Andean Crisis is Over

Take a look. Very very interesting — and check out Chavez’s whispers to Daniel Ortega.

Morales and Opponents Defend Bolivia’s Unity

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, along with the governors of the opposition agreed last week to create a national charter that would prevent the country from further disintegration. Four out of nine governors of the State Departments have declared autonomy in protest to the new Constitution and its plans to redistribute profit from the countries natural resources to the indigenous populations of Bolivia.

The Bolivian’s main suspicions of President Morales’ new Constitution is that the President is trying to gain the indigenous population’s support as a means to bring across his personal agenda. Moreover, adversaries are accusing President Morales of following Venezuela’s President Chavez’s footsteps, because the new Constitution has been approved without the presents of the oppositions group in the Constituent. Until there is further compromises and negotiations between President Morales and the governors, the charter cannot be solidified into permanent legislation.

http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/mat/2008/01/08/morales_adversarios_defendem_unidade_da_bolivia-327920379.asp

Argentina’s Presidential Decree

Argentine President Kristina Kirchner recently used her presidential decree powers in two high profile cases.

First, and to the dismay of many living in Argentina’s west and south, the President used a decree to temporarily move all clocks forward one hour starting on December 30^th. This adjustment, which leaves much of the country under daylight well into the night, is hoped to alleviate Argentina’s power shortages and Buenos Aires’ recent blackouts.

Then, in a move that will bring the first high speed train to Latin America, President Kirchner used a presidential decree to grant a 1.5 billion dollar contract for a high speed train link between Buenos Aires and Cordoba to a consortium headed by the French company Alstom.

These two decrees demonstrate the proactive power afforded to Argentina’s President by the country’s institutions, and more generally, highlight the powers of presidential decrees in presidential systems. The result, in these two cases, has been decisive policy making on two issues calling for quick decisions, although it appears both decisions may have some feeling left out.

For more on these two stories, please see:

http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10566820

http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=57266947191808

-Argentina Group

Credible threat or political stunt

Ok the obvious, Colombia recently sent a military operation into Ecuador’s territory to kill FARC’s second in command.  The Colombian struggle against the FARC has taken on a transborder nature.  Beyond Colombia, FARC operates in both Venezuela and Ecuador.  For there to be an effective war against this group, there cannot be ’safe havens’ within other countries.  In part, the extreme response from Ecuador and Venezuela in troop mobilization is unexpected.  While the Colombian strike may set a scary precedent it is clearly not a threat to the political stability within these countries.  I will make the claim that the troop mobilization by Venezuela is only political posturing to gain domestic political support.  In fact, this move is the logical conclusion of Tanaka’s analysis about how Chavez has been able to increase his authoritarian power.

In “The Thrid Wave of Democratization in Latin America: Advances and Setbacks” Martin Tanaka explains that traditional models of democratic outcomes fails to predict the recent increase in authoritarian power in Venezuela.  What Martin does find is that these errors of the model are best approximated by the dominate party power.  Martin argues that Chavez came to power in part because of his good timing and his charisma.  While he has been able to use his popularity to push past a constitutional referendum, his most recent bills that were put to voters showed markedly weaker support for the presidents policy.  This is the similar indicator used by Tanaka to measure the decrease in power of the previous political parties which lead to the Chavez regime.  As he came to power, Chavez was able to blame the political problems of the country on the previous leadership, however now that he is in control voters are looking to blame him for any negative political outcomes.  His move to mobilize troops against Colombia serves two purposes.  First, it plays on anti-US feelings by targeting a US ally who receives billions of dollars in military aid. Second, it unifies to people against an outward enemy, i.e. Colombia military incursions into other sovereign territory.

It appears that Colombia also believes the threat from Chavez isn’t credible.  Colombia has not mobilized their troops to the border and they have instead turned to the international community and the United States for support.  This hurts Chavez’s ability to spin the Colombian response as a justification for escalation.  We can predict that this conflict with transition into strong anti-US rhetoric from Chavez in the near future and blame Colombian action on US support.  This decreases the chance of regional violence but maintains an enemy for Chavez to blame for economic disparities.