Women’s empowerment and political participation are not only crucial for women: they are essential for effective democratic governance, one which promotes human rights and equity. The same can be said about the importance of boosting youth political participation. The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) invited three young women parliamentarians from Latin America and the Caribbean to join a recent discussion in Salamanca, Spain, on young women’s political participation in the...

New scandal highlights threat to political pluralism In a previous Monitor we reported on the closing of democratic space in the Dominican Republic. This issue was the subject of a recent by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Dominican Republic: Becoming a One-Party State?, which argues that the predominance of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) - which controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches - is "fundamentally...

Latin America and the Caribbean will celebrate at least . This is good news. It reflects a region that has by-and-large consolidated democracy, and where an entire generation has now grown up with the expectation that elections are the only legitimate way to select national leaders. However, this cycle of elections in Latin America is taking place at very different juncture than the ones that took place during the first decade of the 21st century, with important consequences for the...

El Salvador will hold its presidential elections on February 2, 2014. In 2009, current president Mauricio Funes of the former guerrilla FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) became only the second leftist to be elected president in El Salvador since the 1930s. Many in the country attribute Funes' victory to the machinations of former president Antonio Saca (2004-2009) of the conservative ARENA party, who is alleged to have helped the FMLN to victory in a deal to avoid...

THE bizarre teaser election that Argentines had to take part in on August 11th was designed by Cristina Fernández, the president. She put her all into promoting her candidates, even flying her hand-picked hopeful for the most populous province of Buenos Aires to Brazil to be photographed with their compatriot, Pope Francis. Photographs of him, her and the pope were plastered across the province as campaign posters. The pontiff’s magic did not rub off. Ms Fernández’s...

In the two years since taking power as president of Peru, Ollanta Humala has been struggling to please the poor and indigenous majority that elected him and to placate the economic elite and foreign investors who are indispensable to sustaining robust growth. At this point, Humala appears to be walking a fine line, headed in the right direction. Helping him along that path is in the interest of every Peruvian and others who are betting on that country's stability and growth. Being a...

VALENCIA, Venezuela - It's just after nightfall and the power is out again in untold hundreds of thousands - probably millions - of Venezuelan homes. If the government knows how many, it's not saying. It hasn't issued reports on problems in the public power grid since 2010. In Venezuela's third-largest city, Pedro Martinez dons a shirt for visitors drawn by the flicker of candles inside his one-story, cement-block house in a middle-class district. The Caribbean heat is sticky thick inside....

The death of President Hugo Chávez casts a shadow over a polarised Venezuela whose immediate political stability cannot be taken for granted. In extending its condolences to the government and people, Crisis Group calls on all sides to respect the constitutional framework and act prudently in order to avoid violence in what may prove a tense and difficult transition to the post-Chávez era. Re-elected in October, Chávez was too ill to take the oath of office in January....

Two days prior to the Venezuelan presidential election, Francisco Toro, a Venezuelan journalist and blogger, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times stating that Chavez and his movement have become irrelevant. As Chavez’s socialism is becoming increasingly authoritarian and has failed to reduce poverty, Toro claims that it is no longer an exemplary to other Latin American states; in his opinion, it is Brazil’s template-combining free enterprise and democracy with social programs...

The upcoming October 7th elections in Venezuela do not constitute just another round of elections in another country. These elections are crucial for the future of Latin America and for the security of the United States. In fact, it is no exaggeration to point out that the Venezuelan drama should be as great a concern as the elections in the young democracies of the Middle East that emerged in the aftermath of the Arab spring. Unfortunately, the Venezuelan electoral process has been...