In today’s edition:
Peru - Congress votes against Vizcarra’s cabinet
Colombia - Uribe’s arrest creates new political challenges for Duque
Mexico - AMLO approval steady
Ecuador - Every politician is unpopular; Moreno has 8% approval
Peru - Congress votes against Vizcarra’s cabinet
The Peruvian Congress passed a no confidence vote against Pedro Cateriano, President Vizcarra’s choice for cabinet chief. The vote will force Cateriano to resign and the president to reshuffle the cabinet yet again.
The opposition to Vizcarra’s cabinet can be separated into micro and macro level political reasons. At the micro level, some legislators disagreed with his choice for education minister, others wanted to express opposition to his mining plans, some wanted a different direction on health and coronavirus issues. Each of these individual issues matters to the legislators who expressed them. The possibility that these micro level issues added up to a cabinet rejection suggests that Vizcarra may be slacking on some of the details of governing.
At the big picture level, Vizcarra has been feuding with the Congress over anti-corruption reforms. The Congress passed a reform that would remove immunity from both the presidency and the legislators. Vizcarra says that removing presidential immunity is a backdoor way to ensure the entire reform package will be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Vizcarra is correct, even if that position also appears incredibly beneficial for the president himself. As a group, many in the Congress did not appreciate Vizcarra criticizing their reform the way he did.
The other big picture issue is the long term battle between the presidency and the Congress that Vizcarra appears to be winning. Even as Peru’s president retains majority support in the country, the no-confidence vote was a way for the recently elected Congress to demonstrate that they aren’t going to be a rubber stamp for the president who will be leaving office next year.
The short term damage is limited. Vizcarra is popular enough to accept the setback, name another cabinet, and criticize the Congress for slowing him down in the middle of a national emergency. The vote does warn Vizcarra that the new Congress could disrupt his agenda further in the coming months. However, for a president who relishes and benefits from political fights, that may just encourage Vizcarra to push forward with the clash.
Colombia - Uribe’s arrest creates new political challenges for Duque
Former President Uribe announced that he has been placed under house arrest, accused of witness tampering in a long running dispute about his alleged ties to paramilitaries and drug traffickers.
Perhaps not the way President Duque wants, the arrest of Uribe highlights Colombia’s independent institutions and a court system that is capable of resisting political pressure. Both points are generally positive for the rule of law, even if they harm the president’s ability to govern at this moment.
This is bad news for Duque. It disrupts the president’s agenda and leaves him with the unpalatable choice of:
1) Don't help Uribe, which would turn the base of his coalition against the president or
2) Help Uribe, and risk social unrest and a potential constitutional crisis.
Duque has given public statements strongly defending Uribe, but the perception of whether he “helps” the former president will be determined by whether his coalition believes he is taking all the actions he can. There is no power of the pardon in Colombia, leaving Duque with few constitutional options. It’s not clear how far Uribe and his supporters will push Duque to go.
There is an argument for giving former leaders amnesty from their crimes as a way of moving a country forward. But even if true (and there is also a counter-argument in favor of prosecuting the crimes of former leaders) that amnesty proposal only works if the politician receiving amnesty exits the political arena. Uribe remains the most influential politician in the country today and the crimes he is accused of occurred post-presidency as he continued to work to pull strings behind the scenes. No politician in a democratic country should expect to be able to exercise that level of power and influence and also expect to have immunity from prosecution.
On Duque’s agenda, Colombia Risk Analysis published a report on the agenda for the second half of the president’s term. The key takeaway is that the agenda on which the president campaigned in 2018 has been superseded by the demands of the late 2019 protests and the urgency of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mexico - AMLO approval steady
The El Financiero poll places AMLO’s approval rating at 58%, two points higher than last month. Here is a graphic on how the population views AMLO on various issues.
Ecuador - Every politician is unpopular; Moreno has 8% approval
A July poll from Cedatos/Gallup shows President Lenin Moreno with 8% support among the population. That is better than the Congress and political parties in general, both of which have 5% support from the population.
Who does the population trust? The Armed Forces have 78% approval and the Catholic Church has 68% approval.
Who will win next year’s elections? 89% of those polled say they are undecided. Only 11% have confidence in the country’s electoral institutions (CNE). 57% say that the only reason they will vote is because it is obligatory.
This poll suggests a real crisis of confidence in the political system. Next year’s election is shaping up to be a three way battle between the right, center and left (as the political movements self-identify on the ideological spectrum). However, this poll suggests that a majority of the population does not identify with any of those movements or their leaders. Barring the emergence of a popular outsider candidate, the next president is going to begin his or her term facing a population with high levels of discontent, making stability an issue.
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