Good morning! This week, we talk about how Jair Bolsonaro has once again turned Independence Day into a date of political stalemates. The Central Bank’s foreign exchange regulations. And the possibility of a Lula first-round win.
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🇨🇱 The region: Chilean voters massively rejected the new constitutional draft proposed by a Constituent Assembly early this year. With a record 85-percent turnout, the “I reject” camp scored a peremptory win, getting 62 percent of the votes.
- As we explained in our Latin America Weekly newsletter last week, Chileans do want a new constitution, just not the one drafted by the current Constituent Assembly.
- Analysts say left-leaning sectors that won the election to fill the assembly became “overly confident” and unwilling to compromise with conservatives — making them unrepresentative of Chilean society.
Bolsonaro puts Brazil on edge. Again
On Wednesday, Brazil will celebrate the 200th anniversary of its independence from Portugal, but the mood in the country is anything but festive. The country is in the middle of a bitter election campaign,...