LATIN AMERICA ADVISOR A DAILY PUBLICATION OF THE DIALOGUE www.thedialogue.org Wednesday, April 14, 2021 BOARD OF ADVISORS FEATURED Q&A TODAY’S NEWS Diego Arria Director, Columbus Group POLITICAL Devry Boughner Vorwerk Who Has the Edge Venezuela Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Grubhub Restricts Vaccine Joyce Chang Global Head of Research, Ahead of Peru’s to State Loyalty JPMorgan Chase & Co. Card Holders Paula Cifuentes Director of Economic & Fiscal Affairs, June Runoff Vote? The government of Venezuelan Latin America & Canada, President Nicolás Maduro is Philip Morris International reportedly restricting access to Marlene Fernández Covid-19 vaccines to people with Corporate Vice President for a state loyalty card, known as the Government Relations, Arcos Dorados (McDonald’s) Carnet de la Patria. Page 2 Peter Hakim President Emeritus, Inter-American Dialogue BUSINESS Donna Hrinak Senior VP, Corporate Affairs, Royal Caribbean Group Ecuador Arrests Jon E. Huenemann Officials in Council Member, GLG Inc. Corruption Case James R. Jones Pedro Castillo (center) won the most votes in the first round of Peru’s presidential election on Ecuadorean authorities have made Chairman, Sunday. Former legislator Keiko Fujimori appears to have also secured a spot in the second arrests in connection with an in- Monarch Global Strategies round in June. // File Photo: Castillo Campaign. vestigation into a corruption case Craig A. Kelly Far-left candidate Pedro Castillo emerged as the top at state-run institutions including Senior Director, Americas oil company Petroecuador. Int’l Gov’t Relations, Exxon Mobil vote-getter in the first round of Peru’s presidential election Page 2 John Maisto on Sunday. In the June runoff, it appears that he will face Director, U.S. Education Finance Group Q right-wing former legislator Keiko Fujimori, who looks to POLITICAL Nicolás Mariscal have come in second, ahead of opponents Rafael López Aliaga and Chairman, Haiti’s Prime Grupo Marhnos Hernando de Soto. What accounts for Castillo’s unexpected first-round Thomas F. McLarty III lead, and how will that shape the second round? What are Castillo’s most Minister Resigns Chairman, as Violence Surges McLarty Associates important proposals, and why did they resonate with voters? With far- Beatrice Rangel left and far-right candidates in the running, is there a risk that political Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Director, extremism will come to dominate Peru’s politics in the coming years? Jouthe announced today that he is AMLA Consulting LLC resigning, a move that came amid Jaana Remes a surge in killings and kidnappings Partner, in the Caribbean nation. McKinsey Global Institute Cynthia McClintock, professor of political science and inter- Page 2 Ernesto Revilla national affairs at The George Washington University: “The Head of Latin American two candidates at ideological extremes who reached Peru’s Economics, Citi Gustavo Roosen runoff expose the abyss between the ‘two Perus’—the coast, President, A including Lima, where globalization and progress have been consider- IESA Andrés Rozental able, and Peru’s interior, where citizens have felt abandoned and angry, President, Rozental & and only more so during the pandemic. A schoolteacher in the highlands Asociados department of Cajamarca, Castillo has never held elective office; his Shelly Shetty Managing Director, Sovereigns leadership of a major teachers’ strike in 2017 led to grassroots support Fitch Ratings in remote highland areas (which pollsters did not visit until the final days of election campaigns). Castillo has proposed a new constitution; state intervention of companies in the mining, energy and other sectors; the replacement of the Constitutional Tribunal (Peru’s highest court) with a popularly elected court; and (like almost every candidate) dramatic increases in resources for education and health. On social issues, he Jouthe // File Photo: Haitian Government. Continued on page 3 COPYRIGHT © 2021, INTER-AMERICAN DIALOGUE PAGE 1 LATIN AMERICA ADVISOR Wednesday, April 14 2021 POLITICAL NEWS NEWS BRIEFS Haiti’s Prime Venezuela Restricting Minister Resigns France Suspends Brazil Flights Over Concerns Vaccine to People as Violence Surges About Coronavirus Variant With Loyalty Card Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe France on Tuesday suspended all flights to and announced early today that he was resigning, from Brazil over concerns of the P.1 variant of Venezuela’s government is restricting access a move that comes amid a surge in killings the novel coronavirus, which originated in the to Covid-19 vaccines to people holding a state and kidnappings in the Caribbean nation, South American nation’s Amazon region and is loyalty card that is used to keep track of voter the Associated Press reported. President more contagious than other strains of the virus, support and grant state subsidies, Bloomberg Jovenel Moïse has reportedly named Claude the Associated Press reported. The variant is News reported today. The country began Joseph to succeed Jouthe, who had served ravaging Brazil and many other