Nicaraguan presidential candidate Herty Lewites, of the Sandanista Renovation Movement (MRS), has died of a heart attack in the capital, Managua. The center-left ex-mayor of Managua had served as tourism minister under Daniel Ortega in the 1980s but later broke away from the Sandanista Party to run for the presidency later this year against Ortega. He had been expected to take away votes from the former president.
Category: Regions
Posted inDaily Brief
Colombia Inflation Falling
Colombia’s inflation continues to trend downwards. Figures just released show consumer prices rose only 0.3% in June, down from the 0.4% in June last year. Inflation for the year to end-June stands at 3.02%, down from 3.93% as at end-March.
Posted inDaily Brief
Bolivia Returns To Polls
Meanwhile, Bolivians returned to the polls Sunday to vote for 210 of the 255 members of a new assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution that will ultimately be put before the people in a referendum. They will also be voting on greater autonomy for the country’s nine states, an option not backed by the president’s party, MAS, which wants to see a continuation of strong central control by government.
Posted inDaily Brief
Guatemala Implements Cafta; DR Delays
Guatemala joined El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to become the fourth Central American nation to implement Cafta, the free trade agreement with the US. Meanwhile, Dominican Republic delayed the planned July 1 implementation of the Treaty while it continued to negotiate some aspects of the agreement.
Posted inDaily Brief
Mexico Decides
Mexicans cast their votes yesterday, Sunday, to decide who will succeed Vicente Fox as the country’s next president. The two frontrunners out of the five candidates standing in the hotly contested race are left-of-center former mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and right-of-center former energy minister, Felipe Calderon of the ruling PAN party. Mexicans also voted for 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 128 members of the Senate, as well as governors in the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Morelos and the mayor of Mexico City. Mexicans abroad, including an estimated 35,000 based in the US, were eligible to vote in elections for the first time.
Posted inMagazine
A Minnow Among Whales
As large multinational banks scrap it out in Mexico, homegrown niche players like Ixe are finding that being small and nimble gives them a leg up.
Posted inMagazine
Thin Margin for the Marginalized
Only 244,000 Mexican voters – 0.24% of the population – felt more confident seeing conservative Felipe Calderón as their next president than the vociferous leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). […]
Posted inDaily Brief
Colombian Pension Funds Offer $285 Mln For Gas Distributor
A group of Colombian pension funds bid $285 million for the company’s main natural gas distributor, now called Transportadora de Gas del Interior (TCI). The new company springs from the sale of state utility Empresa Colombiana de Gas Natural, which operates 3,644 kilometers of gas pipelines. The sale is part of the Colombian government’s privatization program.