Supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez react to the announcement of his death in Caracas, March 5, 2013. Chavez has died after a two-year battle with cancer, ending the socialist leader's 14-year rule of the South American country, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised speech on Tuesday. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)
Venezuelans pour into Plaza Bolivar to honor Chávez's socialist revolution (+video)
Plaza Bolivar in downtown Caracas quickly filled with Venezuelans Tuesday night, mourning the death of their president and commandante, Hugo Chávez. Many rushed directly from work to the spot named after Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America and Chávez’s hero. The late president's signature red dotted the crowds. As car horns blasted, thousands waved campaign posters and cradled photos of the man who led a socialist revolution that has left both Venezuela and communities across Latin America markedly changed.
A chant rose from among the crowd: “The people united will never be defeated.”
Chavez stood at the helm of Venezuela for the past 14 years, winning his most recent reelection in October. Soon thereafter he announced that his cancer, which he had been battling for at least a year and a half, had returned. He flew to Cuba in December for treatment and surgery, and was not seen publicly again. Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced his passing on national TV this afternoon.
State television shared Twitter messages from people around the globe encouraging peace and expressing condolences to the Venezuelan people. Teary statements from neighboring leaders were aired, including words from Bolivia’s President Evo Morales. “Chavez will always be with us,” he said.
"It hurts, but we must stand united in this process of liberation, not only of Venezuela but of the whole region..." Mr. Morales said. "Chavez is now more alive than ever."
Chavez was a champion for the world’s underdogs and his country’s poor, missions bolstered by Venezuela’s vast petro-wealth. He created the Bolivarian Alliance, a bloc of leftist Latin American countries, to counter the might of international institutions like the World Bank, and poured his country’s oil wealth into neighboring nations like Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
“Remember this is the first time within historical memory that a leftist revolution has had a big wad of dough to back it up,” says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
But countries that have not always been closely allied with Chávez spoke out tonight as well. The Guardian reports:
Colombian President Jose Manuel Santos praised President Chavez's contribution to the peace process with the FARC [rebels] in Colombia. Chavez cherished the Bolivarian dream of regional unity, Santos said. He conveyed his condolences to Chavez's daughters.
The firebrand leader made a name for himself on the international stage with his distaste for the “bourgeois” and wealthy nations that he said tried to dominate countries like Venezuela. The Los Angeles Times published a story entitled “Hugo Chavez: Words that made headlines,” highlighting such incidents as the time he called former President George W. Bush the devil, or blamed capitalism for killing off life on Mars.
But even these so-called “imperialist” enemies from the US and Europe released statements tonight marking the end of a remarkable era, with British Foreign Secretary William Hague noting that Chávez had made a lasting “impression on the country and more widely.” And in a statement released this evening, former US President Jimmy Carter said:
Although we have not agreed with all of the methods followed by his government, we have never doubted Hugo Chávez's commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.
President Chávez will be remembered for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments and for his formidable communication skills and personal connection with supporters in his country and abroad to whom he gave hope and empowerment.
President Obama released a statement as well, just hours after the Chávez administration expelled two US embassy employees from the country:
At this challenging time of President Hugo Chávez's passing the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government…. As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.
According to the Constitution, the president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, will serve as interim president until emergency elections are held in 30 days. Vice President Maduro was tapped by Chávez in December to be his party’s successor, and he is expected to face off against the opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro, right, addresses the nation from Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, as Governor Adan Chavez, the older brother of President Hugo Chavez. (Miraflores Presidential Press Office/AP)
To lead Venezuela, Maduro will need to channel his inner Chavez
When Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelans in December to vote for Vice President Nicolas Maduro if Mr. Chavez became too ill to continue in office, the former bus driver and union negotiator was characterized as a committed Chavista, but decidedly more quiet and pragmatic than the boisterous and polarizing leader who was at the helm for the past 14 years.
But in the final months of Chavez's life, this soft-spoken politician made some indisputably "Chavezesque” moves in an effort to show the public that he's up to filling the iconic, polarizing leader's shoes. In the next month, ahead of a Venezuelan emergency election to pick a new president, a convincing rendition of the "I am Chavez" show will probably be delivered by Mr. Maduro to keep other Chavez stalwarts onside. Most observers believe that the politically dominant United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), founded by Chavez, will decide the winner of the election.
