THURSDAY. 12/03
1. ARGENTINA’S NEW PRESIDENT MAY TURN TIDE ON ECONOMIC WOES (The Chicago Tribune)
2. ARGENTINA’S TOP BOND UNDERWRITER SEES EQUITY MARKET REVIVAL (Bloomberg News)
3. ARGENTINA’S VANOLI TO ANNOUNCE DECISION ON FUTURE IN COMING DAYS (Bloomberg News)
4. ARGENTINA’S INCOMING FOREIGN MINISTER URGES FAIR VOTE IN VENEZUELA (Reuters News)
5. ARGENTINE PRESIDENT-ELECT MACRI SAYS DEBT DEAL POSSIBLE IN 2016 (Reuters News)
6. ARGENTINA CENTRAL BANK CHIEF MAY RESIGN IN DAYS AHEAD (Reuters News)
7. ARGENTINA’S MACRI TO SETTLE CABINET SOON WITH EYES ON CENTRAL BANK (Reuters News)
8. WINDS OF CHANGE IN ARGENTINA: NEW PRESIDENT APPOINTS EXPERIENCED TEAM (Forbes)
9. FIERCE ENEMIES, ARGENTINA’S INCOMING AND SITTING PRESIDENTS TRADE BARBS, CLASH OVER SASH (Fox News)
10. CONSERVATIVES IN LATIN AMERICA GAZE TOWARD BUENOS AIRES IN SEARCH OF THEIR CITY ON A HILL (NACLA org)
11. ARGENTINA TO LAUNCH CRACKDOWN ON ‘BARRAS BRAVAS’ SOCCER GANGS (Insight Crime.org)
12. WHAT ARGENTINA’S BISHOPS ARE PROPOSING TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS (Catholic News Agency)
1. ARGENTINA’S NEW PRESIDENT MAY TURN TIDE ON ECONOMIC WOES (The Chicago Tribune)
By Editorial Board
Dec 2, 2015
The drama never ends for Argentina, land of failed expectations and the setting for a great Broadway musical. Next week, a new leading man steps into the role of president with a chance to fix the broken economy and set a positive example for South American democracy.
Mauricio Macri is an outsider, which in Argentina means he isn’t a Peronist, the dominant political force for ages (“Evita” was the celebrated Eva Peron). If Macri turns out to be the least theatrical political figure ever, that would be perfect because Argentina needs sensible, stable leadership.
Getting to dull may take time, though, because the country needs a complete economic overhaul.
Under the current president, Cristina Fernandez, Argentina has become an international financial pariah. The country defaulted on debt last year in a long-running feud with hedge funds — remarkably, that was the eighth default in Argentina’s history.
Fernandez refused to settle. That’s left the country to squeak by in isolation, using protectionism and capital controls in a quixotic battle with globalism. The economy is stagnant, foreign currency reserves are dwindling and the inflation rate is around 30 percent. Last week, American Airlines said it stopped accepting pesos for ticket sales because it was tired of collecting revenue it couldn’t convert to dollars.
At times Argentina has embraced trade and economic openness, only to slip back into bad habits thanks to populist Peronistas like Fernandez. Macri, a conservative, wants to re-establish free market principles, but there are a lot of details he didn’t fully explain before his November victory because they will require some short-term pain, and he wanted to win the election.
Everything Macri is talking about makes sense. He says he will lift the capital controls that have wrecked the peso’s credibility. Like other backwaters it shouldn’t resemble, Argentina has a thriving black market because the government insists the peso is worth a lot more than its actual value. Freeing the currency would devalue it, a first step toward making Argentina more competitive.
The next big step would be to negotiate a settlement with the hedge funds that bought up Argentina’s debt after its previous default in 2002 and demand repayment. Fernandez got political mileage from attacking the “vultures,” but Macri seems to understand Argentina can’t get unstuck when it’s essentially shut out of international capital markets. He sounds like he wants to do a deal.
