what makes you think the Canadian Liberals are left? the traditional Progressive Conservative party was far, far more socially progressive than the pro-business Liberals.
keep laughing. I am. 
And this is on topic with the thread…how?
Beats me. It was a partial response to yet another of your ad hominem attacks.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Jaboney -
Still pining for the loss of the liberals in Canada?
You obviously have no idea of the social/political/economic situation in Ecuador.
But like a good leftist tool…you tout the party line…LAUGHABLE![/quote]
Tell me, have you ever considered becoming a tailor’s apprentice? Seriously. You could work on following the thread and hone your needling skills.
[quote=“Jaboney”]:lol: Beats me. It was a partial response to yet another of your ad hominem attacks.[/quote][quote=“TainanCowboy”]Jaboney -
Still pining for the loss of the liberals in Canada?
You obviously have no idea of the social/political/economic situation in Ecuador.
But like a good leftist tool…you tout the party line…LAUGHABLE![/quote]
[quote=“Jaboney”]Tell me, have you ever considered becoming a tailor’s apprentice? Seriously. You could work on following the thread and hone your needling skills. [/quote]Jaboney -
So you have nothing to say…as usual. Divert and evade rather than respond.
Maybe I was a tailor in Panama; a noble profession.
Nothing to say? I posted a snippet about another in a string of electoral victories by left-leaning candidates in South and Central America. This follows the original post, mine, which was a snippet and comment about–wait for it–the electoral victory of a left-leaning candidate. Read the original and my recent post… they’re nearly identical, right down to the Kissinger joke. Show me how I’ve gone astray. Show me the substantive comment I’m ignoring. Come on… follow the thread, thread the needle, weave me a story. No? Ok. If you’ve been a tailor in Panama this may be a little out of your line of work, but is there any chance of getting a custom made tinfoil Panama hat?
“mods” if you exist, you might want to spit this thread off into an Ecuador thread.
Lets look at the latest from Ecuador. Careful Jaboney, I worked down there quite a lot.
[quote]Leftist Economist Wins Ecuador Election
By MONTE HAYES
QUITO, Ecuador - A leftist economist who called for Ecuador to cut ties with international lenders appeared to have easily won the presidency of this poor, politically unstable Andean nation, strengthening South America’s tilt to the left.
Partial returns from Sunday’s voting showed that Rafael Correa _ who has worried Washington with calls to limit foreign debt payments _ would join left-leaning leaders in Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, where he is friends with anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez.
The returns showed Correa with as many as twice the votes recorded as for his banana tycoon rival, who claimed the polls were rigged.
Correa was a fresh face in a field of established politicians, and won a place in Sunday’s runoff by pledging a “citizens’ revolution” against Ecuador’s discredited political system.
During the campaign, he called for Ecuador to cut ties with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Correa, who has called President Bush “dimwitted,” also wants to hold a referendum to rewrite the constitution, to reduce the power of traditional parties and limit U.S. military activities in Ecuador.
“We receive this triumph with deep serenity and humility,” the 43-year-old, who has an economics doctorate from the University of Illinois, told a news conference. “When we take office it will finally be the Ecuadorean people who are assuming power.”
With 31 percent of the ballots counted, Correa had nearly 67 percent compared to 33 percent for Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal said before dawn Monday. Election officials said more returns were expected later Monday but that final results may not be known until Tuesday.
But Noboa, a Bible-toting billionaire who counts the Kennedys and Rockefellers among his friends, declined to concede defeat, saying he would wait for the final vote results.
“There has been a scenario in which they are preparing to commit fraud,” Noboa told dozens of his supporters in the coastal city of Guayaquil. He said he instructed his campaign chiefs “to go to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and demand that they open the ballot boxes to count vote for vote so there can be no doubt.”
Ecuador has had eight presidents since 1996, including three who were driven from office by street protests.
Correa pledged to construct 100,000 low-cost homes and copied Noboa’s promise to double a $36 “poverty bonus” that 1.2 million poor Ecuadoreans receive each month.
Correa began his campaign identifying with Chavez, but backpedaled when he feared the comparison was hurting him in the polls. That appeared to change somewhat Sunday night.
“Hopefully, we will get much, much closer to Chavez,” he told Channel 8 television in an interview. “Chavez is my personal friend, but in my house, my friends aren’t in charge, I am. And in Ecuador, it will be Ecuadoreans in charge.”
