Elections & Energy Policy Brief

ELECTIONS & ENERGY | La Jolla Conference 30 th Anniversary Policy Brief

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since there appears to be little coordination between the “first line” – mostly young people from low-income neighborhoods with specific localized demands, and the negotiating team that tends to focus on national-level grievances.

Despite some efforts for conducting negotiations, the reality is different groups are protesting for multiple, and sometimes contradictory, grievances—many embedded on aspirational and intangible goals such as “less poverty” or “more opportunities for the young”. This only makes negotiations more difficult to translate into specific policy targets that are financeable and implementable in a particular period. Sadly, the relatively optimistic outlook for Colombia before the pandemic struck and, in the government’s early response to manage the crisis, has changed into a more challenging and radioactive one.

MEXICO

The two largest economies in Latin America will go to the polls in 2022 for Brazil and 2024 for Mexico. However, Mexico conducted its largest concurrent elections ever on Sunday, June 6, 2021: all 500 seats of the lower Chamber of Congress, plus 15 governorships, 30 local congressional seats, and 1,923 mayors were contested.

Despite what could be perceived as a disastrous management of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mexican President Lopez Obrador remains highly popular. Elected as a disrupter to what many in Mexico felt was a corrupt and elitist political system, Lopez Obrador’s folky style and combative attitude against the big business elite gained him approval amongst the Mexican poor and many others. His direct transfer programs and minimum wage increases implemented early on were welcomed by the electorate. However, having promised economic growth and lower levels of violence during the campaign, he has presided over a country with a declining economy and higher levels of violence than in the past administrations. As such, emerging from the pandemic, the government is likely to focus on growth strategies, yet relying on the president’s nationalistic corporatism, which in Mexico means a stronger role for its SOEs—particularly Pemex and CFE. This strategy, however, runs contrary to Mexico’s objectives of reducing GHG emissions and meeting climate pledges made in the international arena through the Paris Agreements.

ANNIVERSARY POLICY BRIEF | INSITUTE OF THE AMERICAS