Macri’s got a tremendous balancing act to pull off: He’ll need to cut spending and reduce taxes without destroying the country’s big social safety net, while walking the country through a devaluation. He could use a good friend, and it looks like Macri is hoping to find one in Washington. Relations have been at an ebb since the 2002 default. Argentina slowly moved out of the U.S. orbit, sidling up to China, Cuba and another outlier, Venezuela — part of an embrace of leftist politics some call the “pink tide” of South American socialism.
Macri, we’re glad to report, sees no economic or political benefit in playing Argentina against the West. He wants Venezuela suspended from the continent’s Mercosur trading bloc for being undemocratic. He also plans to undo an appalling agreement with Iran to co-investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that killed 85. The crime is unsolved but suspicions always focused on Hezbollah, the militant group backed by Iran. Iran has denied involvement, but its inclusion in the investigation is an insult.
Argentina has incredible potential as a vibrant, resource-rich country but too often it fails to fulfill its promise. Brazil, by the way, next door and also struggling economically, has the same problem. Macri won’t get much help from the Peronists, who are still powerful, but if he can kick down the biggest barriers to investment, that will re-establish trust internationally. Money will come rushing to Argentina. If that happens, expect much of South America to benefit from a new tide of prosperity. More openness should follow, giving Argentina and many of its neighbors the chance to sing a happier tune.
2. ARGENTINA’S TOP BOND UNDERWRITER SEES EQUITY MARKET REVIVAL (Bloomberg News)
By Carolina Millan
December 2, 2015
* Pampa Energia raised $86 million by issuing additional ADRs
* Company may use funding to develop natural-gas production
Argentina’s dormant equity market may be coming to life after Pampa Energia SA issued additional American depositary receipts just days after Mauricio Macri won the presidency, according to Bank of America Corp.
The nation’s largest electricity holding company raised $86 million on Dec. 1 by issuing additional ADRs at a price of $21.50 each, said Sebastian Loketek, managing director and head of the bank’s unit in Argentina, which was the sole manager of the deal. The transaction has major implications for the country’s stock market, he said.
“The Argentine equity market has very limited depth,” said Loketek, who has led Bank of America to the top of Argentina league tables for bond sales this year. “Investors who want to enter Argentina have very few options. We needed companies to start taking a chance to go to market, and it’s finally started to happen.”
Pampa’s plan to exercise a call option was announced the day after Macri won the presidency in a second-round election. Macri, a two-time mayor of Buenos Aires, has vowed to make market-friendly reforms including removing import restrictions, lifting currency controls and letting the peso float freely on his first day in office next month. The president-elect has already tapped former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and ex-central bank president Alfonso Prat-Gay to become finance minister.
“Macri’s victory has no doubt put the market in a good mood,” Loketek said. “I saw a lot of optimism during meetings with investors the last few days and people are really hopeful on what’s happening while also understanding there are challenges ahead.”
South America’s second-largest economy has had a largely inert equity market over the last few years.
Given that it’s hard for foreigners to invest in the local Merval index due to currency controls, trading is much more liquid in ADRs of Argentine companies abroad. There hasn’t been an Argentine initial public offering since technology company Globant SA went public in July 2014.
The new ADRs, which represent 22.5 percent of the company’s capital, may be used to develop the company’s natural gas production business concentrated in its Petrolera Pampa unit, Loketek said.
The company is expected to release a regulatory filing to announce the results.
Even though Pampa’s ADRs tumbled the most on record after announcing it was exercising the call option on warrants, the shares have rallied 108 percent this year to $20.84.
Hedge funds were the main buyers in the deal, Loketek said. He noted that while long-term investors such as mutual funds and pensions have demonstrated interest in Argentina’s debt, they have not yet turned toward equity.
Last week, Loketek also helped manage a $200 million bond sale by Banco Hipotecario SA, a mortgage bank, in just the second Argentine corporate-debt sale this year.
“Immediately after the elections, we came out with two transactions; two types of deals that we haven’t seen in Argentina in a really long time,” he said. “The market is opening up and expecting more of these types of deals.”