countries in the vaccinating elderly people last week, and the as prime minister since March 2020. Jouthe region, including Uruguay, Chile and Peru. “We government said it was selecting holders of the did not explain why he was stepping down. note that the situation is getting worse, and so loyalty card, known as the Carnet de la Patria. Jouthe’s resignation came amid an escalating we have decided to suspend all flights between The card is disproportionately held be people number of killings and kidnappings in Haiti. Brazil and France until further notice,” French who depend on state aid and are more likely to On Tuesday, Moïse vowed to “do everything Prime Minister Jean Castex said in announcing be loyal to the government of President Nicolás the law allows” in order to secure the release the move to parliament. Maduro, the news service reported. Medical ex- of 10 people, including seven Catholic clergy perts, nongovernmental organizations and the members, who were kidnapped on Sunday, BBC opposition have criticized the use of th registry, News reported. The people were abducted in Bogotá to Repeat which includes approximately 20 million people the town of Croix-des-Bouquets as they were of the country’s population of 28 million. on their way to the installation of a new priest. Three-Day Lockdown in Maduro’s government in recent years has used The people kidnapped included five Haitians Effort to Slow Infections the loyalty card as a condition for receiving as well as a French nun and a French priest. Bogotá will repeat a three-day lockdown welfare payments, fuel subsidies and access The archdiocese of Port-au-Prince said in a this weekend in an effort to slow Covid-19 to government food programs. “Not even in statement that Haiti is facing a “descent into infections, Mayor Claudia López told reporters the cruelest of dictatorships there’s discrim- hell,” The Guardian reported. “For some time Tuesday, Reuters reported. The lockdown will ination to access a vaccine,” said opposition now, we have been witnessing the descent into be in force from Friday through Sunday. A leader Juan Guaidó, whom several countries hell of Haitian society,” the archdiocese said in similar lockdown last weekend helped slow recognize as Venezuela’s legitimate president. a statement, the newspaper reported. infections, said López. Venezuela’s Health Ministry did not reply to request for comment by Bloomberg News. On Tuesday, the head of the government-controlled BUSINESS NEWS National Assembly said the government wants Guatemala’s Congress to use money frozen in the United States for Refuses to Seat Crusading buying Covid-19 vaccines, Reuters reported. Ecuador Arrests Jorge Rodríguez said the government needs High Court Justice the “kidnapped” funds. In 2019, the United Officials in Guatemala’s Congress on Tuesday refused States froze $342 million that the Venezuelan Corruption Case to appoint a graft-fighting judge as president central bank had been holding in the United of the country’s Constitutional Court, a move States. The money was put under the control critics say could hinder Guatemala’s combat Ecuadorean authorities on Tuesday arrested of Guaidó and his interim government, but against corruption, Reuters reported. Mag- the country’s comptroller and a former energy accessing the money requires a license from istrate Gloria Porras is recognized as one of minister as part of a probe in connection with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Central America’s leading figures in the fight a corruption case at three state institutions, Control, or OFAC. Allies of Guaidó and health for the rule of law and efforts to end impuni- including oil firm Petroecuador, the national’s ministry officials have been in talks for months ty. She was to take her seat today following prosecutor’s office announced, Reuters report- on accessing the funds through a working re-election, but she was unable to do so due to ed. The arrests follow the recent guilty plea group created last year to ensure Venezuela’s open legal challenges against her, according to of an employee of Switzerland-based trading access to the global COVAX initiative. Congress President Allan Rodríguez. She has house Gunvor Group, Raymond Kohut, who described the lawsuits as unfounded attacks. COPYRIGHT © 2021, INTER-AMERICAN DIALOGUE PAGE 2 LATIN AMERICA ADVISOR Wednesday, April 14 2021 said he was engaged in a bribery scheme that FEATURED Q&A / Continued from page 1 involved securing business with Petroecuador from 2012 to August of last year, Bloomberg is conservative. Critics have charged that response to the pandemic, leaving families News reported. Ecuadorean prosecutors Castillo has ties to Shining Path’s political to fend for themselves in the face of over- said they arrested a total of eight people in arm, which he denies. On the campaign trail, crowded public hospitals and price gouging connection with the case, including Ecuador’s Castillo is lucid—not a firebrand—and it is for life-saving oxygen and medicines, has comptroller and a former presidential secretary possible that his positions will moderate.