Just last week, Mexico entered a new chapter in history as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, better known as AMLO, secured his position as future president of Mexico in this year’s highly anticipated elections. López Obrador, who founded his own leftist party MORENA (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional) in 2012, led a highly controversial campaign in the past year which led him to decisive victory.
In 2015, Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador, officially passed a constitutional amendment which, in addition to a few auxiliary adjustments, formally eliminated presidential term limits. Lawmakers who approved the measure did so under the terms that Correa would step aside for the 2017 election - which he did.
The Latin American left has experienced a steep decline in its fortunes in recent months. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Venezuela. The precipitous drop in state oil revenues and the attendant decline in the government’s ability to fund social welfare programs, coupled with triple digit inflation and severe shortages of basic necessities, have led to increasing protests and a recall effort against President Nicolás Maduro.
Recently, world-renowned writer Eduardo Galeano, author of Open Veins of Latin America, denounced his most popular book due to inadequate knowledge when he published the book back in his early 1930s. Open Veins is one of the most popular pieces of leftist literature taught in university coursework and has sold over one million copies translated in more than 20 languages. Galeano, now 73, published the book in 1971.
