AS/COA Online | Capriles Wins Venezuelan Primary to Become Chávez's Challenger

Henrique Capriles Radonski won Venezuela’s opposition primary on February 12, making him the top contender in the race against President Hugo Chávez. Capriles, governor of the state of Miranda, pulled in 1.8 million of the 2.9 million votes cast. He will serve as the nominee of the Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD), an alliance of opposition parties formed to more effectively compete with Chávez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela. A former legislator, Capriles faced four other candidates but faced his greatest competition from Pablo Pérez, governor of Zulia state. Another candidate, Leopoldo López, dropped out of the race on January 24 and put his support behind the frontrunner, giving Capriles a last-minute boost. In hopes of overcoming past electoral setbacks, MUD candidates signed a September 2011 pact agreeing to back the primary winner to avoid possible splintering of the opposition vote in the October 7 election. The MUD also agreed to a unified platform last month, pledging to combat the country’s violent crime problem, engage in democratic reconstruction, and pursue a sustainable economic model. AS/COA’s Rachel Glickhouse and Guillermo Zubillaga note in an election overview that the February 12 vote “test[s] the momentum of support for the opposition coalition before the general election.” Can Capriles, backed by a unified opposition, compete with the loquacious, long-governing Chávez?

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Mexico's Electoral Race Takes Shape

As Mexican President Felipe Calderón nears his final year in office, candidates are already lining up at the gate for the 2012 presidential race. On Sunday, current poll frontrunner and ex-Governor of the State of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto registered as the official candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This move came two weeks after the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) picked 2006 losing presidential candidate and former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador to compete again. Presidents can’t seek reelection in Mexico and the governing National Action Party (PAN) slated its primary for February. Some observers say that flagging support for the current administration coupled with the PAN’s delay in naming a candidate could hurt the conservative party’s chances. Still, campaigns don’t officially get underway until March and, though Peña Nieto polls over 20 points ahead of other candidates, it’s a long race before the country’s three main parties cross the finish line on July 1, 2012.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Widespread Voiding of Ballots Marks Bolivia's First Judicial Vote

Bolivia’s Sunday judicial elections marked a couple of firsts. Not only did Bolivian voters turn out in the country’s first public vote for top judicial posts, but the large-scale voiding of ballots appears to be the first electoral rebuff of President Evo Morales since his 2005 presidential victory. Morales hailed the election and massive turnout as important for democracy and to the validity of the country’s latest Constitution, approved by referendum in 2009. Official results from Sunday’s vote won’t be released until October 29, but polling firm Ipsos Apoyo estimated that over 45 percent of voters voided their ballots while some 20 percent left ballots blank. Some saw the results as a rebuke against Morales, with the opposition saying the election signaled a win for its side. Still, many observers say the vote is the latest indication of Morales’ slumping approval figures, torpedoed by continued protests over his government’s backing of a transoceanic highway through the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS).

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Venezuelan Opposition to Back one Candidate against Chávez

There may be a year to go before Venezuelans head to the ballot box for the next presidential vote, but the election is already kicking into high gear. On Monday, opposition leaders in the Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD) signed a deal agreeing to back one candidate to face current President Hugo Chávez on October 7, 2012. “We the signatories of this agreement unanimously support the candidate who is elected in a February 12 primary as the single candidate of the Democratic Unity coalition,” reads the pact. The deal was signed within days of Leopoldo López—banned in 2008 from competing for Caracas’ mayoralty seat—announcing his presidential bid. Should the Supreme Court allow him to run, López would compete against a number of candidates for the primary seat, including polling favorite and Miranda state Governor Henrique Capriles. The primary winner is slated to compete against the cancer-stricken Chávez, whose approval ratings hover around 50 percent, as he seeks a third six-year term.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Guatemala Readies for Vote after Troubled Campaign Cycle

He may not win in the first round, but Otto Pérez Molina polls well ahead of other contenders in the race for Guatemala’s presidency. As the Central American country prepares for a September 11 presidential and legislative vote, a poll published September 7 by Borge and Associates and Guatemalan daily El Periódico gives the Patriotic Party (PP) candidate 48.9 percent of voter intention—a 30 percent advantage over his top rival, Manuel Baldizón of the Renewed Democratic Freedom (Líder) party. The poll puts Pérez Molina short of the requisite 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a November 6 runoff. No candidate has won during the first-round vote since Guatemala implemented a two-round system in 1985, though nearly all Guatemala’s first-round winners have gone on to win runoffs. Still, observers see Pérez Molina’s expansive poll lead as stemming, in part, from the lack of a governing-party candidate and they lament that the electoral process has been marred by campaign-finance irregularities, as well as violence.

Click to read more ...