He said he would not rule out also seeking stronger ties to other more moderate leftist presidents like Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and with Washington, if President Bush makes it worthwhile for Ecuador.
Correa stood firm, however, on not signing a free-trade deal with the United States, “because, among other things, it would destroy our agriculture, cattle and poultry” industries.
At his first news conference following the election, Correa said Ecuador could rejoin the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.
“If it is possible we will rejoin OPEC,” he said. Ecuador, which produces some 535,000 barrels of oil a day, left OPEC in 1993.
He also announced that leftist economists Ricardo Patino and Alberto Acosta, whom he had mentioned earlier as possible Cabinet ministers, would be appointed to head the ministries of economy and energy.
Correa was favored to win the first round but came in second to Noboa in the field of 13 after his comments on Bush and threat to reduce payments on Ecuador’s $16.1 billion foreign debt rattled investors.
Prior to the second round of voting, he softened his radical rhetoric and began to make populist promises of his own.
Correa served just 106 days last year as finance minister under interim President Alfredo Palacio, who replaced hi, with Lucio Gutierrez in the midst of street protests in April 2005.
Noboa, who was seeking the presidency for the third time, had run an old-fashioned populist campaign, crisscrossing Ecuador handing out computers, medicine and money.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
thetimesonline.com/articles/ … lb3l80.txt[/quote]
Look at the article…closely. IMO, he won’t last very long.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]“mods” if you exist, you might want to spit this thread off into an Ecuador thread.
Lets look at the latest from Ecuador. Careful Jaboney, I worked down there quite a lot.[/quote]
That’s good. You should be well-informed. I can learn something from you. I’m all ears. Teach me.
[quote]Leftist Economist Wins Ecuador Election
By MONTE HAYES
During the campaign, he called for Ecuador to cut ties with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Correa, who has called President Bush “dimwitted,” also wants to hold a referendum to rewrite the constitution, to reduce the power of traditional parties and limit U.S. military activities in Ecuador.[/quote]This all sound reasonable. I’m with Jeffrey Sacks on the World Bank and IMF. Bush is a dimwit. He’s proposed a referendum on rewriting the constitution… that happens from time to time. Traditional political parties are both important and problematic… I’m interested in reading his proposals in detail. Limiting the US military in Ecuador could be good or bad. Details, details… where’re the devils hiding in those details, teacher?
[quote]Election officials said more returns were expected later Monday but that final results may not be known until Tuesday.[/quote] Ok.
[quote]Correa pledged to construct 100,000 low-cost homes and copied Noboa’s promise to double a $36 “poverty bonus” that 1.2 million poor Ecuadoreans receive each month.[/quote]Good.
[quote]Correa began his campaign identifying with Chavez, but backpedaled when he feared the comparison was hurting him in the polls. That appeared to change somewhat Sunday night.
“Hopefully, we will get much, much closer to Chavez,” he told Channel 8 television in an interview. “Chavez is my personal friend, but in my house, my friends aren’t in charge, I am. And in Ecuador, it will be Ecuadoreans in charge.”[/quote] Good.
[quote]He said he would not rule out also seeking stronger ties to other more moderate leftist presidents like Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and with Washington, if President Bush makes it worthwhile for Ecuador.[/quote] Good.
[quote]Correa stood firm, however, on not signing a free-trade deal with the United States, “because, among other things, it would destroy our agriculture, cattle and poultry” industries.[/quote] Good.
[quote]At his first news conference following the election, Correa said Ecuador could rejoin the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.[/quote] I don’t know about this one.
[quote]He also announced that leftist economists Ricardo Patino and Alberto Acosta, whom he had mentioned earlier as possible Cabinet ministers, would be appointed to head the ministries of economy and energy.[/quote]So, they’re educated. Any reason to oppose them in particular?
[quote]Correa served just 106 days last year as finance minister under interim President Alfredo Palacio, who replaced hi, with Lucio Gutierrez in the midst of street protests in April 2005.[/quote]So?
I’ve read it closely. I’ll read more. Now, given your experience, can you explain the implications for me?
Lets look at a couple of economic/business websites this morning to see some of the implications.
