Mother Nature and Elections Top Latin America in 2007
Vida en el Valle, News Analysis, Staff, Posted: Dec 27, 2007
Editor's Note: Extreme weather, including floods in Tabasco, Mexico, and diplomatic fireworks between Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and others dominated headlines through the year. Soon, a third female politician could be elected president in South America.
FRESNO -- Mother Nature seems to have been in the news this decade, not only because of global warming but because of other severe weather patterns. México's Gulf Coast was not immune to heavy rains that swelled three rivers in the state of Tabasco and left more than 1 million homes under water in October.
Mexican officials placed the number of dead at 33, although several hundred remained unaccounted for in Tabasco, while nearby Chiapas was also pummeled.
A month after the flooding, critics blamed government officials for never finishing a $190 million levee that could have lessened the damage. The project was scheduled to be completed by 2006, but many fear federal funds for the project were re-directed into state officials' pockets.
"Maybe if they had built more defenses it would have been all right. But they only care about the rich people of Tabasco, not the poor," a 24-year-old wife of a car mechanic in Villahermosa told reporters.
More criticism was directed at the Federal Electricity Commission, which was accused of waiting too long to release water out of a dam upstream. That forced workers to release a torrent of water and allowed too little time to warn people downstream.
Others blamed deforestation in the highlands, which prevents the earth from absorbing heavy rainfall.
Whatever the reasons for the disasters, Tabasco residents are still cleaning up.
Hugo loses referendum
When Venezuela President Hugo Chávez wasn't launching tirades against U.S. President George Bush, or throwing petro-dollars at neighboring countries in efforts to provide health care to the poor, he was hatching up a plan to consolidate his power.
On Dec. 2, Venezuelans said no to constitutional changes that would have allowed Chávez to run for re-election indefinitely and to select his own officials to run local governments.
The vote, despite massive opposition from college students, was close: 51 percent to 49 percent. Voter turnout was also low, about 22 percent.
To top it off, Spanish King Juan Carlos I had admonished Chávez, "Why don't you shut up?" at a summit a few weeks before.
Kirchner succeeds Kirchner
Argentina became the second South American country to have a female leader when Argentine First Lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won 46.3 percent of the vote on Oct. 28 in a race to succeed her husband, Nestor Kirchner.
The 54-year-old lawyer, who had been in elected office for nearly two decades, was sworn into office on Dec. 10 and became the first woman to be elected president of Argentina.
War against drug traffickers
Mexican President Felipe Calderón had just gotten accustomed to life at Los Pinos when he sent more than 1,000 federal troops in early January to three cities in the western state of Guerrero in a continuing effort to crack down on drugs and crime. Calderón had sent more than 10,000 troops to two other states since he took office in December 2006.
Despite the moves, gangland-style murders and kidnappings reached record levels the first six months of the year. An analyst said the country's murder rate was the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
Women power
She's not there yet, but former education minister Blanca Ovelar is close to becoming South América's third female president. Ovelar, who is favored by outgoing president Nicanor Duarte, had more than 45 percent of the Dec. 16 vote in Paraguay.
Ovelar will face a former Catholic bishop and a former army general in next April's presidential elections.
The other female presidents are Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina, and Michelle Bachelete in Chile.
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