“He needs to show that he is … faithful to the Chavez tradition and style and that means being confrontational publicly,” said Michael Shifter, director of the Inter-American Dialogue, shortly before the announcement of Chavez's passing on Tuesday afternoon. Shifter says that Maduro has likely been trying to consolidate his support within the Chavez movement in recent months. “He has to show the base that he’s a hardcore Chavista and that he’s tough.”
On that front, Maduro has already been hard at work.
From announcing that the government was tracking opposition leader Henrique Capriles (who Maduro dubbed “the prince of Manhattan, the prince of New York” in a classic anti-imperialist jab) while Mr. Capriles traveled in the United States last week, to expelling two US Embassy officials today for reportedly attempting to destabilize Venezuela, Maduro’s actions are familiar. (The US denies that any staff is plotting against the Venezuelan government.)
In 2008 Hugo Chavez expelled the US ambassador to Venezuela in solidarity with Bolivia, who accused a US diplomat there of inciting violent protests, according to Fox News:
"They're trying to do here what they were doing in Bolivia," Chavez said, accusing Washington of trying to oust him.
"That's enough ... from you, Yankees," Chavez said, using an expletive. Waving his fists in the air, he added: "I hold the government of the United States responsible for being behind all the conspiracies against our nations!"
Today, Maduro announced that Chavez was infected with cancer by “imperialist” enemies, something the president himself alleged last year. "We have no doubt that commander Chavez was attacked with this illness," Maduro said, noting that someday there will be scientific evidence to prove it.
When Chavez tapped Maduro as his vice president last fall there was a lot of talk about what kind of leader he would be. Javier Corrales, a political science professor at Amherst College, wrote in America’s Quarterly that Maduro was simultaneously everything that “Chavez represents, as well as its opposite.”
He is the revolution's most two-faced character. On the one hand, he is one of the most leftist and anti-imperialist figures in the PSUV – the architect of some of Venezuela's most radical foreign decisions such as close ties to Libya, Syria and Iran. On the other hand, he can be soft-spoken and conciliatory. He is the architect of the remarkable turnaround of relations with Colombia in the last two years and is the third longest-serving foreign relations minister in the Americas. He has acquired experience, and might have even learned, on the job, the importance of pragmatism. He also has a good relationship with the military, but unlike Chávez, he is not one of them.
Already the opposition has dubbed Maduro a “poor copy” of Chavez: He speaks regularly on TV, and can be longwinded. He trumpets public works projects and has been known to fire up his supporters by verbally attacking the wealthy and “bourgeois.”
Maduro publicly reveled in the opposition's poor showing in regional elections in December. In response, the opposition Democratic Unity coalition party put out a statement:
“Mr. Maduro, the country expects better from you than a bad imitation of your boss.... In his rhetoric, Maduro hides the leadership crisis in government given President Chavez's absence. He hides his weakness with shouts and threats,” the statement said. "Don't waste the opportunity to create a wide national consensus."
Mr. Shifter says that although Maduro is being publicly confrontational, in private he is quite approachable. “What is different is that he’s someone you can talk to and with Chavez that [was] impossible…. [He’ll be accessible] within the party, to the opposition, and the US."
“Maduro's a hard-liner and a man of the left, there are no doubts about that,” Shifter says. “But he’s a politician …The signs are that change is very close and he’s now positioning himself.”
A woman reads a newspaper as she stands by a wall covered with posters showing Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez pictured with his daughters Maria Gabriela, and Rosa Virginia, outside the military hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday. (Ariana Cubillos/AP)
If Hugo goes, polling firm says Chavismo will still get the vote
• Iñaki Sagarzazu is a contributor of WOLA’s blog: Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. The views expressed are the author's own.
Every day that passes we seem closer to the calling of new presidential elections. Here I take advantage of the recent release of polling data from Hinterlaces’ February Monitor Pais to provide an overview of possible future electoral scenarios.
According to this poll the government’s candidate—Vice President Nicolas Maduro— received 50 percent of respondents’ support; the former candidate for the opposition coalition—Miranda’s governor Henrique Capriles—received 36 percent of the vote, leaving 14 percent of respondents up in the air.
If we take Hinterlaces’ numbers and place them in a polarized scenario, where the remaining 14 percent either does not vote or is split proportionally, then we would have 58 percent support for the government’s candidate and 42 percent for the opposition candidate. This would mean that Maduro would get a percentage of votes higher than what President Chavez obtained in the 2012 elections. However, if we consider the bias that Hinterlaces had in the last election (around 3 percentage points in favor of the government, which can be found here) then we see that Hinterlaces’ scenario is a repetition of the 2012 election where they estimated that the government candidate would have received 54 percent of the vote and the opposition 45 percent. You can see the numbers in the table [in the original blog post, here].