President-elect Humala and His Path for Peru

All the ballots have been counted, but the jury is still out about which path Ollanta Humala will take when he becomes president of Peru next month. As AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini put it: “The election guessing game in Peru has ended and now the Humala guessing game has begun.” Throughout Humala’s tight race against conservative Keiko Fujimori and in the wake of the June 5 runoff, observers have repeatedly speculated about whether the former military officer would model himself after Venezuela’s expropriating President Hugo Chávez or take the more moderate course of Brazilian ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Humala’s cabinet picks will help shape the answer to the “Chávez or Lula” question, but Vice President-elect Marisol Espinoza says those won’t be announced before July 10. So what steps has Humala taken thus far to indicate which way he’ll go?

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | After Tight Race, Humala Wins Peruvian Runoff Vote

After a neck-and-neck race, Ollanta Humala edged out Keiko Fujimori to win the June 5 runoff vote for Peru’s presidency. With over 88 percent of votes tallied on the morning of June 6, Humala had won 51.27 percent of the vote against Fujimori’s 48. 5 percent. Though Fujimori carried Lima, Humala won in a majority of Peru’s regions. A retired military officer, he spent much of his candidacy trying to shake off comparisons with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and replace them with the more centrist model of ex-President of Brazil Inácio Lula da Silva. But his opponent had ghosts of her own; Keiko Fujimori, an ex-legislator, is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori—now serving time for corruption and human rights abuses carried out under his watch. To some degree, both candidates can thank the centrist candidates in April’s first-round election for dividing the centrist-voter block, thereby letting the left-leaning Humala and the conservative Fujimori advance (Humala won the first round with 31.7 percent against Fujimori’s 23.6 percent). When he takes office next month, Humala faces the challenge of reuniting a country split by a divisive presidential race.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Snap Election Redraws Canada's Political Landscape

The world may have been focused on the events that unfolded at Osama bin Laden’s compound outside Islamabad, but Canada started out the week by witnessing dramatic events of its own. In its May 2 vote, the Conservative Party pulled in enough votes to win the parliamentary majority for the first time since Prime Minister Stephen Harper assumed office five years ago. But the general election—the country’s fourth in seven years—brought other major changes. The New Democratic Party (NDP) leapfrogged over the Liberal Party to take the second largest number of votes and become the official opposition in Parliament. Results led to the halving of the Liberal Party’s parliamentary seats and to Michael Ignatieff’s decision to step down from his position as the party’s leader. The NDP’s “orange tide” also swept over the Bloc Québécois, which came in second in Quebec Province and will retain just four parliamentary seats. The Bloc’s Gilles Duceppe will step down from party leadership as well at a time when as Canada’s political landscape gets redrawn in the wake of the snap election.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Canada Votes Again

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be hoping for a case of “third time’s a charm.” He’s weathered some rocky political waters, from a 2008 election set during the global financial crisis to a budget dispute narrowly resolved in January 2009. Throughout his five years in office, his Conservative Party has held a minority in Parliament. Will that change come May 2, when Harper endures his third election? A short, five-week campaign cycle will deliver the answer.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Haiti Uneasy after Electoral Outcome

Haiti was dealt another pair of blows this week, between news that a cholera outbreak could likely be traced back to UN peacekeepers and protests over election results. With no candidate winning the requisite majority of the vote, Haitians will choose their next president by casting ballots in a January 16 runoff. But some voters aren’t happy with the results from the November 28 election, which was tainted by fraud allegations; governing party candidate Jude Celestín edged out pop star Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly by less than a percentage point and will face former first lady Mirlande Manigat in the second round. The ruling party felt protesters’ wrath on Wednesday when its headquarters were set on fire. The December 7 election results coincided with news that a report leaked to the Associated Press linked UN peacekeepers from Nepal to a cholera outbreak that has, thus far, claimed 2,000 lives in Haiti.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Entrevista con Gabino Cué, el nuevo gobernador del estado de Oaxaca, Mexico

Gabino Cué, el nuevo gobernador del estado de Oaxaca en Mexico, conversó con la editora de AS/COA Online Carin Zissis pocos días antes de su toma de posesión en el primer día de diciembre. Por una alianza politíca inesperada del conservador Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) y el izquierdista Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), Cué ganó una elección histórica en julio de 2010 y será el primer gobernador de oposición en el estado en mas de ocho décadas. Reemplazará Ulises Ruiz del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), quien podría ser investigado por corrupción y violaciones de derechos humanos después de entregar el poder.

Cué, quien perdió frente a Ruiz en 2004 en una elección marcada por alegaciones de fraude, habla sobre como planea el avance de su estado—rico en recursos pero con mucha pobreza—dejando atrás los protestas de 2006 que atrajeron atención internacional. También cuenta como es que su gobierno va a unificar detrás de ideologías diferentes de la alianza que lo aportó durante la elección. “Nosotros conformamos una alianza opositora, en base a una agenda por la transición democrática, para tratar temas de interés de todos los partidos,” dice Cué. “De la misma manera lo vamos a hacer en el gobierno.”