3. ARGENTINA’S VANOLI TO ANNOUNCE DECISION ON FUTURE IN COMING DAYS (Bloomberg News)
By Charlie Devereux
December 2, 2015
* Central Bank president says he’ll co-operate in transition
* Vanoli calls for government to preserve some of his policies
Argentine Central Bank President Alejandro Vanoli said he would decide whether to resign in the next few days as President-elect Mauricio Macri prepares to unravel the currency controls he has administered for the past year.
Speaking at a presentation in Buenos Aires, Vanoli said he will collaborate during the transition to a new government and will make an announcement about his future soon. Macri, who assumes office on Dec. 10, has described Vanoli as unqualified and named Federico Sturzenegger as his preferred replacement.
“In a few days, I will communicate a personal decision which I’m currently deliberating,” Vanoli said.
The central bank president defended his one-year tenure and reiterated his call for the new government to preserve policies that he said have brought down the value of the black market exchange rate and slowed inflation. He had previously said he wanted to complete his term in office that ends in 2019.
“What’s most important is that these policies, above all the ones that benefit the people, and this direction the central bank has taken, beyond the legitimate measures a new government can take, are preserved,” Vanoli told reporters.
Vanoli, a former securities regulator who was appointed by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in October 2014, is under investigation for alleged illegal operations in the dollar futures market.
4. ARGENTINA’S INCOMING FOREIGN MINISTER URGES FAIR VOTE IN VENEZUELA (Reuters News)
By Richard Lough
Dec 2, 2015
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro must be encouraged to ensure Sunday’s parliamentary election is democratic, Argentina’s Foreign Minister-designate Susana Malcorra said on Wednesday.
Malcorra’s comments followed a call from Argentine President-elect Mauricio Macri for Venezuela to be suspended from regional trade bloc Mercosur because of rights abuse accusations, including jailing political opponents.
“We must encourage the Venezuelan government that Sunday be handled within the strictest democratic framework,” Malcorra, who was U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon’s chief adviser before taking up the ministerial post, told reporters in Buenos Aires.
Center-right Macri’s tough stance against Maduro’s socialist government has opened up divisions within Mercosur, with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff expressing concern over the idea of sidelining Venezuela from the bloc.
“Now, to use that democratic clause, you cannot just have a hypothesis. You need to prove a fact,” Rousseff said in Paris earlier this week.
Macri is due to meet Rousseff in Brazil on Friday. His advisers call the bilateral relationship with Brazil, Argentina’s main trade partner, a top foreign policy priority.
Malcorra said discussions between Argentina and Brazil needed to include evaluating how Venezuela’s political system moves forward in the coming days.
“We need to see what the result of the election is and the reaction to the result,” Malcorra said.
Venezuela’s opposition was quick to hail Macri’s narrow win over ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli as a blow for leftists in Latin America and a good omen for their own battle with “Chavismo” in the parliamentary vote.
Malcorra’s comments risked further angering top Venezuelan officials. Last week, Venezuela’s second most powerful official rebuked Macri for offending a brother nation and told Macri to “leave the Venezuelan people alone, don’t mess with us.”
Venezuela’s opposition is trying to win control of the National Assembly on Sunday for the first time in more than 15 years, seeking to tap anger over the recession-hit economy.
5. ARGENTINE PRESIDENT-ELECT MACRI SAYS DEBT DEAL POSSIBLE IN 2016 (Reuters News)
By Hugh Bronstein
Dec 2, 2015
Argentine President-elect Mauricio Macri on Wednesday expressed confidence a deal could be reached next year with U.S. creditors suing the country over unpaid debt.
Asked if a settlement was possible with so-called “holdout” creditors in 2016, Macri told Reuters: “Yes, of course.”
Argentina’s decade-long legal battle with a small group of U.S. investment firms tipped the South American country back into default in July last year.
A deal would allow Argentina, a financial markets pariah since its record default on $100 billion in debt in 2002, to regain access to global credit markets and ease an acute shortage of hard currency in Latin America’s third biggest economy.