This means that almost five months after the October presidential elections both voting blocs remain relatively similar. This is not particularly shocking given that there have been no big or surprising events that might have destabilized perceptions since October 2012.
However, there are lessons here for each side.
For the government it should be welcome news that despite the absence of President Chávez from the political stage, their candidate remains at a good starting point. However, it also shows that the recent attacks on the opposition have not diminished support for the opposition. For the government it is a problem that the opposition’s hard base of support seems to have reached 45 percent.
For the opposition it should be welcome news that the two electoral defeats – and the “corruption cases” presented against Primero Justicia in the National Assembly – have not put a dent in their support. As a result they are in a much better starting position than they were for the 2012 presidential elections. On the other hand, they are still a minority and 10 points below the government’s candidate; in a quick election with a high degree of emotion it would be hard to turn that around.
Based on this initial scenario the political actors should consider the following strategies.
The government controls the deck of cards as they are the only ones with the knowledge of when elections will be held. The current role for government officials is limited to keeping emotions high in their ranks to avoid losing supporters to disenchantment. It is important to highlight that time is both in favor of and against Maduro. Taking some time will help him to solidify his leadership and make him look presidential works in his favor; however, it also makes him a target for disgruntled voters. This is important because while Chávez was able to avoid negative evaluations by deflecting them towards his governing team, Maduro is actually part of that governing team and therefore not impervious to criticism. As a result, a prolonged stay in power could generate negative evaluations.
The opposition basically finds itself awaiting the call for new elections. Given the short time frame this means they need to be proactive instead of reactive. The opposition’s candidate (whether they decide that it should be Capriles or they name a new one) needs to become fully invested in an officially non-existent campaign.
It might give the wrong impression to launch a full-on campaign while the president is still hospitalized. The opposition’s goals are, on the one hand to keep the support of its voters, while on the other, to try and discourage wavering government supporters (i.e. those who either do not trust Maduro or in the efficacy of the government without Chavez at the helm) from supporting the Maduro. In order to do this the opposition must control its radicals because this group of politicians only scares potentially moderate opposition supporters, and pushes them into supporting the government. If we look at Anthony Downs’ median voter theorem we can see that the space that needs to be conquered is the center, not the extremes. In this sense the opposition’s campaign strategy for the 2012 presidential elections was effective. Its failures came in not generating sufficient doubts among wavering government supporters.
– Iñaki Sagarzazu is a contributor of WOLA’s blog: Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. A previous version of this post was published in Spanish on YV Polis.
Mexico: Latin America's second-largest economy lags in digital accessibility
Of all the numbers that demonstrate Mexico’s persistent inequality, the digital divide is one of the more surprising.
There are fewer than 41 million Internet users in Mexico, a country of more than 112 million people. That’s a connectivity rate of just 36 percent in Latin America’s second-largest economy.
Barely 17 percent have Internet access at home, according to the latest figures of the Americas Barometer, a survey by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion. Although the digital divide – the gap between those who can afford access and those who can’t – has narrowed in recent years, progress has been slow and Mexico still finds itself well below its peers.
More than 40 percent of Chileans have Internet at home, according to the barometer. Brazil ranks second with a home connectivity rate above 38 percent. Sixteen Latin American countries fare better than Mexico, including all of Central America.
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Many observers blame the high cost of broadband in Mexico – and the telecommunications dominance of billionaire Carlos Slim. (Yesterday, Mr. Slim was named Forbes' richest man in the world for the fourth consecutive year.) His companies, including Telmex, control nearly three-quarters of Mexico’s broadband connections, according to Jeffrey Puryear, vice president for social policy at the Inter-American Dialogue. Fast access in Mexico costs almost twice as much as it does in Chile.
Earlier this year, Slim announced he would invest $300 million in connectivity, digital libraries, and equipment for schools, as well as translations of Khan Academy online courses into Spanish. Telmex says its digital libraries will “create opportunities for development and education,” giving needy students access to 21st century tools.
The libraries mimic the free “cyber centers” Mexico City provides in metro stations as well as the work of nonprofits like Fundación Proacceso, whose network of “innovation and learning centers” offers access and free courses in marginalized communities.