(I’m going to edit a bit, full article at links)
[quote]Ecuador Bonds Riskiest, Credit-Default Swaps Indicate (Update3)
By Shannon D. Harrington
Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) – Ecuador surpassed Lebanon as the riskiest country for bondholders after Rafael Correa, who late yesterday declared himself winner of the presidential elections, said the nation may default on $11 billion of debt, according to traders in the credit-default swap market.
The cost of credit-default swaps based on $10 million of Ecuador debt securities jumped 61 percent to $503,000 from $313,000 on Nov. 24, according to data compiled by Credit Market Analysis. An increase in price indicates deterioration in the perception of credit quality; a decline suggests improvement.
----xxxx----
Ecuador has $11 billion in foreign bonds outstanding.
If country risk goes up because of speculators worrying over ability to pay the debt, I don't care,'' Correa said last night in an interview on television network Ecuavisa. The country risk I care about is children suffering.’’
----xxxx----
Credit-default swaps are financial instruments based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company’s ability to repay debt.
Surpassing Lebanon[/b]
Ecuador credit-default swaps had been as low as $255,000 two weeks ago as polls showed Correa trailed challenger Alvaro Noboa, who supports free trade negotiations and favors increased foreign investment.
Credit-default swaps based on Ecuador bonds surpassed Lebanon, whose Industry Minister was assassinated last week, as the riskiest among sovereign debt, CMA data show.
----xxxx----
Correa would be the eighth president in 10 years in a nation where corruption and social unrest have toppled several administrations. He would replace President Alfredo Palacio.
``Given the extreme language that Correa and his allies used in his campaign proposal it may be difficult for Correa to be pragmatic and go forward with a very soft restructuring,’’ Carola Sandy, a Latin America debt strategist at Credit Suisse in New York, wrote in a research report today.
Correa may have difficulty carrying out his more aggressive plans because of a lack of support in the congress, said Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
----xxxx----
Bonds Fall
Ecuador’s bonds fell to a six-week low today, pushing the yield on its dollar-denominated bond due in 2012 up 34 basis points, or 0.34 percentage point, to 12.21 percent, according to JPMorgan.
``Once a new constitution, along with a presumably pro- Correa new Congress, is in place, Correa, like Chavez in Venezuela, would face few institutional constraints on his policy decisions,’’ Stracke wrote in the report.
Credit-default swaps, the fastest growing derivatives market, have become the best gauge of shifts in credit quality. The market doubled the past year to $26 trillion, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said in September. Derivatives are financial instruments derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events like changes in the weather or interest rates.
Bloomber.com[/quote]
and in Investors Business Daily:
[quote]Ecuador Votes In New Turmoil
Posted 11/27/2006
Latin America: The election in Ecuador on Sunday showed a moderate platform attracts more votes than a far-left one. But if a winner has no intention of staying moderate, trouble is likely.
That’s why the election of leftist Rafael Correa, 43, is so likely to bring renewed turmoil to the Latin American nation when he takes office on Jan. 15.
After his trouncing in the Oct. 15 first round by banana magnate Alvaro Noboa, Correa “washed face” (in the local parlance) and ran for president as a newly minted moderate. But Correa’s first statements after declaring victory signal he hasn’t changed his spots in the slightest.
“Hopefully, we will get much, much closer to Mr. (Hugo) Chavez,” Correa said in his victory speech.
That’s an appalling fast one to pull on voters, because Correa’s victory was engineered by toning down his far-left campaign promises. These included defaulting on Ecuador’s $11 billion in sovereign debt, confiscating foreign energy investments, scrapping an in-progress free trade pact with the U.S. — and cozying up to Venezuela’s anti-U.S. leader Chavez. All of that would leave Ecuador isolated.
In his “acceptance speech,” Correa said the election result was a broad mandate for change, giving him the right to set up a new assembly to rewrite the constitution. That would increase his presidential power by ending checks and balances with Congress.
He also appointed two avowed leftists as finance and energy ministers, and now declares there’ll be no free trade pact with the U.S.
For the U.S., Correa is likely to break more long-term contracts with energy firms, as was done this year with Occidental Petroleum, which lost $5 billion in a confiscation.
Meanwhile, Correa has thrown his debt-responsibility pledges out the window. “If (our) country’s risk goes up because of speculators worrying over ability to pay the debt, I don’t care,” he said in a TV interview covered by Bloomberg. This is especially worrisome because Ecuador has enough oil earnings to pay its obligations.
