South America Watch Thread

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Bolivians Demand Immediate Resignation of President Paz
June 4, 2026

Introduction:

(Popular Resistance.org) On Tuesday, thousands of Bolivians gathered at an “open assembly” in the city of El Alto to reaffirm their demand for the immediate resignation of President Rodrigo Paz and to declare themselves in a state of emergency and permanent mobilization.

Participants also decided to intensify pressure measures, reject the alleged dialogue proposed by the right-wing government, and sign a unity pact with the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB).

The open assembly was convened by the Federation of Neighborhood Councils (FEJUVE), an organization that mobilizes neighborhoods in El Alto and La Paz, which have participated in the protests taking place since early May.

“After days of conflict, there are more than 100 road blockades in seven out of the country’s nine departments,” outlet El Deber recalled, adding that shortages of food and fuel are being felt in major cities.

“The different sectors propose continuing the struggle for the resignation of President Paz, rejecting the entirety of his adjustment and plundering policies, which are aligned with the interests of imperialism in the region,” outlet La Izquierda Diario stated.

Read more here: https://popularresistance.org/bolivian ... ssembly/

[firestar464]

With rising crime on their minds, Peruvians to vote for president yet again

https://apnews.com/article/peru-preside ... 4aed64ff03

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Why the People of Bolivia Are Revolting
By Joseph Bouchard
June 18, 2026

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) For over six weeks now, Bolivia has been engulfed in a national revolt. What started as sectoral demands over public employee salaries, fuel subsidies, and land rights has metastasized into a full-throated cry for the resignation of Trump-aligned President Rodrigo Paz. The country is paralyzed by more than 100 road blockades that have severed the capital, La Paz, from the rest of the nation, cutting off food, fuel, and medicine. Ten people are dead, dozens more injured, and over 300 have been arrested. Journalists and activists have also been caught in the violence.

The government’s response has been a schizophrenic mix of hollow calls for peaceful dialogue and negotiation, and brutal repression. Paz has signed deals with some social sectors, and organized a Social Economic Council, while jailing the leaders of the groups he’s “negotiating” with.

Thousands of militarized police have been deployed, using tear gas, rubber bullets, and, according to persistent rumors the government denies, live ammunition. Leaders of various protest groups, including the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), the largest trade union in the country, and radical Aymara defense force Ponchos Rojos, have been jailed. The Wiphala, the sacred flag of Bolivia’s Indigenous majority, has been burned in public squares by counterprotesters while the state itself no longer displays it publicly.

As Argentinian President Javier Milei’s expatriated adviser Fernando Cerimedo put it, this government is fighting against “dirty leftists.” Cerimedo was reportedly crucial in deporting a human rights mission from Argentina this week. Protest leaders and politicians have been kidnapped in broad daylight, including one senator with the Movement Toward Socialism, taken by police in plain clothes.

Far-right groups and “The Resistance” have re-popularized the slogan, “Make the homeland, kill an indian,” which had become a popular rallying cry in the 2019 coup. Those same far-right groups were also seen in San Julian, near Santa Cruz, using illegal weapons and explosives against protesters, alongside state security forces. The Paz government has not rebuked any of these figures, statements, or actions, and instead cracked down further on the left.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/bolivia-revolt

[caltrek]

Peru’s Keiko Fujimori Wins Presidential Election, in Latest Victory for Latin American Right
June 29, 2026

Introduction:

(The Guardian) Peru’s conservative president-elect Keiko Fujimori has vowed to restore “order and hope” after defeating left-wing candidate Roberto Sanchez, in the latest victory for a resurgent Latin American right.

Fujimori won the 7 June presidential runoff by the slimmest of margins, outpolling Sanchez by fewer than 50,000 votes out of the more than 18 million ballots cast, the final results showed.

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026 ... s-runoff

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Peru’s President-elect Fujimori Says She Wants to Restore Ties with Mexico
July 11, 2026

Introduction:

(Al Jazeera) Peru’s President-elect Keiko Fujimori has announced she wants to restore diplomatic relations with Mexico, a move that could end the months-long diplomatic rift between the two countries.

“On my part, there will be every intention to restore relations between Peru and Mexico,” said Fujimori, who won Peru’s presidential runoff on June 7, as she left a public event in Lima.

The rupture was announced in November, after Mexico granted political asylum to former Peruvian Prime Minister Betssy Chavez.

