Weekly Roundup: Peru's Runoff Election, Ecuador's Dismissed Ambassador, Dilma's Visit to China

Humala and Fujimori Advance in Peru’s Presidential Race

After shooting up the polls in recent weeks, leftwing nationalist Ollanta Humala won Peru’s first-round election with 31.74 percent of the vote and will face conservative Keiko Fujimori in a runoff election scheduled for June 5. Part of the reason behind Humala’s come-from-behind victory in the first round is that “there’s precedent here, and it’s not the fact that Humala is left-leaning,” says AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini, “it is that since the political party system in Peru has collapsed so completely—since the end of [current President] Alan García’s first term in 1989—electoral outcomes and political opinion in Peru have become very fluid.”

With the moderates out of the picture, both candidates have shifted their campaign styles to play to the political center, in order to attract those who voted in the first round for former Finance Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, ex-President Alejandro Toledo, or former Mayor of Lima Luis Castañeda. The centrist candidates have yet to announce who they will support in the second round of voting. 

Read an AS/COA Online News Analysis for background on the issues facing Peruvian voters.

Dilma Talks Industry in China

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrived in China this week for a five-day state visit aimed at addressing her country’s growing trade imbalance with Beijing, mainly in manufactured goods. Taiwanese iPhone manufacturer Foxconn Technology took advantage of the visit to announce it would make a $12 billion investment offer to move operations from China to Brazil in order to cut down on tariffs on Apple products for Brazilians. However, in a disappointment for Brazil, China agreed to purchase only 35 Embraer business jets rather than the 190 that CEO Frederico Curado said he had hoped for. The Chinese government reiterated its support for U.N. Security Council reform and supported a more prominent role in the body for Brazil, but fell short of publicly endorsing Brazil’s bid for a permanent seat. Rousseff will meet later in the week with other BRICS leaders on the Chinese island of Hainan to discuss, among other subjects, the group’s interest in doing away with what it considers to be the outmoded leadership structure of global institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. China surpassed the United States as Brazil’s largest trading partner in 2009.

U.S. Sends Ecuadoran Ambassador Home

The United States declared Ecuadoran Ambassador Luis Gallegos persona non grata last week in a retaliatory move against the Rafael Correa administration. The Correa administration dismissed U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador Heather Hodges because of a 2009 cable made public by WikiLeaks that claims President Correa knew about alleged acts of police corruption.

Federal Court Upholds Partial Injunction against Arizona Immigration Law

A federal appeals court held up the injunction prohibiting Arizona from implementing several portions of its controversial immigration law, delivering the Obama administration a victory in its legal challenge to the measure. Arizona’s SB 1070 requires, among other things, that police officers check the immigration status of the people they stop, which opponents view as a form of racial profiling. The Obama administration says only the federal government has the right to enforce immigration law.

Obama and Santos Team up to Push Trade Agreement

The White House posted remarks to the press from President Barack Obama and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos following their meeting last week, in which the two ironed out a plan to move forward with the ratification of a long stalled free trade agreement by strengthening protections for trade unionists in Colombia. Obama highlighted the trade pact’s role in his plan to double exports by 2015. Santos said his administration would present a plan to his country’s Congress on April 22 to provide better physical defense of workers.

Santos and Chávez Meet to Boost Commercial, Political Ties

The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela agreed to temporarily extend the agreement that currently governs trade between their two countries under the framework of the Andean Community. Venezuela officially leaves the group on April 21, as the Chávez government said it would five years ago, as a stand against Lima’s and Bogota’s free trade negotiations with the United States. Extending the agreement buys the two governments time with which to create a new trade framework.

Chávez and Lobo Brought to the Bargaining Table

In a surprise move, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos invited his Honduran counterpart Porfirio Lobo to attend a lunch in Cartagena with Hugo Chávez. Afterwards Lobo told reporters he and Chávez agreed that if Lobo allows ousted President Manuel Zelaya to return to Honduras with immunity from prosecution, Venezuela will stop blocking Honduras' readmission to the OAS.

Colombia’s Santos Applauds Caracas' Efforts against Terrorism

After meeting with Hugo Chávez, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in an interview with Televisión Española that the Venezuelan leader is staying true to his promise to keep his country from acting as a refuge for Colombia’s guerrillas. Within hours, former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe disputed the statements via Twitter, prompting Santos to reaffirm his position later in the day. “Up to now, [Chávez] has made good and I have to recognize it,” said Santos.

Pacific Players Ready to Compete with Brazil for Investors’ Attention

Capitalized at over $600 billion, the Integrated Latin American Market between Chile, Colombia, and Peru is set for inauguration next month. The Economist reports that the integration will create the region's second-largest stock market after Brazil's Bovespa. The agreement also constitutes a political alignment of countries who are betting on free-market principles, foreign investment, and trade with Asia as their development strategy. Mexico will join the group in coming months to develop a plan for what Peruvian President Alan García calls "an area of deep integration."