----xxxx----
In short, Correa has declared war on markets. With an enemy that big — much bigger than the U.S. he rails against — he’ll have little room for maneuver. At least four factors are working against him.
First, it is unlikely in an atmosphere of confiscation that the U.S. will grant Ecuador a free trade pact or even extend its annually renewable Andean Trade Pact privileges. So Correa’s insistence on not wanting free trade is moot — he isn’t going to get it anyway.
If friendly Colombia and Peru are struggling to get pacts passed with a Republican Congress, Ecuador’s prospects will be that much dimmer as the Democrats take office.
Second, Chavez is receding as a political force and could even be defeated in Sunday’s election in Venezuela. If he’s not, and there’s a perception of electoral fraud, he may face turmoil himself. Either way, he’ll remain a political liability in or out of power, and may not be able to aid Correa.
Third, oil prices are in a downtrend. So renewing membership in an OPEC seeking production quotas is unlikely to benefit a small producer like Ecuador, which ought to produce as much oil as it can.
Fourth, Correa’s plan to rewrite the constitution to de-power Congress is likely to meet bitter resistance, and not just because Ecuador’s Congress is full of special interests. It is now dominated by Noboa’s free market party, and Noboa’s refusal to concede the election until all the results are in signal he’s in no mood to compromise.
All these obstacles represent built-in limits to Correa’s ability to take Ecuador into an extreme direction. His erratic willingness to bull forward with his far-left ideas is likely to put him on a collision course with opponents and lead to major turmoil. It’s going to be a bumpy ride if Correa cannot rule as the moderate he claimed to be.
InvestorsBusinessDaily[/quote]
Not the most objective review, but it spells out a scenario based on precedent.
Before Correa, Gutierrez was originally a Chavista. He engineered a coup Chavez-style and with Chavezs’ money and won the presidency. Political, social and economic reality forced him to moderate his policies. This highly p.o’ed his support base and he was then overthrown by mass protests. Which was exactly what he did in his coup that overthrew Mahuad.
Now Correa is in. How long until the leftists again eat their own. And the people of Ecuador continue to suffer.
[quote=“Jaboney”]And another domino falls… to the left. 
[/quote]
LOL wait until 15 years… the world would be following to the left
Maybe the next place to go left:
[quote=“NYT”]No political party currently in power anywhere in the world has governed longer than the Colorado Party here, not even the Kim family’s Communist dynasty in North Korea. But a charismatic Roman Catholic bishop recently suspended by the Vatican is threatening that hegemony and has emerged as the front-runner for next year’s presidential election.
Known as “the bishop of the poor,” Msgr. Fernando Lugo Méndez has been strongly influenced by liberation theology, which emerged in Latin America in the 1960s and contends that the Roman Catholic Church has a special obligation to defend the oppressed and downtrodden. But he is reluctant to position himself on the political spectrum, saying that he is interested in solutions, not labels.
“As I am accustomed to saying, hunger and unemployment, like the lack of access to health and education, have no ideology,” he said in an interview here. “My discourse, my person and my testimony are above political parties, whose own members are desirous of change and want an end to a system that favors narrow partisan interests over those of the country.”
[…]
Recent polls here support Monsignor Lugo’s status as the most respected and popular political figure in the country, and he runs ahead of all other potential candidates in such surveys. But both church and state are seeking to block his road to the presidential palace, which has led some of his supporters to threaten to take to the streets if he is disqualified.
The Constitution forbids ministers of any religious denomination to hold elective office, and the Roman Catholic Church enforces a similar prohibition on its clergy. Monsignor Lugo resigned from the priesthood in December to free himself from those restrictions, saying, “From today on, my cathedral will be the nation.” But the Vatican, while suspending him from his duties, has rejected his request to be laicized.[/quote]This must be pissing the pope of something fierce. 'God’s Rottweiler" found Liberation Theology specifically abhorrent, and clerical involvement in politics generally so.
I am 100 percent in agreement regarding the former. Liberation Theology is reheated Marxism. It represents the same failed policies that have been tried over and over and over again. Slap a new name on it (populism reheated) and guess what? They still don’t work.
It reminds me of Kwanzaa. There’s another holiday and a half. When will people learn…
Leopard…spots… cambio nada…
[quote]
Ortega has started to slip back into his old ways: strengthening friendships with radical leaders, initiating regional disputes, dismissing promises made to the Nicaraguan people, and publicly denouncing both capitalism and America.
