­­­by the El Reportero news services

­The Oct. 26 municipal elections were expected to provide a preview of how the Chilean electorate was beginning to lean with the December 2009 presidential elections in sight. Overall, the outcome was inconclusive, except inasmuch as it showed the Partido Demócrata Cristiana (PDC), one the main parties in the ruling Concertación alliance, taking a beating which just may leave it out of the presidential contest.

The rightwing opposition Alianza won more mayoralties than in 2004, but overall fewer than the ruling Concertación, which also won more seats on city and town councils. In terms of the number of votes attracted, the two main alliances were not very far apart. One consequence of the elections is that the results appear to have persuaded former president Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) to reconsider his refusal to run in 2009.

Ecuador’s “transition” raises doubts

President Rafael Correa and his Alianza País (AP) party won a resounding victory for the ‘yes’ vote in the national referendum on the new constitution [RA-08-10] on 28 Sept. 28. Since it formally entered into effect on Oct. 20, the country has entered a so-called ‘Transition Regime’ that is to reform most of the country’s institutional framework in preparation for the next ‘phase’ of what Correa calls his “citizens’ revolution”.

This will begin when presidential, legislative and municipal elections are held in the first quarter of next year. A number of temporary institutions will rule in the interim, leading critics to decry the politicization of the judiciary and the subordination of almost all of Ecuador’s legal and political institutions to the executive.

Will Obama’s victory herald a new dawn for US-Latin American relations?

U.S. Hispanics played a key role in the comprehensive victory of Senator Barack Obama over Senator John McCain in the US presidential elections on Nov. 4. In his victory speech Obama promised “a new dawn of American leadership” – Latin American countries will hope this extends to US foreign policy.

With Obama sure to be preoccupied with domestic economic and fi nancial travails, Latin American governments will not expect the U.S. to radically overhaul its regional foreign policy or indeed its foreign-policy priorities, but they will be hoping for greater emphasis on multilateralism, dialogue and consensus, and a more nuanced treatment of the region to refl ect its political diversity and complexity.

MEXICO – Forces of the Mexican opposition denounced Wednesday a masked delivery of Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) oil company to private firms.This fact came to light after recent statements by Mexican Energy Minister Georgina Kessel. Legislators from the Progressive Wide Front (FAP) warned Wednesday that Kessel’s statements, saying that 70 percent of ­PEMEX exploration and production is already in the hands of private companies, proves the fear expressed regarding the energy reform in Mexico.

The legislative package on the transformation of the Mexican oil industry only tried to legalize the contracts to energy transnationals, said FAP representatives. FAP is composed of the organizations Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Trabajo y Convergencia.

The statements by Kessel this week demonstrate the reason of the National Movement in Defense of Petroleum, led by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, about the government’s privatizing intentions, FAP leaders said.

In the opinion of opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) member of parliament Jose Murat, Mexican Energy minister’s was not an ethical confession, proving the illegal sale of Mexican crude oil.

(Latin News and Prensa Latina contributed to this report.)

­­­­by Jose de la Isla­­

­Federico Peña

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition to the White House is off to a fast start. Two days after the election, three associates close to Obama were chosen as the leaders of the transition team. Not one is Hispanic.

­By week’s end 12 members of his transition “advisory board” were announced.

Obama-insider and nationaicampaign co-chair Federico Pena was selected as the one Hispanic in the dozen. Pena had served President Bill Clinton as Secretary of Transportation and, later, Energy. A former two-term mayor of Denver, he was one of the frst big-name Hispanics to endorse Obama in his primary battle with Hillary Clinton.

Additionally, the 13 key transition staff leadership positions were filled to direct policy and appointments through the team’s day to-day activities. None were Hispanic.

The President-elect’s transition network is mostly made up of volunteers and, based on past history, might include up to 1,000 members It will be headquartered in office space set up for 500 people at a nondescript office building in downtown Washington, D.C.

The “Qbama-Biden Transition Project,’’ the advisory board to deal with strategies to rescue the economy, includes Roel Campos, a former Security and Exchange Commissioner, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Also serving on this team are such notable financial and economic policy advisors as Robert Rubin, Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker.

