of previous Mexican administrations than it does with anything happening in the United States."

Exactly. Mexicans are responding to the problematic and corrupt history of the PRI and the failure of the PAN to generate support. AMLO would likely be doing well even if Barack Obama were still president.

The question of agency always hangs over Venezuela, where apologists deny a lot of Venezuelan agency. Instead, Venezuelan polarization is framed by U.S. policy. I totally agree that Trump's policies are not productive, but the Venezuelan government is responsible for what's going on. Venezuelan misery predated Donald Trump and would still be there no matter who was president in the U.S.

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Press Freedom in Ecuador

After years of harassment and intimidation, journalists in Ecuador are seeing a positive change under Lenín Moreno.

Ecuadorian investigative journalist Daniela Aguilar de la Torre discussed what it means to have Moreno as president. 

“Recently, there has been more of a movement toward freedom of the press,” Aguilar said. “But there is still an anti-press freedom law. It is difficult to report on public officials, especially in small cities, where the same censorship that existed in the Correa regime is still maintained." 

Under President Rafael Correa, journalists faced 10 years of targeted attacks with the aid of the communications law. Correa sued journalists and media outlets and would verbally attack newspapers on his live TV show every Saturday. These lawsuits created financial strain on outlets that turned to self-censorship as a way to stop future claims. 

Attacks on the media constitute one of the biggest threats to democracy the world collectively faces, including the United States, where the President of the United States routinely makes wild and inaccurate accusations against news agencies that dare to question him.

Coincidentally, Maxwell Cameron just published an article in Latin American Politics & Society on defective democracies in the Andes. He makes the case that Moreno's election and break with Rafael Correa means that we cannot say Ecuador is an electoral authoritarian system, which it appeared to be heading toward under Correa.

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Larry Tye's Satchel

For a long time I had meant to read a biography of Satchel Paige, who I didn't know much of substance about. Larry Tye's Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend did not disappoint. It showed what a heroic and tragic figure he was, and how important for the game.

Of course, the book is framed by the Jim Crow South and how Satchel navigated it. Spurned later by Jackie Robinson, Satchel felt he should get more credit for being at the forefront of integration, actually playing with whites in games and getting the respect of fellow barnstormers Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller, both white baseball legends. He played everywhere and for anyone who would pay him, pitching constantly and often drawing white crowds. At the same time, like all African American players he had to find safe houses to sleep in and black restaurants to eat in. In many respects, he and other Negro League stars paved the way for Jackie.

He chased money constantly and Tye is careful to show how that sometimes was unethical (like skipping contracts) but that most often it was Satchel showing that he was worth money and therefore wasn't going to be pushed around because of his skin color. He made tons of money in his career, though he squandered most of it. Later in life the chasing became sad, as he was invited to hotels and ordered room service and liquor to bring home because he was out of cash.

His family life was complicated and also sometimes terrible--he was married to two women at one time at one point and one of them eventually committed suicide. He left a trail of women and at least one child he never knew. He had a lot of children and tended to be uneven in raising them. His third wife stayed with him until the end, when his health and spirits failed him.

The baseball part is incredible. He pitched as an old man in the majors and did pretty well. As an MLB rookie in his 40s he still threw bullets. We have few records because no one recorded the vast majority of his games, but he was one of the best pitchers ever. Tye captures him well.

BTW, you can listen to Tye talk about the book on the excellent Baseball by the Book podcast.

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Quitting And Diplomacy in US-Mexico Relations

Mexico's Minister of the Economy, Ildefonso Guajardo, gave an interview to talk about the NAFTA negotiations. Part of it was to say there would not be an agreement before Thursday as Paul Ryan demanded if he was going to be able to get Congress to vote on it this year.

But another part of it is deeper and more indicative of the Trump administration's entire approach to negotiations anywhere in the world. Guajardo was unhappy about the U.S. insistence on a sunset clause, through which any of the countries could simply pull out after a five year period. His point was that you cannot ask businesses to change their models when they have only a five year guarantee of it functioning.

The idea of quitting agreements seems now to be a hallmark of the administration, but it does not offer anything concrete in their place. The Iran deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are of course two other major examples. With the TPP, Trump suddenly did a semi about-face that just left everyone more confused. The administration claimed it had a deal with Brazil on tariffs, but Brazil disagreed.