Same As the Old Boss?
By Jaime Daremblum Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega is reverting to radicalism, writes JAIME DAREMBLUM. But the opposition is fighting back.
hen Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega returned to power as president of Nicaragua last year, there were encouraging signs that this time would be different. Ortega’s first term as president in the 1980s was marred by failed socialist economic policies, his support of Communist revolutions in the region, and a military conflict with the U.S.-backed Contra rebels. Even so, at the time of Ortega’s election in late 2006, Latin American democrats hoped this onetime revolutionary had abandoned his radical past in favor of a more pragmatic, pro-growth, and pro-American future.
There were plenty of reasons to be optimistic. It appeared that Ortega had finally begun to recognize that free markets and business investment held the keys to prosperity for Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. (Some 50 percent of Nicaraguans live in poverty.) He repeatedly assured the public that he desired a good working relationship with the United States. He put foreign and domestic investors at ease by maintaining his support for the Central American Free Trade Agreement. And he insisted he would continue pursuing the free-market polices initiated by his predecessors in the center-right Liberal Party.
Unfortunately, despite his pre-election rhetoric, Ortega has started to slip back into his old ways: strengthening friendships with radical leaders around the world, initiating regional disputes, dismissing promises made to the Nicaraguan people, and publicly denouncing both capitalism and America.
Only a year ago, his brother, Humberto Ortega, a former military leader, stressed that the president was determined to establish a government of national unity. “There’s no room for radicalisms or international alignments,” he said. Following his inauguration, President Ortega traveled around the region promoting the cause of Central American unity. At the time, many democratic supporters viewed his first trip to Guatemala as an attempt to distance Nicaragua from the increasingly radical governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba.
But recently, Ortega has reverted to his old form. In September he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, where he was supposed to request humanitarian aid for the victims of Hurricane Felix. Instead, Ortega used the world stage to rant against global capitalism and denounce “the enemy”—America. This is the language of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and other radical Latin populists.
Indeed, Ortega’s burgeoning alliance with Chávez became even more apparent last November at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile. After Chávez repeatedly accused former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar of being a “fascist” and then asked the Spanish king if he had prior knowledge of Venezuela’s 2002 coup, which briefly removed Chávez from power, King Juan Carlos turned to Chávez and said, “Why don’t you shut up?” Ortega fueled the controversy—and underscored his partnership with Chávez—by accusing Spain of having intervened in Nicaragua’s elections, which prompted Juan Carlos to storm out of the summit.
More alarming than the Chávez-Ortega alliance is the small network of Latin American regimes that have boosted their strategic ties with theocratic Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made several trips to the region, most recently this past September, when he stopped in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. During his latest tour, the Iranian leader claimed that he and Ortega “have common interests, common enemies, and common goals.” During an earlier Ahmadinejad visit, Ortega honored his Iranian guest with two of Nicaragua’s highest medals of honor, the Liberty Medal and the Rubén Darío Medal. It was no surprise that, in his September speech at the UN, Ortega defended Iran’s (and North Korea’s) right to pursue nuclear technology. “Even if they want nuclear power for purposes that are not peaceful,” he said, “with what right does [the U.S.] question it?”
Ortega has agreed to help Iran and Venezuela finance a $350 million deepwater port at Monkey Point along Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. The countries plan to lay down pipelines, rail tracks, and highways to connect this port to the Pacific Ocean. Iran has even established official diplomatic relations with Nicaragua, raising concerns among other Central American countries and also among the Israelis. During a recent television interview, Ehud Eitam, Israel’s ambassador to Costa Rica and its non-resident ambassador to Nicaragua, said it is difficult not to be suspicious of Iran’s intentions when its Nicaraguan embassy is heavily staffed with members of the Republican Guard, which the United States has branded a terrorist organization. In Eitam’s view, Iran’s presence in Nicaragua is clearly “a matter of intelligence.”
While cozying up to new friends in Caracas and Tehran, Ortega is also alienating many of Nicaragua’s old ones. In a speech delivered last month, he referred to the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a terrorist guerrilla group deeply enmeshed in cocaine trafficking and hostage taking, as a “dear brother.” This infuriated the Colombian government.