Joined by Vice-President-elect Joe Biden, Obama met with that team Nov. 7, prior to his fi rst post-election press conference.

The team will be incorporated into the planned White House economic summit Nov. 14 with the G-20, which will include Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for the first time. Spain is home base to two of the world’s top 20 banks.

Former Federal Communications Commissioner Henry Rivera, now a partner with Washington, D.C., law fi rm Wiley Rein, will reportedly take charge of Obama’s FCC transition team. His name drew immediate outrage from right-wing talk-radio hosts as a step toward dis­mantling commercial talk radio and renewal of consideration for a “Fairness Doctrine.”

The Associated Press reported Nov. 6 University of Texas at Brownsville president Juliet García would soon join Obama’s transition team.

The bulk of the transition work will be done by the advisory boards comprised of subteams which are underway at every government agency identifying their issues.

Team members will likely fi ll many of the appointed positions. Janet Napolitano, an advisory board member, has been mentioned as a candidate for Attorney General.

Temo Figueroa, who spearheaded Obama’s victorious national Latino election strategy, told Weekly Report that getting elected was only part of the job. He reminded this reporter that the effort was for “ensuring all the work pays off for our community.”

Prior administrations have been slow in identifying Hispanics for key assignments. Obama’s does not yet stand out in this respect, either. Hispanic Link.

­­

by Mark Aspillera

Harry Belafonte speaks during a special reception at SFSU. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

In a San Francisco State University theater filled with professors, academics, students and press, famous musicians, political activist Harry Belafonte addressed a group of original participants of the university’s 1968 student strike on Oct. 29, 2008.

The voice, detailing the events on October 2008, filled the room in slow paced, unhurried. Its softness required the audience to listen quietly, with great attention.

Belafonte, held in infamy for years not only for his title as the King of Calypso music, but as an unabashed and vocal man of the left. He described the strike as a “trigger” for protest around the country in 1968, pushing for the civil liberties and rights movement.

The Jamaican-American calypso musician forged his reputation as a leftist activist beginning in the 1960s. Belafonte was among celebrities like Sidney Poitier and Charlton Heston who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington D.C. Belafonte spoke of the time he met King as a young man for the first time.

“He was 24, I was 26,” he said.

King told him at the time that he believed “we are integrating into a burning house,” referring to blacks and America.

“I recognized he was prophesizing,” Belafonte said.

True to his reputation as a freethinker and speaker, Belafonte did not shy away from talking about present-day political issues during his address, in particular the year’s presidential election.

“What we’re really seeing, what are we really saying is that we are going to have great expectations on Obama when he is sitting in that chair,” he said, referring to the Oval Office.

Despite predicting Democrat Barack Obama as the victor of the presidential election, Belafonte had criticism to level towards both candidates, especially in what he saw as negligence towards issues of poverty.

“Of all the speeches I’ve heard, I have not heard anyone speak of the poor,” he said, adding “they are still holding poor people responsible for the crisis on Wall Street.”

Belafonte’s address was part of the events on the SFSU campus commemorating the 40th anniversary of the student strike. Hosting the event was SFSU’s College of Ethnic Studies, a department created in 1969 by the agreements that ended the strike.

The four-day conference recognized an act of civil disobedience still surrounded by many dark clouds of controversy.

Critics of the strike say student strikers used a disproportionate amount of violence in attempts to achieve their goal of campus policies more receptive of student and faculty diversity. Tactics employed included the throwing of firebombs and setting of fires in the school library.

Among the strikers were controversial groups such as the Progressive Labor Party, a party underpinned by a Maoist political philosophy.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the San Francisco Police Department deployed horse-mounted officers, riot sticks and pepper and tear gas shells against concentrations of students in their attempts to quell the strike.

Accompanying Belafonte was actor, film director and fellow political activist Danny Glover, a former San Francisco State University student. Glover was a participant in the strike itself and a member of the Black Student Union at the time.

Glover told The Golden Gate [X]Press, SFSU’s campus newspaper, that the actions of strikers, including the 1969 resolution at end of five months, were historically significant, even though they “didn’t really know it at the time.”

­(Marvin Ramirez contributed to this report.)