Many have lauded Slim’s gift, but Mr. Puryear notes that the high cost still remains the heart of the issue.
“The most effective step that Carlos Slim could take to give poor children greater access to online courses would be to share his near-monopoly in telecommunications,” Puryear said in a recent Inter-American Dialogue newsletter.
The digital divide in Mexico has far-reaching consequences for education, too. As Mexico struggles to overhaul its education system – beginning with a major constitutional reform last week – it will be hard-pressed to close inequality gaps as long as only some students have access to digital tools.
The digital divide did narrow in recent years in Mexico, if only slightly. The number of users rose 14 percent between 2010 and 2011, according to the latest figures from the Mexican Internet Association, or AMIPCI. Connectivity has been bolstered by a boom in smartphones, whose use doubled over the same period.
Still, Mexico has a long way to go if it wants to catch up to the rest of Latin America – and not get left behind in the Information Age.
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Desperate for cash, Honduras to hawk bonds
• A version of this post ran on the author's blog. The views expressed are the author's own.
Honduras is broke.
It can't pay government employees, contractors, or suppliers. Its not unusual for teachers to go six months between paychecks under Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Road construction has stopped again due to government debts to the construction companies. It stopped paying the IHSS, the government health provider, the fees it collected from government employees to pay for their health care, prompting IHSS to threaten to cut off government employees.
So what does a bankrupt government do?
Honduras is now seeking to privately place over $750 million in bonds. In that private placement, it is using Barclays and Deutsche Bank as its agents. These two banking firms have been hired by the government of Honduras to set up meetings with potential investors. Meetings have now been set up in London (March 4), New York (March 6), Boston (March 6) and Los Angeles (March 7).
But there's a last minute hitch. Congress, which had to vote to allow the issuance of these bonds, changed the term from 8 years to 10 years. This increases the amount the government of Honduras will have to pay out to investors by prolonging interest payments for two more years.
If that wasn't enough, both Moody's and Standard and Poor's dropped Honduras's bond rating this week because of what they called the risk of investing in a country where there the government cannot pay its existing debts. Moody's also changed their outlook from "stable" to "negative". This in turn will raise the interest rate that Honduras will have to pay on the bonds. Moody's indicated that the downgrade was caused by
a worsening in the external finances of the country's economy, reflected in an increase of the deficit which is only partially covered by foreign direct investment. The public debt in Honduras, according to Moody's, is about 35 percent of its gross domestic product, which is moderate.
But that is not the whole story. Because of the temporary cessation of international funding under the de facto regime that ruled in 2009 following the June coup d'etat, the country had to rely on internal credit markets, which were costlier, raising the government's debt payment burden. Debt service (principal and interest payments) was about 10 percent of the budget last year, up from 3 percent of the budget in 2008. Much of this increase is due to the debt shift from external to internal credit markets under the seven month de facto regime. Both Moody's and Standard and Poor's cited the increased costs from using internal credit markets in their downgrades.
So off to market with $750 million dollars in bonds with a newly downgraded credit rating and an extended term of payment, just a week before the private placement meetings kick off in Europe and North America. Not the kind of bargaining position anyone would like to be in.
– Russell Sheptak, the co-author of the blog Honduras Culture and Politics, specializes in the study of colonial history and economic anthropology in this little-reported corner of Central America.
A woman holds a newly purchased copy of a photo released by the government, showing Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez with two of his daughters, in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 15. (Fernando Llano/AP/File)
Hugo Chávez's Venezuela: What does the political and economic future hold?
• David Smilde is the moderator of WOLA's blog: Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. The views expressed are the author's own.
On Monday, Feb. 25 the America’s Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center held a seminar on the current political situation in Venezuela. You can watch a webcast of the whole thing here.
There were a couple of key points in which the four presenters coincided.
- For the time being there is a relative but fragile stability.
- The government has a lot of support for both rational and emotional reasons.
- The economy is not on a sustainable track and could run into trouble in the medium term, but probably not the short term.
Historian Margarita López Maya (Universidad Central de Venezuela) pointed out how the absence of President Hugo Chávez is the key element of the current political situation. His charisma, along with high oil prices, have long been able to cover up an increasingly tenuous economic situation, declining infrastructure, and state dysfunction. Without his presence these problems are increasingly evident. She pointed out the ever increasing number of protests which now number about fifteen per day. In addition crime and violence is out of control, making Caracas the most dangerous capital in Latin America.