She was part of the short-lived administration of left-wing President Pedro Castillo, who was elected during Peru’s last presidential race in 2021.

Additional Extract:

This year marked her (Fujimori’s) fourth presidential bid — and her first successful one. She is set to be sworn in on July 28, Peru’s Independence Day.

Read more here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/p ... d9&ei=67

[wjfox]

Nicaragua’s Ortega says ‘never again’ for elections after two decades in power

Jul 21, 2026

Nicaragua’s long-serving president Daniel Ortega said the Central American country will no longer hold elections, eliminating the possibility of an electoral challenge when his term ends next year and further entrenching the rule he shares with his wife Rosario Murillo.

Ortega, who has continuously held power since 2007 following an earlier presidential term in the 1980s, said the move will close off any path to the opposition, although he did not provide details about carrying out the ban.

“There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said in a speech on Sunday evening to commemorate the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which Ortega helped overthrow the US-backed Anastasio Somoza dictatorship.

“The days when parties backed by the Yankees (United States) and the Somocistas would return to power are over – never again,” he added, in the 80-year-old’s first public appearance in two months.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Tuesday that Ortega’s decision to no longer hold elections “lays bare their true authoritarian nature” and that the Nicaraguan people “have the right to choose their own leaders through democratic elections.” The Trump administration has described the Ortega government as a dictatorship, and imposed sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/20/americas ... s-intl-hnk



Credit: Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters/File

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The Ugliness of Latin America’s Angry Tide
By Vijay Prishad
August 21, 2026

Introduction:

(Counterpunch) In August, right-wing billionaire Abelardo de la Espriella took office as Colombia’s president and vowed to move an agenda of the far right even though he won by less than a percentage point over the left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda. It is characteristic of the far right of a special type to adopt any mandate and pretend that they have the authority to transform their society into their toxic swamp. Of the twenty states generally thought of as being part of Latin America, eleven now have governments of the far right: Argentina (Javier Milei since 2023), Bolivia (Rodrigo Paz since 2025), Chile (José Antonio Kast since 2026), Colombia (de la Espriella since 2026), Costa Rica (Laura Fernández since 2026), Ecuador (Daniel Noboa since 2025), El Salvador (Nayib Bukele since 2024), Honduras (Nasry Asfura since 2026), Panama (José Raúl Mulino since 2024), Paraguay (Santiago Peña since 2023), and Peru (Keiko Fujimori since 2026).

Most of these leaders are not from the old conservative bloc but are part of a new generation (Noboa is the youngest of the group, born in 1987) with an average age of 52. These are men and women who represent the old oligarchies of Latin America, the old families with deep colonial roots and with vast properties, but these leaders do not have an aristocratic sensibility or come from the established conservative political parties. They are libertarian in nature with naked fealties to the United States and its agenda. They fashion themselves as patriots, but patriotism is cast aside for absolute loyalty to Washington and its corporations.

Shoot to Kill

The far right emerges out of a long tradition of the oligarchy’s lawless violence, which dates to the genocide against the indigenous through to the military dictatorships of the Operation Condor era. Impunity for violence has been the hallmark of this class and its political representatives, and so the current far right is nothing if not authentic to its class and its forebearers.

Other policy areas reviewed in the linked article include the reversal of social gains, blindness to genocide, and the “development of underdevelopment,”

Read more here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/2 ... ry-tide/

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Fujimori Faces the First Protests of Her Administration

By Pablo Meriguet
August 20, 2026

Introduction:

(Popular Resistance.org) Protesters, mainly transportation workers, are using strikes and roadblocks to protest the rampant rise in fuel prices.

Fujimori has promised a temporary subsidy, which satisfies some but not everyone.

A wave of protests and demonstrations have rocked diverse regions of Peru in recent days. The recently inaugurated right-wing President Keiko Fujimori is facing, very early on, the first protests of her term.

Several transport workers’ groups have taken to the streets due to the rampant rise in fuel prices plaguing the entire region. They also decided to halt their activities and blocked several roads in protest against prices that, they claim, are impoverishing them.

Prices have skyrocketed across Latin America due to the US-Israeli war on Iran. Furthermore, Peru is experiencing a serious domestic supply shortage that dates back to March of this year, particularly at the state-owned oil company Petroperú, which distributes a significant amount of diesel and gasoline to various regions of the country.

Read more here: https://popularresistance.org/fujimori ... ration/

[firestar464]

Former Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno sentenced to 5 years for corruption

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 41359.html