La Tecla Asustada

By Sebastián Lacunza Editor-in-Chief As in many democracies regained after a pact with the outgoing dictatorship, Brazil’s political life has been held in the grip of powerful interest groups. As happens in any democracy but slightly more in this case. The Workers’ Party (PT) tried but could not advance in its efforts to take the crimes committed during 21 years of military rule to court. By 2014 Dilma Rousseff had managed to make public a valuable report produced by the Truth Commission but Brazil is still a country where the military top brass can unabashedly defy and threaten the elected government. In periods of the electoral campaign, Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff encouraged the idea of approving a media law based on anti-monopolistic principles, like those passed in Argentina (2009) and Uruguay (2014). That was not possible either. Even at its peak, the PT controlled only 20 percent of the Chamber of Deput...

Interview with Social Sciences Latin American Council (Clacso) head Pablo Gentili By Sebastián Lacunza Editor-in-Chief Key political support for Brazil’s interim government has made it clear that Brasilia’s priority in foreign trade is oriented toward the major powers, with the United States in a prominent first place. The centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) — represented in the Cabinet by the Foreign Minister José Serra among others — considers commercial ties with Argentina and the wider region as a burden on Brazil’s back. Argentine Pablo Gentili has taught for more than 20 years at the University of Rio de Janeiro and currently serves as executive secretary for the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLASCO). In an interview with the Herald, he assesses the relationship between Michel Temer’s Brazil and Mauricio Macri’s Argentina. How much does the Michel Temer government really value the speedy endorsment granted by the Mauricio Macri a...

By Sebastián Lacunza Editor-in-Chief Will the region back Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra? She is a woman, has a solid experience in international negotiations and is a respected official within the UN bureaucracy. She also represents a country from a region that has not headed the international organization since 1992. That is where Susana Malcorra’s candidacy to be elected the ninth UN Secretary General gains strength. On the other side, the Argentine Foreign minister must overcome hurdles that, in some cases, she shares with the other — until now — nine candidates for the position, but she also faces her own weaknesses. The common decisive step for every hopeful to head the body is to avoid the veto of any permanent member of the UN Security Council (US, UK, Russia, France and China), which according to the regulations is in charge of elevating the nominations before the General Assembly. This matter is settled — as many accept in the diplomatic arena — in two...

Lessons form Luis Lacalle Pou and Marina Silva Aécio Neves thanks Marina Silva for her endorsment on October 17 after the failed election bid by the former environmentalist hopeful. By Sebastián Lacunza Editor-in-Chief After a long decade of electoral wins for populist, centre-left Latin American administrations, the proposal of “keeping the good and changing the bad” has emerged in the political sphere at the expense of hard-line stances that have suffered overwhelming defeats in recent years. Even though different traditions and economic developments must be considered according to each country, the assumption is that a period of growth, low unemployment rates and social progress generate an unreceptive ground for calls for radical change. Electoral processes in Brazil and Uruguay, which have just led to the fourth Workers’ Party’s (PT) term and put the Broad Front on the verge of another win in a runoff, help to analyze the threshold of opposition political ...