Writer, journalist, speaker; visiting prof @LSEPublicPolicy. Books include "Spain" (March 2023), "Forgotten Continent" (on Lat Am) and "Brazil" (all Yale UP)
Nov 19, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Argentina: a few quick thoughts on Javier Milei's victory. It conforms to the Latin American pattern of anti-incumbency, turbocharged in this case by the abject failure of Kirchnerist Peronism over the past decade. They have no policy answers to fix the economy. But does he? 1/5
Milei won because he chanelled the anger and frustration of many Argentines at that failure, and the clientelist-subsidy system that lies behind it. But he can't govern as a mere disruptor. He has very little experience, not much of a team, and looks psychologically fragile. 2/5
May 29, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Spain: To try to explain Pedro Sánchez's decision to call a snap election for 23/7, a thread on Spanish politics, which have become a complicated world of coalitions. A two-party system has been replaced by two blocks, plus assorted nationalists and regionalists. 1/11
To became prime minister in a censure motion in 2018, Sánchez crossed a red line set by previous Socialist leaders, building a parliamentary alliance with Catalan separatists and Bildu, the post-ETA party, and in 2020 forming a coalition government with far-left Podemos 2/11
Dec 14, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A few thoughts on Peru (reposting with correction). The starting point is that Castillo's presidency was a disaster. He was inept and, according to prosecutors, corrupt. He was destroying what little technical capability the Peruvian state had by appointing cronies. 1/8
And then came his attempted coup against Congress and the courts, imitating Fujimori in 1992. The Congress acted constitutionally in impeaching him and appointing the elected vice-president, Dina Boluarte, in his place. Why has that prompted so much protest? 2/8
Sep 5, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A few thoughts on Chile. The rejection of the new constitution by 62% to 38% on an 86% turnout marks the reversal of the lurch to the left triggered by the "social explosion" of October 2019. Ok, in referendums people don't necessarily vote on the question on the paper. 1/8
The scale of rejection reflects the relative unpopularity of Gabriel Boric's young left-wing government, discontent over inflation (of 13%), a looming recession and a sense that the government is soft on crime. But it is also a rejection of the Constituent Convention's work 2/8
Oct 28, 2019 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
1) A few quick thoughts on yesterday's elections in South America. The main trend is anti-incumbency, shown in the defeat of Macri in Argentina, probable 2nd round defeat of the Frente Amplio in Uruguay and some municipal results in Colombia
2) Argentina: Fernández & Fernández win over Macri by 48% to 40.5% much smaller than many (including pollsters) expected. Macri always faced an uphill task after the collapse of the peso in 2018. But:
Apr 30, 2019 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Venezuela: what we know so far 1) @jguaido announced, ostensibly from La Carlota air base, support of armed forces for "an end to the usurpation" (ie overthrow of Maduro). @leopoldolopez beside him, saying his SEBIN intelligence service guards freed him from house arrest
2) @jguaido and @leopoldolopez filmed on bridge outside La Carlota with small group of national guard troops. Some shots fired. Opposition crowd then tear gassed from within La Carlota, apparently by police special forces
Apr 17, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Peru: ex-president Alan García committed suicide as police came to arrest him over corruption investigation today. One way and another I came across him a lot in the past 35yrs. The most extravagantly talented Latin American politician and orator of his generation /More
Those talents were in the end outweighed by his huge flaws. His first term (1985-90) was a disaster: hyperinflation, infantile leftism, terrorism. His second term (2006-11) much more successful, though not without fault. /More