Center-right candidate Macri narrowly won Argentina’s presidential runoff election on Nov. 22 promising to dismantle protectionist controls imposed by outgoing President Cristina Fernandez and open up the stagnating economy to investors.
Macri made his comment about a possible debt deal as he greeted well-wishers after presenting his cabinet in the capital Buenos Aires’ botanical gardens. He did not say what the terms of an eventual agreement might look like.
Macri takes office on Dec. 10 and will inherit a fragile economy. Anemic growth is underpinned by unsustainable public spending, inflation is estimated at about 25 percent. Also, the peso currency ARS=RASL is overvalued and the central bank is running precariously low on dollars.
The scion of a wealthy family, Macri vows to begin unwinding capital controls immediately. His incoming finance minister, Wall Street veteran Alfonso Prat-Gay, has acknowledged the hard currency crunch means a weakening of the peso’s official exchange rate is inevitable.
An agreement with the hedge fund holdouts, led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, is crucial if Argentina is to get back into the international bond market and rebuild hard currency reserves.
“If they can’t tackle the holdouts situation then they will be as financially constrained as Fernandez’s government was,” said Stuart Culverhouse, head of research at Exotix, an emerging markets broker.
The U.S. judge hearing the case brought by Singer, who rejected Argentina’s 2005 and 2010 bond restructurings, wants the government to negotiate a deal. The restructurings offered about 30 cents on the dollar, while Singer and the other holdout funds sued for full repayment of defaulted debt.
“Dialogue would at least show they are not running the Cristina approach. If you accept the court case, then there’s not much really to negotiate, you’ve just got to come up with a deal. Cristina never really accepted that,” Culverhouse said.
6. ARGENTINA CENTRAL BANK CHIEF MAY RESIGN IN DAYS AHEAD (Reuters News)
By Walter Bianchi and Jorge Otaola
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2 Argentina’s embattled central bank chief Alejandro Vanoli will decide over the days ahead on whether he will bow to pressure from the incoming government to resign, he said on Wednesday.
President-elect Mauricio Macri has called on Vanoli to step down to make way for currency devaluation to spur exports and halt the drain on central bank reserves that Vanoli has used to prop up the peso.
Vanoli was appointed by outgoing leftist President Cristina Fernandez, who intervened deeply in the country’s markets during her eight years in power. Macri, a proponent of free markets, takes office on Dec. 10.
“In a few days I will announce a decision to you all, maybe over the weekend,” Vanoli told reporters gathered for a presentation on the central banks achievements during 2015.
“More important than the question of what’s going to happen with me, is the country, and that these policies be preserved.”
Macri’s cabinet has been named, with Vanoli and the future leadership of the central bank hanging as a big question.
Macri has said he would like to have economist and congressman Federico Sturzenegger at the helm of the central bank.
Congress would have to ratify the appointment of the next central bank chief. A spokesperson for the central bank said Vanoli had made no coming announcement known within the bank.
The spokesperson said Vanoli “has never said that he is going to go, but for political reasons, the call could come at any moment” from Fernandez telling him to quit.
7. ARGENTINA’S MACRI TO SETTLE CABINET SOON WITH EYES ON CENTRAL BANK (Reuters News)
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2 Argentina’s President-elect Mauricio Macri said on Wednesday that remaining high-level personnel decisions will be settled in a matter of hours, as pressure mounted on central bank chief Alejandro Vanoli to step down.
Vanoli, appointed by outgoing leftist President Cristina Fernandez, was set to speak to the press at 1 p.m. (1600 GMT).
He has jousted in the media with center-right Macri over his management of Argentina’s currency. The peso under current policy is supported by central bank interventions.
Most of Macri’s cabinet has been named, with Vanoli and the future leadership of the central bank hanging as a big question before Macri becomes president of Argentina on Dec. 10.
Macri has said he would like to have economist and congressman Federico Sturzenegger at the helm of the central bank.
“The positions that remain unfilled will be resolved over the hours ahead,” Macri told reporters.