If you cannot commit to anything and in fact try to strike deals that allow you to leave them quickly, then you foster uncertainty and distrust. Why would North Korea accept any binding deal with the United States after watching it pull out of the Iran deal? There is no reason for North Korea to conceded anything. At this point the United States is acting like it does not trust its own negotiations so that it will not commit to sticking to them.

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Why Calling For A Venezuelan Coup Is A Bad Idea

Calls in the U.S., both within and outside the government, for a coup in Venezuela are increasing and pretty much mainstream. The most recent is Roger Noriega in The New York Times. I've written before that this is a bad idea. Brian Fonseca writes in Foreign Policy about why it would be damage U.S. security interests:

The U.S. officials praising the prospect of a military takeover seem to disregard the fact that U.S.-Venezuelan military relations are virtually nonexistent today. U.S. defense contacts with Venezuela declined sharply in the years following the rise of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 1999. Meanwhile, the Russians, Chinese, and Cubans have replaced the United States as the primary sources of financial, technical, and material support to the Venezuelan military. The mere threat of a coup in Venezuela could be enough to rally the military around hard-liners and compel U.S. rivals to consider their preferred alternatives to the Maduro regime as collapse becomes imminent. Rivals with economic, political, and geostrategic interests in Venezuela, such as Russia and China, are far better positioned than the United States to influence the Venezuelan military during any transition.

This is a point no one has been making. The United States has no influence over the Venezuelan military and can only guess about what its leadership thinks (Noriega talks vaguely of talking to "regime insiders," which we should dismiss along with all other anonymous claims). Russians and Cubans in particular have been there for years (whereas China's influence is financial rather than military).

Venezuela is suffering but doing dumb things can make the situation worse than the status quo. As President Obama said several years ago with regard to foreign policy, "Don't do stupid shit." In Latin America, the U.S. government seems almost addicted to doing so.

BTW, Brian is going to be on a roundtable on security I organized for the Latin American Studies Association conference next week if you are interested in joining us.

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India Optimizes Engagement By Reducing The Deficit, Or Something Like That

The Vice President of India will be visiting three Latin American countries in an effort to boost trade ties. Here are his inspiring words.

"India's sub-optimal engagement with these three countries is to a large extent due to high-level contact deficit."

This is semi-robotic in tone. Anyway, he is going to better optimize engagement by reducing the deficit. Now, which three countries will be so optimized? First, the criteria.

The vice president explained that the three Latin American countries offered significant opportunities for India given their high level of engagement with the US and the other North and South American economies through regional arrangements and free trade agreements, besides being logistic and financial hubs in the region.

In short, you choose countries not because they are important per se, but rather because they are conduits to something else. This finally means the choices make sense because otherwise they would be head scratchers: Guatemala, Panama, and Peru. These are not what you call powerhouses, but the first two offer CAFTA connection and the latter MERCOSUR. Panama itself is a financial center through which all kinds of money flows. Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela welcomed his country's role as doorway.

"Panama has put its geographical position at India's disposal to become its gate to the rest of the region, as a hub for logistics and air connectivity," Varela said during a joint press conference with Naidu, Efe reported.

This is quite different from China's approach, which is to swoop in and fill the vacuum left by the United States. India is trying to leverage the remaining U.S. ties rather than fill the void. Either way, Latin American leaders are nervous about the U.S. pulling out of the region and are eager for new global partners, or for the renewal of past ones.

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Iran Sanctions Are Great for Nicolas Maduro

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the first bank to say that Iran sanctions raise the risk of oil going back to $100/barrel. Not for the first time, poorly conceived U.S. policy in the Middle East gives a big boost to an adversarial government in Latin America. George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was a godsend to Hugo Chávez, who built his entire economic policy on the skyrocketing price of oil that ensued.

It's no panacea for a government awash in corruption, debt, and mismanagement. But it can garner much needed resources (in euros or even in yuan maybe, I don't know) to at least stanch the immediate bleeding.

