Central America Archive

Nicaragua moved closer to one-party rule late last month, when the country’s Supreme Electoral Council unseated 28 opposition lawmakers and substitute lawmakers in the National Assembly, effectively handing full control of the legislature to President Daniel Ortega’s party, the Sandinista Front of National Liberation, or FSLN. The council dismissed the lawmakers from the Independent Liberal Party for their refusal to recognize their new official party leader, Pedro Reyes, an Ortega ally who had been granted the position in a contentious ruling in June by the Supreme Court of Justice that removed the previous opposition leader, Eduardo Montealegre. Unfortunately, these types […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the legal status and socio-economic conditions of indigenous peoples in a range of countries. The recent arrest of an indigenous leader in Guatemala sparked outrage among the country’s indigenous communities, which claim the government is systematically discriminating against them. In an email interview, Jennifer N. Costanza, an independent scholar who focuses on indigenous rights and the politics of resource extraction in Latin America, discussed indigenous rights in Guatemala. WPR: What is the legal status of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples, what legal struggles have they fought in recent years, and […]

On Jan. 14, comedian Jimmy Morales was inaugurated as president of Guatemala, unexpectedly sweeping to power after successfully tapping into the public’s repudiation of the political establishment to win the country’s election last fall. Running under the slogan “neither corrupt nor a thief,” Morales was able to appeal to a citizenry that, following revelations of massive corruption scandals, had taken to the streets to demand greater government accountability and forced the resignation of then-President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti. Voters were willing to overlook Morales’ lack of concrete policy proposals, handing him a landslide victory over former […]