Macri has called on Vanoli to step down in order to clear the way for his policy of allowing the peso to devalue.
Congress would have to ratify the appointment of the next central bank chief.
8. WINDS OF CHANGE IN ARGENTINA: NEW PRESIDENT APPOINTS EXPERIENCED TEAM (Forbes)
By Alejandro Chafuen
December 2, 2015
“Buenos Aires,” the name of the Argentine capital, translates into “Good Airs” or “Good Breezes.” The hot summer days that are approaching in this South American city are not particularly appealing, but the recent election of Mauricio Macri to the presidency, is making many feel that they are in a political spring. Some observers are forecasting that the election signals the end of populism. “XXIst Century Socialists,” on the other hand, argue that the election is a partial set back and a return to “neo-liberal” and crony capitalist days. The new cabinet, appointed with extreme speed, can give us a sense of what might follow.
Let’s start with the economy. The people chosen by President-elect Mauricio Macri, Alfonso Prat Gay, Pedro Lacoste, Rogelio Frigerio, and Federico Sturzenegger, to lead the ministries and agencies in charge of the Argentine economy are shrewd operators with ample experience in the public and private sectors. Their knowledge of how the Central Bank and other state-ow
ned banks and agencies operate is an essential asset to this transition. During my lifetime, (I was born in 1954), not a single elected president who was not part of the Peronist party was able to finish his mandate. That’s not to say that they were all destabilized by the Peronists alone; one of them, Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989), did it mostly to himself. His team implemented an easy money policy, which destabilized the economy, forcing him to call for early elections.
The knowledge that Prat Gay, Lacoste, and Sturzenegger have of the web of interventionist regulations currently used to control most aspects of the Argentine economy will help the next administration to carefully assess any malfeasance conducted by the Kirchner government during these last weeks and until they take charge on December 10. Martin Lousteau, chosen to become ambassador to the U.S., belongs to the same club as the rest of the economic team. He also worked for the Kirchners and following his political instincts more than his economic understanding, greatly increased the dreaded export taxes, but was chosen due to his political clout.
Like good technocrats, the new team will be able to dazzle their audience and other policy players with numbers and figures. Yet having knowledge of data and economic statistics is not enough to avoid missing the goal of achieving financial stability and sounder monetary policies. The track record of Argentine “monetary experts” has not been good. In this case, pragmatism, of a non-dogmatic, Keynesian fashion, will be the norm. Prat Gay was head of the Central Bank in the early years of Nestor Kirchner’s administration (2002-2004), and Pedro Lacoste was his deputy. Lacoste’s consulting firm, Tilton Capital, is named after the estate of the late John Maynard Keynes. Only when compared with 21st century socialists can this team be considered “neo-liberal;” neo-Keynesian is more appropriate, but still much better than neo-Marxists like the departing Axel Kicillof.
What changes will we see first? I expect that soon most prices will be determined by the market process. There will be a gradual and uneven liberalization of the prices currently set and subsidized by the government (for instance, a train ticket costs 20 U.S. cents, which I estimate is 10 percent of its real value). I forecast that President Macri will respect his commitment to letting the price of the U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies be determined by the market, while asking his team of technocrats to try to smooth major fluctuations. But this will only be possible if the government puts its fiscal house in order and pursues a sound money policy.
To accomplish this goal, I expect that President-elect Mauricio Macri will seek major support from international financial institutions. He will show signs of responsibility by negotiating an agreement with Argentine creditors (the “holdouts”) and pushing for less politicized relations with most countries. Transparency in these first deals, divulging commissions and fees paid to financial brokers and legal advisors will indicate if there is a chance that positive change in Argentina is possible.
The new Minister of Energy, Juán José Aranguren, the recently retired head of Shell Oil Company, was one of the few in the business sector who, during this last decade, dared confront the Kirchner administration not only with words but also with lawsuits. In economics, he champions free markets moderated by social policy; his principled stances made him a darling of local free-market think tanks.