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Latin American Politics Links

Here are some things for you to read:

• Both Boz and Mike Allison look at the accusation that CICIG is a Russian plot in Guatemala. I don't know what game Marco Rubio is playing here, but it's bad for Guatemalan democracy. CICIG was one of the few bright spots and now it's the target of crazy conspiracy theories.
• Adam Isacson has a whole bunch of stuff to say about the Colombian peace process. He covers incompetence, corruption, and discrimination, but other than that everything is rosy.
• Francisco Toro reminds us that the Venezuelan opposition is #@@$&ing clueless. The election will therefore be a disaster.
• Royce Murray at Immigration Impact writes about the horrible story of the State Department telling DHS in strong language not to end TPS for El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti because of how destabilizing it would be. People's lives are not considered particularly important.
• Simeon Tegel writes at Americas Quarterly about how the Peruvian left is in disarray. Some crazy people actually want Abimael Guzmán freed. Somehow this is framed in terms of reconciliation. 

Next time maybe I'll try to find good news.

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Mike Pence Tells Latin American Leaders We Need Hardline CIA Director

Mike Pence gave a speech to the OAS a few days ago and most media attention was on his call for suspending the Venezuelan presidential election and for sanctioning three more Venezuelan officials. I would like to focus on something else that came earlier in the speech (see the full text here). In a speech to Latin American leaders, who are suspicious of U.S. motives and aware of a troubled history of intervention, the Vice President of the United States started talking about the need to confirm a hardliner as Director of the CIA.

And that’s why it’s crucial, as I gather before you today, to note that it’s crucial that the United States Senate confirm President Trump’s nominee to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel. 

Gina Haspel — who I’ve come to know personally — is a leader of unparalleled experience in the Central Intelligence Agency.  She’s dedicated her life to protecting our nation.  And when confirmed, Gina Haspel will be the first director to have spent her career serving in the CIA, and she’s be the first woman to fill that critical position.  She has the confidence of the President and our entire team.  And as the President said earlier today, she’s not only a highly respected nominee but she is among the most qualified that will ever serve in that role. 

Sadly, some are still playing politics with her nomination, even though her bipartisan support has been overwhelming.  As I speak to you today, Gina Haspel enjoys the support of former CIA directors from past administrations representing both political parties, including Leon Panetta, John Brennan, and Michael Hayden.  And today, we call on the United States Senate to put the safety and security of the American people first and confirm Gina Haspel as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency as soon as possible.

What genius stuck that in there? First of all, don't ever talk about the CIA in an OAS speech. Further, in a region with a history of U.S.-supported torture, he is talking to these leaders about someone who ran a black-site prison where torture was employed! I wonder what they were thinking when they heard this. Quite possibly about how useful it would be to start learning Chinese.

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Venezuela Military Desertions

Bloomberg  has a story about the rising number of soldiers deserting from the Venezuelan military.

But the level of desertion from the Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana has grown exponentially in the last year, especially among troops at lower ranks. At least 10,000 soldiers have asked to retire, Control Ciudadano’s San Miguel said in March.

There's not much on this in Spanish but you can get bits and pieces from Twitter.

This strikes me as potentially quite important. The Maduro government needs the military to keep it propped up. The biggest threat to him is military discontent, just as Hugo Chávez own discontent led him to rebel against his superiors in 1992. But to borrow from Albert Hirschman, if soldiers choose exit (or of course loyalty) over voice, then that works to Maduro's advantage, or at least not to his detriment.

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Baseball Uniforms and U.S.-Mexican Relations

Regular readers know I am a big baseball fan and particularly a fan of the San Diego Padres, which I've followed since I was tiny. This past weekend they played a series in Monterrey, Mexico. I was listening to the radio broadcast of the game yesterday and heard a quick but interesting exchange between announcers Jesse Agler and Ted Leitner about the Padres uniforms. On home Sundays the Padres normally wear camouflage-style jerseys as a way to honor the large military presence in San Diego. I am not a fan of this practice, because while I am happy to honor that presence in some manner, the militaristic tone mixed with baseball bothers me. But we can set that aside for now.

Jesse Agler had gotten a question about why the Padres didn't have on those uniforms since it was a Sunday and they were considered the home team (even though they were in Mexico). The answer, which he also posted on Twitter, was smart and true--it is a bad idea to have such a militaristic uniform in a foreign country. Kudos to both announcers for emphasizing that it's even worse right now because U.S.-Mexican relations are strained, and kudos to Ted for taking that a step further and lamenting how we've alienated our close ally. He let that one drop and then said he should stop with the politics.

