The Latin American Report # 633

The main regional news this Saturday is the inauguration of Rodrigo Paz as president of the Bolivia, closing 20 years of political monopoly by the depleted Movement for Socialism. Paz, the son of a former president, is a center-right politician whose arrival at the Great House of the People guarantees more muscle for the right, which holds presidential representation in important strongholds like Argentina, Ecuador, and Paraguay, happily orbiting around Washington.

Whatever the reasons, it is a truth that Paz receives a "devastated" country, but also that his political position guarantees him support quite characteristic of the current context for right-wing governments, expressed in the extraordinary U.S. financial support targeting Buenos Aires, also the Trump administration's promise to facilitate the entry of fuels to La Paz, and a credit of

from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean in favor of the Paz administration.

“The situation is really much worse than one anticipated. The level of the deficit is much greater. The coffers are empty, we don't have a peso, there are no reserves, they spent even the gold and there are no income of any kind,”

a member of Paz's economic team about the management of the outgoing government of Luis Arce. "They betrayed us and betrayal is paid for in Bolivia, because it is the cost borne by the most humble, and we are going to defend the most humble," Paz in his inaugural speech.

"Why are there people, families who have nothing to eat today, if we were so rich with so much gas and with lithium as the future? They will answer to the homeland for the poverty and need of every Bolivian man and woman," he reaffirmed. Javier Milei, Daniel Noboa, Gabriel Boric, Santiago Peña, and Yamandú Orsi

, with the presence of the leaders of Chile and Uruguay being a relevant signal about the crisis of consensus on the left. With the past of time, we will see if the commitment to build a "" by this new government becomes a reality.

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Cuba and post-Melissa recovery

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA in Spanish), which, by the way, suspended Bolivia due to Paz's political positions,

to support the Island's recovery efforts. The aid includes food, household goods, medicines, toys, and even an electrical brigade. Venezuela in particular had already sent 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba and about 20 to Jamaica, where Melissa made landfall as a powerful category 5 hurricane. There are still more than 300 MW affected by the impact of the meteorological event here, with the country already facing an energy crisis due to the antiquated state of its generation infrastructure and the chronic lack of foreign currency to acquire fuel, which is reinforced by the comprehensive sanctions imposed by Washington.

Mexico

Violence is overflowing again in the Aztec nation, primarily political violence, after the discovery last Thursday of

, Veracruz state, who had been first reported as kidnapped. But on the same day, a municipal agent was murdered in a community in Oaxaca state, closing a cycle of three murders if we count the lethal attack carried out by hitmen last Saturday against the mayor of Uruapan, in Michoacán state. Thus, the number of political murders in Mexico (56) is approaching the figure of 60 for the year 2025. Since October of last year, , confirming local authorities as the "weakest link" in the Mexican political structure. The former mayor of Zinapécuaro, also in Michoacán, after being found alive last Thursday, after being reported missing for four days.

This is all for today’s report.