---

• Read the English translation of the interview here.

---

AS/COA Online: Usted está reemplazando al Gobernador Ulises Ruiz, quien cuenta con el nivel de popularidad más bajo de todos los gobernadores en México. Como el primer gobernador de oposición de Oaxaca en más de 80 años, ¿cuál será la primera acción de su gobierno para llevar al estado de Oaxaca por un nuevo rumbo?

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Exclusive Interview: Gabino Cue, New Governor of Oaxaca, Mexico, on His State’s Power Shift

Gabino Cué, the new governor of Oaxaca state in Mexico, spoke with AS/COA Online Managing Editor Carin Zissis on location in his transitional offices in the days leading up to his December 1 inauguration. Through an unlikely political alliance that included the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Cué won a historic July 2010 election to become the state’s first opposition governor in more than eight decades. He takes over from Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who may be investigated on corruption and human rights abuse charges after stepping down.

Cué, who lost to Ruiz in a 2004 election marred by fraud allegations, talks about how he plans to move his resource-rich but poverty-plagued state beyond 2006 protests that drew international attention as well as how his government plans to unify disparate ideologies of the alliance that backed him during the election. “We built an opposition alliance that had at its core an agenda for a democratic transition that would tackle issues important to all parties,” says Cué. “We’re going to build our government in the same way.” The new governor also touches on topics ranging from national security to investment prospects to the 2012 presidential vote.

---

• Usted puede leer la entrevista en español aquí.

---

AS/COA Online: You are replacing Governor Ulises Ruiz, who has the lowest approval rating of all the governors in Mexico. As the first opposition governor of Oaxaca in more than 80 years, what will be the first action your government takes to set Oaxaca on a new path?

Cué: First of all, we are experiencing a historic moment in Oaxaca where, after more than 80 years, the opposition won. There are great expectations when power shifts take place. And what we’ve said is that, at first, we want to do all we can to transition power from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. This means we have to dismantle the form in which practices have been carried out, which did little to support democracy. So, an important change will be the ways and style of relating to the electorate, the people, and those we govern.

The next change will be a package of institutional reforms that will allow us to move forward on practical themes: transparency, auditing, strengthening of autonomous agencies, the handling of human rights—all of which are, without a doubt, crucial in a state that has experienced so many violations of individuals’ rights. We have to do this through institutional changes that allow for better collaboration and equilibrium between powers—such as legislative power and judicial power—that permits greater independence and collaboration.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Haiti's Presidential Vote Mired in Controversy

Haitians won’t know the results of the November 28 presidential vote until next week, but even then the outcome may be shrouded in controversy. No fewer than 12 presidential candidates rejected the election as fraudulent while proceedings were described as chaotic and marked by inefficiency. Results are slated for December 7 at the earliest, with a final tally expected on December 20. Even if calls to cancel the election go unheeded, the results may not be decisive; a runoff would take place January 16 if no candidate wins the requisite 50-percent-plus-one portion of votes in the first round. Voters cast ballots not only for President René Préval’s successor, but also for 11 of 30 seats in the Senate and all 99 seats in the Chamber of Deputies to govern a country beset by a cholera outbreak and still dealing with the repercussions of January’s massive earthquake. Despite initial outcry, two leading candidates backed away from those opposing the election, suggesting they expected to face each other in a second round.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Peru's Race for the Presidency Heats up

Voters in Peru won’t head to the polls to elect their next president until April 2011, but competition is already heating up as more top contenders join the race and with former President Alejandro Toledo announcing his candidacy on November 10. He vies for the top seat against a number of candidates, including the current poll leader and two-term Mayor of Lima Luis Castañeda; Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of incarcerated ex-President Alberto Fujimori; former candidate Ollanta Humala; and Mercedes Aráoz, the ex-finance minister of the García administration. The crowded playing field could lead to a June runoff vote to determine who will next lead the Andean country.

Click to read more ...

AS/COA Online | Second Time's a Charm: Dilma Wins Brazil's Runoff Vote

Brazil elected its first female president on October 31, when voters chose Dilma Rousseff—and continuity—over ex-Governor of São Paulo José Serra. With 99 percent of ballots counted, the Worker’s Party (PT) candidate won 55.4 percent of votes compared to the roughly 43.5 percent garnered by her opponent from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PDSB). Most commonly referred to by her first name, Dilma offered supporters the pledge of carrying on the policies of her popular predecessor President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. She served as his cabinet chief and went on to become his handpicked heir. “Twenty-eight million Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty,” said Dilma Friday. “I will remove the remaining 20 million.”

Click to read more ...