Closer to home, Ortega has already damaged the Nicaraguan economy, which had been on an upward trajectory since he first left office in the early 1990s. (In fact, during the 16-year period following Ortega’s first presidency, the Nicaraguan government privatized more than 350 state enterprises, cut inflation, and reduced its foreign debt.) Ortega initially worked to assuage fears in the business community that he would scare away foreign investment. In January 2007, he told Cargill CEO Warren Staley that “you can count on Nicaragua as a country that is willing to continue working and increasing those investments.”
Yet despite his brief flirtation with market-oriented policies, Ortega is now moving Nicaragua back in a socialist direction. He recently asked his cabinet to come up with a plan for nationalizing the country’s oil imports, and he appears determined to abandon all responsible macroeconomic policies.
This shift has not gone unnoticed. In recent months, Ortega’s poll numbers have plummeted, the political opposition has become increasingly aggressive in their attacks, and Ortega has backtracked a bit on his anti-American outbursts. Last February, only 17 percent of Nicaraguans told pollsters that their country was headed in the wrong direction. By June, that number had swelled to 57 percent. A poll released earlier this month found that more than 60 percent of Nicaraguans believe Ortega is an authoritarian ruler.
Nicaragua’s opposition parties have formed an alliance known as the “bloc against the dictatorship,” which includes a splinter group of Ortega’s Sandinistas. It has been launching more frequent and forceful attacks in recent months. The reformist opposition is now working to extend the so-called “Framework Law” in order to ensure that Ortega’s political appointments have to be approved by Congress.
Perhaps Ortega is feeling the pressure. Despite his anti-American grandstanding, the Nicaraguan president has not completely turned away from the United States. There have been recent U.S.-Nicaraguan discussions, for instance, over the Soviet-era missiles left over from Nicaragua’s civil war in the 1980s. Ortega is reportedly negotiating with the United States to get helicopters and medicine in exchange for these missiles. Whatever his public rhetoric, he continues to show interest in working with U.S. officials behind closed doors.
Just as Venezuelans stood up to Chávez in a referendum that would have greatly expanded the president’s powers, it appears that the Nicaraguan people and political opposition are setting up roadblocks for Ortega. Concerns in the business community may curb Ortega’s more foolish economic policies and help prevent the country from spiraling deeper into poverty and despair.
The situation in Nicaragua is serious. Let’s hope the political opposition can continue to check Ortega’s turn to the radical left and help redirect Nicaragua onto a path of political and economic freedom.
Jaime Daremblum is the director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Hudson Institute. He was Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2004.
american.com/archive/2008/ja … e-old-boss[/quote]
Pretty freakin’ sad to see this happening.
Guys, just because these guys once used the mantle of Socialism as a silver bullet -“We are doing this in the name of teh people, who have suffered/struggled so much, bla bla bla…” - does not mean they are even remotely connected to any ideology other than making themselves rich.
Socialism is dead in Latin America, as much as Communism is in China. The dictatorships remain, same old names, new game, though.
In Nicaragua, the people are the ones left behind always, by both parties. Why? Because their leaders have signed agreements to cover each other’s a***, split the bounty like thieves, and either prevent from going to court/get liberated. Haven’t you heard of a certain expresident’s “the country as jail” bit?
How bad is it for Nicaraguans? A relative of a friend of mine worked in Costa Rica for years, struggling to send money to buy a house and keep her children. However, she had to come back in a hurry, as her legally bought house was being seized by corrupt officials. She’s not a big land owner, not a rich landlord, and now she cannot work -no jobs in Nicaragua- and can’t leave or else, all is lost. No rights, no hope.
And please do not say they elected the people they deserve. There is no freedom is there is no choice. It is like fleeing a sinking ship: you run to the left, and there is a tiger eating your people. You rush to the right, and there is a bear ripping you apart.
The only way to distract people from their own misery is to start fights with the neighbors. having no local legitimacy, their only avenue is to join forces with others in the same position.
1 Like
And another domino falls…to the right. 
Good to see the pendulum shift back.
Guillermo Lasso: Conservative ex-banker elected Ecuador president - BBC News
Although Peru could be worrying:
Peru Heads to Runoff Election After Presidential Vote Split - Bloomberg
And another domino falls…to the left.
General elections were held in Bolivia on 18 October 2020 for President, Vice-President, and all seats in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.[2] Luis Arce of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party was elected president in a landslide,[3][4][5] winning 55% of the vote and securing majorities in both chambers of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly.
We could keep doing this every year or so.