Chavismo is currently in a process of trying to legitimize its power, making Maduro ever more visible. Complicating the situation for the PSUV is that the leaders of the government are there precisely because they have not stood out or showed exceptional ability over the years. The opposition is weak and fractured due to the fact that it has suffered two important electoral defeats in the past six months. If the opposition were to attain power there would be significant conflict in the government since Chavismo would still be in charge of all of the other branches of government. A better strategy for the opposition would probably be to prepare for the medium term.
Risa Grais-Targo (Eurasia Group) pointed out that since Chávez came to power oil production has declined. This has been masked by high oil prices, but now a good deal of their oil is already committed to diplomatic deals like Petrocaribe, and to pay back loans from China. In the medium term they will be able to begin to exploit the immense reserves of heavy oil in the Orinoco belt. In the question and answer period both Ms. López Maya and Ms. Grais-Targo argued that Venezuela has some wiggle room in their finances and are not on the brink of economic collapse as some would suggest.
Former US Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy (Duke University) emphasized that the US is still Venezuela’s biggest commercial partner and there are a lot of US companies doing business in Venezuela. Information on attempts to reestablish diplomatic relations continues to leak. Mr. Duddy emphasized the unsustainability of the Venezuela’s monoexport economy which now needs to import almost everything. Venezuela has had inflation over 20 percent for ten years. However, it is undeniable that Chávez remains highly popular, even in his absence. There are also many countries hoping Chávez makes a full recovery, most particularly Cuba, since Venezuela has been very generous with them.
David Smilde (Washington Office on Latin America and University of Georgia) looked at the rational and emotional reasons average people support Chávez. He sought to challenge the ideas often seen in the media that: people’s emotion equals irrationality, their rationality is “instrumental,” and that both emotion and instrumental rationality are ephemeral. He pointed to scholarship showing that emotions can be rational, rationality can be emotional, and that both can endure in time.
He looked at how this plays out in terms of people’s individual grounds of security. Most of the academics, journalists, and opinion makers that try to understand Chavismo have a hard time because they themselves live in a globalized space in which their security depends on their financial resources, credentials, professional networks, and cultural capital. Most people who support Chávez, in contrast, live in a national space in which their security depends on the local economy, social solidarity, and common culture. The Chávez government with its emphasis on national economic growth, social policy spending, and nationalism, provides these people with a sense of well-being and security. While this can clearly be described in terms of rational interests, this type of inclusion is also deeply emotional. It is hard for the average person to judge whether these policies are sustainable or not.
Thinking in terms of rational emotions and emotional rationality can help us dispense with the idea that Chavismo will quickly disappear if Chávez exits the scene. It can also help us realize that the Chavista complex is fully understandable and can be engaged through smart diplomacy.
Children play soccer at a square at a favela in Rio de Janeiro, last week. (Pilar Olivares/Reuters)
Favela consumer class on the rise in Brazil
• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, Riogringa. The views expressed are the author's own.
With the expansion of Brazil's middle class, something has become increasingly clear: favelas are home to a vast and growing number of consumers. Though this was apparent to companies like Coca Cola and Nestlé over a decade ago, the purchasing power of favela residents has risen due to a jump in salaries, a decrease in unemployment, and greater access to education.
Brazil's so-called "C class" grew by 50 percent in urban favelas over the last decade, according to a new Data Popular study. Now, around 65 percent of favela residents are considered middle class, versus 37 percent in 2002. Brazilian favela residents – around 12 million people – earn around $28.4 billion a year, the equivalent of Bolivia's GDP.
"This used to be an invisible market, because it was right under our noses," says Data Popular Director Renato Meireilles, "but people only saw favelas through the perspective of violence and drug trafficking."
Over the last ten years, access to goods for favela residents has exploded. The number of those with washing machines doubled to over 50 percent. Nearly 90 percent have cell phones, and 40 percent have computers. Around 45 percent are regular internet users. While most daily purchases are made within favelas, larger purchases, like electronics, are made in stores outside the community. About 70 percent of favela residents go to the mall every week, and 50 percent eat out on a weekly basis. Around half said they plan to buy furniture within the next year, and 36 percent plan to buy home appliances.
Some companies have taken note. Casas Bahia, one of the country's largest retailers, opened a store in Rio's Rocinha in November. On opening day, the store sold 10 times as much as the average store, and the chain plans to open a third favela location in 2013. Vai Voando, an airfare vendor, has 70 stores in favelas alone, largely in Rio and São Paulo. The company counts around 3,000 passengers a month, with 43,000 customers since the company started two years ago. The company's owner, Tomas Rabe, plans to open 50 more stores this year.
