Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.
The highlights this week: Costa Ricans vote in presidential elections, Venezuela considers an amnesty law, and the region readies a small but strong delegation for the Winter Olympics.
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Venezuela’s brash, big-government political movement of Chavismo—named for former President Hugo Chávez—is fighting for its survival in the wake of the U.S. capture of Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, last month. But to the north, a different flavor of Chavismo is on the rise.
On Sunday, Costa Rican voters chose Laura Fernández, the handpicked successor of outgoing right-wing President Rodrigo Chaves, to be their next leader. Fernández vowed to double down on Chaves’s policies and even suggested she could install him in her cabinet.
Chaves will leave office with an approval rating of nearly 60 percent; Fernández was elected with a more than 14 percent margin over her nearest challenger. Chaves’s popularity is striking considering that his 2022 victory was a surprise to many observers. In an election marked by low turnout, Chaves edged ahead by bashing more centrist parties as corrupt elites.
In office, Chaves cut public spending and erected new barriers to asylum. But he struggled to carry out much of his policy wish list, frequently butting heads with the legislature.
Fernández will not have the same problem: Sunday’s election delivered her a congressional majority. She has pledged to privatize public banks and finish building a maximum-security prison that Chaves began. Like her predecessor, Fernández has signaled close cooperation with the United States.
A key throughline from Chaves to Fernández is their tough-on-crime posture. Homicides in Costa Rica rose to their highest level during the Chaves administration, jumping by around 50 percent between 2021 and 2023 alone. Crime was a leading issue among Costa Rican voters on Sunday, according to polls.
The rise in homicides came even as Costa Rica experienced average annual economic growth of more than 4 percent during Chaves’s presidency. Decades of high investment in education and social spending—as well as a political consensus supporting free trade zones—have made the country among the wealthiest in Latin America.
Costa Rica’s biggest exports include medical devices and integrated circuits, key components of advanced technology. Last year, the country graduated from an upper-middle to high-income status, according to World Bank classifications.
But even as Costa Rica grows wealthier, inequality persists. It is higher than in other prosperous countries in the region, including Chile and Uruguay, according to the Gini index. Costa Rica’s crime wave is largely connected to the reorganization of drug routes, which take advantage of a port that opened in 2019. But scholars have long argued that social inequality exacerbates crime, too.
Fernández has pledged to use the full scope of her executive power as president, saying that she will bring about “a profound and irreversible” change in the country.
Though Venezuela’s Chávez and Costa Rica’s Chaves hail from opposite ends of the political spectrum, they and their protégés appear to have at least one thing in common: scorn of democratic institutions. Chaves spent many press conferences bashing journalists and the judiciary. Fernández has pledged to continue his campaign against “corrupt” political elites.
Still, the guardrails of Costa Rica’s democracy remain strong. In the country, “real power is distributed among actors with high technical legitimacy and low political control: the judiciary, the comptroller’s office, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, and a dense network of autonomous agencies that act as guardians of the status quo,” Argentine analyst Facundo Robles wrote last week.
Saturday, Feb. 7: The mandate for Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council expires.
Tuesday, Feb. 17, to Saturday, Feb. 21: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visits India.
Petro in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro have experienced a rollercoaster relationship in the last year. Trump recently sanctioned Petro and just weeks ago threatened to bomb Colombia. But on Tuesday, Trump hailed Petro as “terrific” after meeting him at the White House.
The bilateral turnaround was heavily facilitated by Colombian diplomats, who worked with Sen. Rand Paul to set up the meeting. Paul is generally skeptical of U.S. military interventions; Petro’s vocal criticism of U.S. boat strikes near Latin America and Maduro’s capture had fueled tensions with Trump.
Petro quietly made concessions to Trump before the meeting, committing to accept U.S. deportees and extradite a jailed drug trafficker to the United States. While Trump did not immediately announce major policy reversals on Colombia, the two leaders appear to be on track to develop a better working relationship.
Pragmatism in Panama. Bridging political differences was the order of the day at a major economic conference that occurred last week in Panama City. The event, hosted by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, featured friendly meetings and comments across the region’s left-right divide.
“If things are going well for Brazil, things are going well for Chile … [and] all of Latin America,” José António Kast, Chile’s right-wing president-elect, said, prompting applause. Brazil’s Lula, a leftist, said, “Guided by pragmatism, we can overcome ideological differences.”
Lula earned praise from right-wing Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz and had a meeting with Kast that the Chilean leader called “constructive.” Leaders of all three countries pledged to continue pursuing joint infrastructure projects in South America. Kast and Lula appeared keen to avoid the acrimony that has characterized Brazil’s relationship with Argentina under President Javier Milei.
Stevenson Savart competes in a men’s cross-country skiing race in Planica, Slovenia, on Feb. 22, 2023.Maja Hitij/Getty Images
It’s snowtime! Latin America’s star athletes overwhelmingly practice warm-weather sports. But countries from the region are sending small delegations to the Winter Olympics that begin today in Milan and Cortino, Italy.
For the first time, Haiti’s delegation includes a cross-country skier, Stevenson Savart. The Haitian team’s uniforms are designed by prize-winning Italian Haitian designer Stella Jean, who has long pitched fashion as an avenue for political dialogue. The outfits feature a red horse that was inspired by a famous painting of a Haitian revolutionary.
From Mexico, mother-and-son Alpine skiers Sarah Schleper and Lasse Gaxiola are expected to attract attention. So, too, will Mexican figure skating star Donovan Carillo, who moved from León, Mexico, to Toronto following the 2022 Winter Olympics in order to train.
When it comes to athletes who have a chance to medal, eyes are on Brazilian Norwegian skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who competes for Brazil and who won an international slalom race in November as part of the Alpine World Cup tour, and Brazilian skeleton racer Nicole Silveira, who placed fourth in last year’s world championships for the event.
As is tradition, Jamaica will field a bobsled team this year. The film Cool Runnings was based on the Jamaican bobsled team’s performance at which Winter Olympics?
This year, the team will compete in three events: the women’s monobob, the two-man sled, and the four-man sled.
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Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez holds a reform of the country’s hydrocarbons law during a protest in Caracas on Jan. 29. Carlos Becerra/Getty Images
Changes have occurred quickly in Venezuela following the U.S. ouster of Maduro last month. Under continued pressure from the United States, the country’s monthly oil exports have shot up by some 60 percent. More than 300 political prisoners have been released.
A U.S. envoy, career diplomat Laura Dogu, is now stationed in Venezuela for the first time since 2019. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has said that her administration will study a general amnesty law that could close a major jail and torture center.
In Senate testimony last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that a political transition in Venezuela would “take some time,” but that free elections were part of the U.S. plan for the country.
Some newly released Venezuelan opposition figures are speaking out candidly about what they experienced and are advocating for the freedom of the nearly 700 people who remain in prison. The release of an especially vocal activist and Rodríguez’s plans for an amnesty law suggest a trend toward democratization, political scientist Margarita López Maya wrote on social media.
Rubio cited Spain’s political transition in the 1970s as proof that dictatorships can become democracies. But some analysts remain skeptical that Rodríguez’s cohort would allow such a change and argue that she would prefer to play the role of China’s Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s: to open the country economically but maintain a closed political system.
Some in Venezuela have already started nicknaming Rodríguez “Delxiaoping,” The Guardianreported.
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