South America Buys More Weapons

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that South America increased its military spending more than any other region in 2010, jumping 5.8 percent in real terms to $63.3 billion. The research group called the rise “surprising given the lack of real military threats to most states in the region, and the existence of more pressing social needs.” Paraguay (16.4 percent) and Peru (15.9 percent) registered the highest increases, while Venezuela (-27 percent) dropped most sharply. Despite rapid growth in military spending in 2010, South America’s total military expenditures amount to less than a tenth of those of the United States, about a fifth of Western and Central Europe’s, and a little over half of the Middle East’s. 

Uruguayan Senate Overturns Amnesty Law

Nearly two years after holding up an amnesty law exempting the military from prosecution for “dirty war” crimes, the Uruguayan Senate voted 16 to 15 to discard the law this week. President José Mujica—a former Tupamaro guerrilla who the military tortured, committed to solitary confinement, and imprisoned for 15 years—supported overturning the law. The lower house will now consider the proposal.

Five Former Bolivian Presidents Will Work with Evo to Sue Chile

In an unusual gesture of political unity in polarized Bolivia, Evo Morales has fielded five ex-presidents to form a committee to help bring an international lawsuit against Chile for access to the sea. Bolivia lost its Pacific port to Chile during the War of the Pacific in 1879 and the issue remains a rallying cry for Bolivians to this day.

Judge Grants Guatemala’s First Couple a Divorce

A family court in Guatemala allowed the divorce of President Álvaro Colom and Sandra Torres, which had stalled after facing two separate challenges to its legality. Opponents view the divorce as an affront to the spirit of the country’s constitution, which prohibits close relatives of the president from seeking office. Colom says he will move from the condominium he currently shares with Torres to the presidential residence, which no president has lived in since 1996. 

Great Challenges Await Haiti’s New President

Writing for the International Relations and Security Network, Markus Schultze-Kraft argues that newly elected President Michel Martelly will probably not find solutions to Haiti's reconstruction and development challenges. Martelly's election averted a constitutional crisis, but he still lacks the legitimacy and political base necessary to expand public services to earthquake victims or address the problems of extreme poverty, rising crime, and bad governance.

Martelly Sang His Way to the Top

Elizabeth McAlister explores the role of music in Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly's rise to Haiti's presidency in a piece for ForeignPolicy.com. Spanish marketing firm Sola advised Martelly to embrace his role as an outsider and to cultivate his voice and music to engage with Haitian voters, writes McAlister. The strategy worked. Now Martelly faces the daunting task of improving the country's devastated infrastructure, fostering the development of civil society, and reestablishing law and order.

The Dominican Republic’s First Lady Accepted as Presidential Pre-Candidate

The Dominican Liberation Party accepted First Lady Margarita Cedeño de Fernández’s pre-candidacy for next year’s presidential election. The news came after her husband Leonel Fernández announced last week that he will not seek a another term as president. His candidacy would have required a constitutional reform to allow for a third, consecutive term as president.

Poll Says Ortega Would Win if Election Were Held Today

If Nicaragua held its November 6 presidential election today, current President Daniel Ortega would win with 47.8 percent of the vote, according to a poll of 1,600 potential voters by Consultores M&R. The four opposition candidates fared poorly, taking just 20.5 percent combined. The balance of voters did not say for who they would allocate their votes to.

Suriname Negotiates Growing Chinese Presence

China’s influence over Suriname continues to grow, as it pumps the South American country full of immigrants, loans, and foreign aid, The New York Times reports in a feature article published this weekend. Suriname now receives more aid from China than any other country and the 40,000 Chinese immigrants in the country support two Mandarin newspapers and a television station.

Mexicans Work the Longest Hours in the OECD

A new report on labor from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that of the 20 countries that make up the group, Mexicans put in the longest hours, doing seven hours of paid work and three hours of household chores a day. Mexico holds the second highest rate of income inequality in the OCED and the highest relative poverty rate. 

Social Media Propels Growing Latin American Web Use

In a region famous for its talkativeness, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are driving Latin America's burst in Internet usage, according to a report from BBC Mundo. Latin Americans is one of the regions that registers the most social media use in the world, and markets such as Argentina and Chile have reached a level of maturity comparable to that of developed countries. Young people make up a larger percentage of Internet users in Latin America than in Europe or the United States, the report notes.

Czech President Pockets Piñera’s Pen

While Chilean President Sebastián Piñera gave a speech during a state visit to Prague, his Czech counterpart Václav Klaus took the opportunity to sneakily snatch the Chilean president’s pen, used during the signing ceremony. See a Czech video of the incident at the Huffington Post.