The Latin American Report # 276

Hello, hivers. These last few days have been quite hectic, including, to top it off, that I forgot my laptop charging cable when I came to eastern Cuba last week to visit my family. Yesterday my wife sent me the cable, so now I can get my laptop back up and running and return to work. This is to the extent that the frequent and disturbing blackouts that plague the country—six hours of electricity and six hours of blackout, in a fatal never-ending cycle—allow it.

We are online in time for Venezuela's elections next Sunday, the event that will set the regional agenda in the second half of the year. The political climate there is unintelligible at times. While it is clear that Chavismo faces these elections in very low hours, its electoral bases must not have shrunk as suggested by the polls that the mainstream media tends to raise, which show the opposition candidate winning by a landslide over Maduro. The latter received a rather strong warning from Lula about his potential post-electoral behavior.

_{Maria Corina Machado has set the opposition agenda without being in the ballot (source).}

The Bolivarian socialism has undermined key aspects of the economy such as the critical oil industry, which incidentally has had adverse environmental effects on activities such as fishing in certain natural areas. The political management of the opposition by the Miraflores palace has also been chaotic, although we know that the opposition bench is extremely bad and anti-national. Since yesterday, fresh blockades of news sites that tend to be critical of Chavism are being denounced.

That is: officialism is running more against the result of its own mistakes and the accumulation of socioeconomic damages in the population than against a competent rival. Behind it all is the impact of Washington's policy, which has sought to force Caracas to produce consensus with the opposition in exchange for a relaxation of its sanctions, clouding the political ecosystem and feeding the most hostile side of chavismo.

The usual questions are in the air: Will the elections be sound and transparent? Is Maduro ready to relinquish power if he loses? If the opposite turns out to be true, will the opposition know how to lose in favor of calm and social tranquility?

Ten Guatemalan families without proper grief

The families of ten Guatemalans who last November crossed into the violent Mexican state of Chiapas to sell poultry are demanding both the Mexican government and their own to intensify their search. They have never been heard from again. Only the memory and the struggle of their relatives mean that they have not been forgotten, ground up forever by the bloody factory of organized crime in Mexico, which seems to have processed them with the slovenliness of someone who disposes of insects. "The Mexican state authorities have not carried out a diligent investigation to find the whereabouts of our relatives", complained a Guatemalan family member. Chiapas is a 24-hour cemetery, also for Guatemalans.

_Source

And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.