These were smart answers and I would've loved it had they just quickly added that the United States has invaded Mexico multiple times and even taken a large chunk of it, which makes the military emphasis exponentially more problematic.

Lastly, MLB is consciously trying to market the game globally. The U.S. use of force abroad is not popular and the militaristic uniforms do MLB no favors as it tries to encourage more foreign interest.

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Shadow Venezuelan Supreme Court

OAS chief Luis Almagro recognized the decision of the exiled shadow Venezuelan Supreme Court to suspend the presidency of Nicolás Maduro. My first reaction is that this is pretty meaningless--you can call yourself whatever you want and make any decision you want but without any legitimacy or power it doesn't matter. I don't think Almagro has the support or stature to increase that legitimacy.

Some have argued that in conjunction with a shadow legislature it could gain legitimacy, especially by reducing international support for the government and reassuring people that regime change would not mean a political vacuum. I don't feel particularly convinced.

Further, having this shadow body meet and emit a decision in Miami is terrible optics. It reinforces the easily made argument that all such actions are being directed by the United States government and ideologically extreme exiles.

Finally, the opposition has no leader, which means that if it were to take power we have no idea who would be president. Therefore we also have no idea who that person would want in the Supreme Court. Chances that the choices would coincide with the shadow version aren't so high.

If am missing something here, feel free to let me know.

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The Impact of Mexicans Voting Abroad

The Christian Science Monitor has a piece on Mexicans voting abroad, an issue that has been getting more coverage. All of these pieces are speculative. Simply in terms of numbers, voters abroad "could" have a big impact. Recent history casts some doubt on this.

If we look back at the 2012 presidential election, 40,714 voted out of only 59,115 registered, which is 69%. The results themselves were interesting:

Josefina Vázquez Mota 42.17%
AMLO 39%
Enrique Peña Nieto 15.62%

This is a heterogeneous group but in general it is bad news for the PRI.

For the 2006 election, 40,876 were registered and 32,621 voted, which is 79.8%. The PRI won 4.17%, the PAN won 58.29% and AMLO 34%.

On the face of it, then, we should expect a continued gradual rise in voting abroad but no sudden shift. Here is one counterargument:

But a recent reform allowing voters to renew their required IDs at Mexican Consulates and register to vote online could be a game-changer in this year’s race. As of April, more than half a million voter IDs have been delivered to Mexicans abroad, and close to 670,000 requests for IDs have been made.

Could be, but you still have to mail your ballot in. Either way, based on past results the PRI will be hurt. If this really surges, then the PRI is just hurt worse.

Right now, polls have AMLO at 47.8%, Ricardo Anaya at 29.9%, and José Antonio Meade at 16.7%. We should expect the vote abroad to help give Anaya a but of a boost but AMLO will still be strong.

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Can Evo Let Go?

Really interesting article in Americas Quarterly about discontent among Evo Morales supporters about his insistence on staying in office. Bolivians are grateful to how he has changed the country but that is not the same as wanting him in power forever.

Yet despite these achievements, many in El Alto are turning against the president — specifically, his efforts to seek an unprecedented fourth term in office. In February, El Alto residents joined in protests demanding that Morales respect a 2016 referendum in which voters rejected changing the constitution to do away with term limits. Many carried signs declaring “No means no” and “Respect my vote.”

Morales has achieved a lot. He could well be the most successful president in the country's unstable history. He has empowered the indigenous population, stabilized the economy with prudent policies, and reduced inequality.

At this point his legacy hinges on whether he can stomach standing down democratically or whether he clings to power. Unfortunately, the examples in Colombia and Ecuador may give him pause. In both cases, presidents gave up on the possibility of staying in office but anointed a successor who presumably would walk in their footsteps. That did not happen in either case, where the new presidents went aggressively in the opposite direction, fostering deep, personal, and Twitterized splits.

Ultimately, though, Evo Morales is the main obstacle to his own legacy. Gradually increasing authoritarianism to keep yourself in power does not tend to work out well. You alienate your own supporters and undermine your own cause. Presidents cannot stand the idea of having someone from the other side of the ideological spectrum taking over through an election, but that's just how democracy work.s

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