The report Key Data for LATAM is elaborated by ATREVIA’s analysis and research team in order to provide the main information to understand the political and business reality of Latin America.
During this period the most outstanding facts were:
- The recent events in Bolivia (the Hague sentence seen as a defeat for the country and the launching of the presidential candidacy of Carlos Mesa) have overturned the Bolivian political situation. This profound change in the political landscape, in light of the 2019 presidential elections, complicates Evo Morales’ reelection options.
- In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro is emerging as the winner in the second round of the elections in Brazil for reasons that go far beyond the fact that he obtained 46% in the first round and was 17 points from his rival, Fernando Haddad (PT), in the ‘run-off’. There are two main reasons for his favoritism: first, the power it gives him to have won such a solid victory in the first round. And secondly, his ability to embody the country’s main political feeling better than anyone: anti-PT understood as the rejection of the PT and Lula.
- In Colombia, Iván Duque’s new government faces numerous challenges of political, judicial and economic nature. But one of the key ones in maintaining governance is the expansion of coca crops, and the resulting increase in the capacity for political penetration (control of town halls) regarding the economic and social power achieved by the new cartels.
- In Ecuador, Lenin Moreno’s government is on the right track in terms of economic and structural reforms but the recovery will take time. In fact, in 2018 Ecuador will be the second country with the lowest growth in the region.
- In Mexico, in addition to responding to the high expectations created among the population and keeping the broad and heterogeneous coalition that supported him, the Achilles heel of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s project lies in the economy’s performance. Especially because, the most emblematic proposals of ‘Lopezobradorism’ imply an inevitable expansion of spending amid a reduction of tax revenues and those from oil.
- In Venezuela, the struggle between Nicolás Maduro’s government and the anti-Chavez opposition hides an unavoidable reality for whoever the winner is. At some point, sooner rather than later, whoever is in charge of the government must undertake a very hard adjustment plan (unrelated to any kind of gradualist measures) followed by imposing structural reform measures. A task that Venezuela cannot do alone, but rather must do together and with the support of the international community.
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