The Zika virus is not new, but its spread and possible connections to microcephaly—a birth defect in which a baby has an abnormally small head—have caught the international community’s attention. Zika is not the same kind of challenge as Ebola, but it will require some similar measure of international cooperation to adequately address. While the World Health Organization’s declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Feb. 1 is a good start, there are still fundamental questions that could complicate the international community’s response. Why is Zika spreading now? The virus, which emerged out of its relative geographic [...]
On Sunday, Feb. 21, Bolivians rejected a referendum that would have allowed long-serving President Evo Morales to run for a fourth term in office, continuing a recent trend across Latin America of citizens voting for change. As the country’s first president of indigenous descent in a nation where between 40 percent and 62 percent of the citizenry self-identify as indigenous, Morales remains popular but is term-limited and must leave office in 2019. The president anticipated victory. What he did not factor in, apparently, was being overtaken by Latin America’s anti-incumbency wave. Since his first election in 2006, Morales has assiduously [...]
Last weekend, Bolivian voters went to the polls and did something remarkable: They told their sitting president—a popular and successful one—that they will not allow him to remain in power for as long as he wishes. The voters’ rejection of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed President Evo Morales to run for a fourth consecutive term came as a painfully unexpected blow to a politician grown accustomed to landslide victories and popular adulation. The vote sent shockwaves across Bolivia. More importantly, it sent an important message to other politicians with autocratic tendencies in the region: Latin American democracy is [...]