Now, plans are underway to build Rio's first favela mall, in the "pacified" Complexo do Alemão. The $10 million investment aims to open 500 stores, at least 60 percent of which will be run by local favela residents. All maintenance, security, and janitorial work will also be done by locals in order to create jobs, especially for youth. A branch of Caixa Econômica bank will offer microcredits for small businesses within the mall itself. The mall also plans to house local street vendors. The project is due for completion later this year. Elias Tergilene, a former street vendor who runs a series of malls, is behind the initiative. He hopes to invest $253 million over two years in favela malls, aiming to open similar shopping centers in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.
However, not everyone is happy about the new favela consumers, who along with buying computers and washing machines are also frequenting some of the same public spaces once reserved for the wealthy.
"The C class put an end to the exclusivity of the A class in that the new middle class began to consume products and services that it didn't buy before," Meireilles told me in November. His company found that around 50 percent of upper class consumers only want to be around people from their social class, and over half believe that products should come in different versions for the rich and the poor.
A salient example of this recently emerged in Rio. A new beach club in Copacabana opened, offering a private strip of sand on one of the city's public beaches. For an entrance fee of between $45 and $126, beachgoers can get into the exclusive club – where safety and a clear separation from so-called favelados (favela residents) are considered selling points. "I stopped going to Ipanema and started coming here every day because it's a much more select crowd," sociologist Camilia Diniz told VEJA. "I can drink champagne out of a glass and brush my hair afer swimming." The manager of the beach club noted: "Everyone can come here without being afraid of wearing a Rolex or bringing a Louis Vuitton bag."
– Rachel Glickhouse is the author of the blog Riogringa.com.
Argentina's president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, speaks with the media as she attends the summit of the Community of Latin American, Caribbean States and European Union in Santiago, Chile, in January. Ms. Kirchner's refusal to acknowledge the soaring inflation rate has now led to a strike by teachers unions. (Jorge Sanchez/Reuters)
Inflation plays role in Argentine teacher strike
Following a demand this month from the International Monetary Fund to improve her government's data, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s refusal to acknowledge the soaring inflation rate has now led to a strike by teachers unions – and all this in an election year.
More than 5 million schoolchildren who were supposed to start classes yesterday after the summer break stayed home, as teachers in 17 provinces went on strike this week.
Union wage-bargaining season is kicking off here, and Ms. Kirchner’s administration is facing its first confrontation: It won’t budge from a 22 percent minimum rise, while teachers want 30 percent.
The problem is that 22 percent is several points below the accepted annual inflation rate, so wages come short of matching the rising cost of living.
Private economists – who have been fined for publishing data that does not coincide with INDEC, the government’s discredited statistics agency – believe the inflation rate for 2012 was a little more than 25 percent. The government says it was around 10 percent.
But if Education Minister Alberto Sileoni were to offer a 30 percent increase it would be “clearly admitting that the INDEC rate is fictitious,” writes Ricardo Roa, deputy executive editor of Clarín, an antigovernment daily, in an op-ed today.
Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund threatened Argentina with sanctions should it fail to adhere to its rules on reporting inflation and gross domestic product. Last year, Christine Lagarde, head of the fund, said she would pull out the “red card” for Kirchner’s government if it doesn't comply, a reference to how players are expelled from the soccer field for serious foul play.
Many teachers across Argentina, including in Buenos Aires, have continued the strike today. Classes are not expected to get under way properly until Thursday, and there are threats of another 48-hour strike next week.
Kirchner has already alienated some union leaders – the traditional power base of her Peronist party – with the first general strike of her administration taking place last November.
The teacher conflict means she is now facing revolt from groups that belong to the pro-government wing of Argentina’s biggest umbrella union.
With midterm elections coming up in October, that's bad news. In a bid to temporarily hold back inflation, she recently ordered supermarkets to freeze prices for two months, but that will do little to ease wage demands from other sectors. Negotiating those demands may be key to October's outcome.
Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, arrives at the premiere for the film 'Robin Hood' at the 63rd international film festival in Cannes, southern France, in 2010. Chile gets its first shot at an Oscar for best foreign-language film with the Academy's nomination of 'No,' starring Bernal. (Joel Ryan/AP/File)
Academy Awards: When 'No' gets a 'Yes!' in Chile
When you click on the website of CinemaChile, the promoter of Chilean films around the world, you see a close-up of Mexican actor Gael García Bernal looking over his shoulder, a huge rainbow blurred out in the background. No one familiar with Chilean film needs the tiny caption. It’s from the movie “No,” released in 2012, now representing Chile at the Academy Awards as the country’s first-ever Oscar nomination.
With the Oscar ceremony set for Sunday evening, Santiago’s small but thriving film world is preparing for a late night — the broadcast will start at 9 p.m. local time. And the habitual local pessimism is yielding to a spot of hope.
“We celebrated in the office, we celebrated with the film’s team,” says CinemaChile Executive Director Constanza Arena. Just having a film nominated, she says, felt “like winning the soccer world championship."
The movie portrays the battle of advertising campaigns that drew to a close with Chileans voting to end the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The beautiful and talented García Bernal plays René Saavedra, the advertising executive whose optimistic messaging overcame decades of left-wing bitterness (Mr. Pinochet ran Chile from 1973 to 1990, killing thousands of political opponents and creating torture centers across the country) and fueled the victory of the “No” option. “No,” as in no more dictatorship, and “No,” as in the name of the movie.
Some viewers have been less thrilled about what the movie skips over. There is barely a mention of the movements of students, guerrillas, and everyday people who forced Pinochet to accept a referendum on his continued rule, and then bravely went public with their support for the “No” option. The film says the referendum was simply a result of “international pressure.”
So don’t look to “No” for a definitive history of the transition from dictatorship to democracy.
Instead, look for a drama that shows how a few people overcame fears and took part in the creation of a freer country. And Chile is freer. This fundamentally anti-Pinochet film was shown for weeks in an attractive screening room under the presidential palace, even as former Pinochet advisers worked in their government offices upstairs.
Chile has had a film industry for more than a century, but as in most small countries, even a local blockbuster may never see popularity outside the country. Legendary local names Miguel Littin (who was nominated for Oscars for films produced outside Chile) and Patricio Guzmán don’t even have head shots posted on IMDB.com, the go-to source for film information. With minimal state support, a domestic market with half the population of California, and a challenging dialect of Spanish, Chilean film has been isolated.
Isolation, while posing problems for filmmakers seeking distribution, may also add to the distinctive character of “No.” The final scene shows Mr. Saavedra, after the victorious election campaign, moving on to his next advertising gig, promoting a superficial TV melodrama. It’s an accurate portrayal of how the political, commercial, and cultural model associated with Pinochet outlived the dictatorship itself. The ending adds a distinctively Chilean dose of irony to what might otherwise have been a Hollywood fairy tale.
The Boston Globe reports that Secretary of State John Kerry is considering removing Cuba from the list of state-sponsors of terrorism, which administration officials denied. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Will Kerry push to remove Cuba from terror list?
• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, bloggingsbyboz.com. The views expressed are the author's own.
The Boston Globe reports that Secretary of State John Kerry is considering removing Cuba from the list of state-sponsors of terrorism. Of course, administration officials denied that report.
There are three reasons to remove Cuba from the list. The first two are talked about most: 1) Cuba doesn't fit the definition of a state sponsor of terrorism; 2) Removing Cuba from the list may be a step towards improving relations and accomplishing other US foreign policy objectives.
The third reason is just as important: Removing Cuba restores some credibility to the state-sponsors of terrorism list and US counter-terrorism policy.
It is hard for the US to credibly argue about which groups and countries should be sanctioned for supporting terrorism when we keep a country like Cuba on a terrorism list for politics unrelated to real counter-terrorism issues. The rest of the world takes US counter-terrorism policy less seriously because Cuba's inclusion shows the US plays politics with its own terrorism designations. Parts of the hemisphere take US warnings about Iranian influence less seriously because the US places Iran and Cuba on the same level when it comes to counter-terrorism issues. Having a misguided Cuba policy in the mix with those debates undermines the US position on issues related to Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria.
Keeping Cuba on the state sponsors of terrorism list harms US national security by distracting attention and resources from real threats and harming US credibility on counter-terrorism cooperation. Taking Cuba off the list isn't just the right and smart thing to do for US-Cuba policy; removing Cuba will contribute to better focused counter-terrorism efforts in the hemisphere and globally.
-- James Bosworth is a freelance writer and consultant who runs Bloggings by Boz.
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