The Week Ahead: 30 September-6 October 2024
Welcome to Southern Pulse’s weekly newsletter, where we dive into the major events and headlines set to shake things up in Latin America this week. We’ll keep you updated on key topics we’re watching and events to keep an eye on. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe here:
The Week Ahead
This week’s agenda includes the inauguration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, new interest rates in Colombia, G20 energy and environment meetings, and Brazil’s nationwide municipal elections.
Monday 30 September
🇲🇽 🇧🇷 Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will travel to Mexico to meet outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Both men shared a warm relationship while in power. Lula will stay in Mexico to attend President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s inauguration on Tuesday.
🇺🇳 🇭🇹 🇰🇪 The UN Security Council will vote on the renewal of Haiti’s security mission for another 12 months. The peacekeeping deployment, led by Kenya and approved in October 2023, might turn into a fully-fledged UN peacekeeping mission in 2025. That would mean increased supplies to a force of about 400 Kenyan police officers struggling to maintain order in the country.
🇨🇴 Colombia’s central bank will announce new interest rates. Inflation has been slowing in recent months. BBVA analysts forecast a cut of 75 basis points, which would bring rates from the current 10.75% to 10%.
Tuesday 1 October
Holidays: 🇲🇽 Mexico’s presidential inauguration is a national holiday.
🇲🇽 Mexico will inaugurate Claudia Sheinbaum as president. While the event will be attended by most Latin American heads of state, it will also be marked by some prominent absences. Russian President Vladimir Putin declined his invitation, and US outgoing President Joe Biden will delegate his visit to his wife Jill. The Spanish government will not send a representative after its head of state King Felipe VI was excluded from the event for not answering a 2019 letter from the Mexican government demanding an apology for the 300 years Mexico was part of the Spanish monarchy. In all, 13 heads of state from Latin American and Caribbean countries will attend the event, as well as three from Africa. The conspicuous absence of European and Asian leaders may reveal the limits of Mexico’s diplomacy under outgoing president AMLO.
Wednesday 2 October
Holidays: 🇭🇳 Honduras is celebrating the Semana Morazánica until Saturday.
🇦🇷 Argentina’s National Interuniversity Council, an organization focused on advancing public universities, is planning a march on Congress in downtown Buenos Aires with unions and student-led groups. Organizers hope lawmakers will block President Javier Milei's veto of a bill seeking to finance public universities. Unions representing university staff say their purchasing power has dropped more than 50% since Milei took office. This will be the second university-led protest in less than five months.
Thursday 3 October
Holidays: 🇭🇳 Honduras is celebrating the Semana Morazánica until Saturday.
🇵🇾 🇸🇻 El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele will travel to Paraguay to meet his counterpart Santiago Peña. Both leaders could discuss economics, as foreign credit agencies recently lauded Peña for his prudent macroeconomic policies. Bukele recently announced plans for a zero-deficit budget in 2025 with the aim of pleasing international lenders — particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
🇧🇷 Brazil will host G20 environment and climate sustainability ministers for a meeting in Rio de Janeiro. The summit culminates months of working group sessions to establish greater cooperation between members on topics such as climate finance. The urgency of their task will be brought home by the catastrophic fires raging in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
Friday 4 October
Holidays: 🇭🇳 Honduras is celebrating the Semana Morazánica until Saturday.
🇧🇷 On Friday, G20 energy ministers will congregate in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. The group will discuss renewable energy financing and the social impact of the energy transition. As the event’s host, Brazil might be able to share some pointers on the careful balancing act it has been performing since Lula took office. The government has been tackling deforestation in the Amazon and leads the G20 in renewable electricity, all while increasing oil production to record highs. Will other oil-producing countries follow a similar path?
Weekend
Saturday 5 October
🇨🇱 Chile will commemorate the 36th anniversary of the referendum that brought down Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. President Gabriel Boric was only 2 years old when Chileans overwhelmingly voted against Pinochet in a recall referendum. The vote marked Chile’s democratic transition and was depicted in the Pablo Larraín film “No” (2012).
Sunday 6 October
🇧🇷 Brazil will hold municipal elections across more than 5,500 cities, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The race seems particularly tight in São Paulo, where anti-establishment populist Pablo Marçal seeks to pull an electoral upset. A newcomer to politics, Marçal said he entered politics “with a cell phone, the people and God.” The phrase aptly sums up his rise on the back of social media, a strongly religious message, and anti-establishment rhetoric.
Keeping an Eye On
In this section, we highlight topics or people we will be monitoring during the week.
🇧🇷 🗳️ Will São Paulo’s municipal election showcase the birth of Brazil’s new right?
In January 2024, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva framed the mayoral race in São Paulo as a “direct confrontation” between former president Jair Bolsonaro and himself. As paulistas head to the polls on Sunday 6 October — along with Brazilians elsewhere voting in nationwide municipal elections — the São Paulo race has become more complex than predicted. A third candidate has disrupted the projected proxy runoff between leftist Guilherme Boulos, an up-and-coming former housing activist Lula endorsed, and Bolsonaro-backed incumbent Ricardo Nunes. Political outsider Pablo Marçal has risen to third place in the polls, closing the gap with Boulos and Nunes. Marçal has pitched himself to voters as a self-made man who rose from poverty to become a millionaire, offering to take his backers on a similar rags-to-riches journey. Whether or not Marçal wins, his sudden popularity has highlighted that bolsonaristas are looking elsewhere for anti-establishment politics. On Sunday, Marçal might prove Lula wrong on two counts: Not only will the São Paulo race be decided between three candidates, but bolsonarismo might lose its grip as the main force on Brazil’s right in coming years. This weekend, will we witness the birth of Marçalismo?
🌎 🛢️ 📉 Is Latin America ready for lower oil prices?
Since reaching a peak in 2022, oil prices have slowly fallen from upwards of USD$112 per barrel of Brent crude oil in June 2022 to about USD$72 in September 2024. This fall has materialized despite efforts by OPEC+ to keep prices around the USD$100 mark. On 26 September, the Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia has given up on this target and will instead focus on flooding the market to increase its market share. Are we heading toward consistently cheaper oil in the coming months? If so, Latin America’s oil producers will face important consequences. In Mexico, the state-owned (and heavily indebted) petroleum company Pemex could suffer the most depending on how much revenues dry up. In Brazil, reduced oil revenues could affect social expenditures and Lula da Silva’s popularity. Officials from the ruling Workers Party might monitor oil prices closely as the 2026 presidential election looms closer. The Venezuelan dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro also could be significantly affected by lower prices. It was within the context of rising oil prices that the US government lifted sanctions on the country’s faltering oil industry. With reduced export income, the regime may struggle to pay its security forces — the main pillar keeping the government in power. As the price of oil fluctuates, we’ll be keeping an eye on how Latin American governments respond to unexpected political challenges.
Upcoming Events Across the Region
The Brazilian Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain will host the “Brazil Biofuels Seminar: Overview of a Booming Market” on 18 October in London.
Canning House's Powering Potential conference will explore avenues for energy collaboration between the UK and Latin America. The event will be held in London on 22 October 2024.
The 2024 COA Symposium and 29th BRAVO Business Awards will gather more than 500 regional business leaders in Miami on 30 October 2024.
The 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP16) will be held in Cali, Colombia, from 21 October to 1 November 2024.
Thanks for taking the time to read The Week Ahead. If there's something you think we overlooked, or if you'd simply like to share your thoughts with us, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out at press@southernpulse.com.
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