As Minister of Homeland Security, Patricia Bullrich will have a daunting task. But she does not lack the courage. As minister of labor in a previous administration under President De La Rua (1999-2001) she was the only one to really confront the Peronist labor unions. Originally from the “left,” Bullrich became a staunch defender of republican institutions both in Argentina and abroad (with Macri, she will fight for the freedom of Venezuelan political prisoners). Eugenio Burzaco is the new head of intelligence. Burzaco created the police of the city of Buenos Aires in order to counter the more politicized national (federal) police. Teamed with Bullrich, they will be a formidable team. They are committed to combatting narco-trafficking and the many criminal endeavors supported by its profits. Germán Garavano, who with Burzaco wrote “Mano Justa,” a book that received the Sir Antony Fisher Award from Atlas Network in 2005, is the new Minister of Justice. In no area does Argentina score so low as in respect for rule of law and justice. So these appointments are of immense importance.
In addition to justice and security, Argentina faces major challenges in the educational arena. Esteban Bullrich, the new Minister of Education, will bring his knowledge, innovative spirit, and integrity to the national scene. He developed and tested his skills as secretary of education in the city of Buenos Aires. He understands the theory and practice of education.
In Labor, Jorge Triaca (Jr), the son of one of the few moderate labor union leaders in Peronist history, played important roles in Fundacion Pensar. Pensar is a think tank that started as a state policy network, collaborating with think tanks across Argentina and Spain. It later became the official public policy ideas generator for the Macri-led political organization (PRO). Jorge Triaca left Pensar when elected to Congress. Due to his knowledge, big tent approach, and demeanor, he is one of the most admired politicians in Argentina today.
Argentina confronts major problems in economics, rule of law, security, and education. The team assembled by Macri is outstanding on many fronts. In my area of expertise, economics, I anticipate that interventionism will continue. This interventionism will be less political but, as it always favors some at the expense of others, it will not be less risky. In international affairs and global positioning, Argentina will show a very different face, much more civilized, respectful, and modern. All in all, a much welcome change for Argentina, the region, and the world.
9. FIERCE ENEMIES, ARGENTINA’S INCOMING AND SITTING PRESIDENTS TRADE BARBS, CLASH OVER SASH (Fox News)
By Andrew O’Reilly
December 2, 2015
Argentina’s President-elect Mauricio Macri still has over a week to go before he moves into the presidential palace and he is already dealing with a major political controversy that threatens to impugn his governance before it even begins.
And it stems from the person who currently holds office in the Casa Rosada. N.B. The general impression is that the President wants to take over the swearing in of Macri as President and seize all the attention by turning the ceremony into a farewell to her, inciting her followers, especially La Campora, to form a mob that will cheer her rather than Macri. Childish, indeed, but unless the entire ceremony turns into a Goodbye Chris riot, Macri is forced to insist on tradition and the legal rules established for the ceremony. The results of Christina’s actions are not amusing, since she seems dedicated to sabotaging the future government at any cost.
Macri claims that outgoing President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is sabotaging his presidency before he even takes office – causing problems that include returning federal funds to provincial governors to stymying efforts to hold productive meetings about the government transition.
“I think it’s clear that the president does not want to cooperate,” Macri said, according to La Nación, one of Argentina’s largest newspapers. He added that that “it would appear she will continue to find ways to create as many problems as she can for the new government.”
While transitioning to a new administration can often be bumpy, the two on the opposite sides of the political aisle are taking their disagreements to a whole new level.
Analysts say that Fernández’s refusal to aid the presidential transition process – and seeming undermining of Macri before he even takes up office – indicates her anger over her party, Frente para la Victoria (FPV). It also shows, they say, that she will try to continue playing a major role in Argentinian politics after she leaves office.
“Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is not going to go quietly into the night,” Jason Marczak, the deputy director of the Washington D.C.-based Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Latino.
The most pressing problem facing Macri when he takes office on December 10 is Fernández’s decision to return over $10.1 million in funds to provincial governments that was previously diverted to the ANSES social security agency.
The move – one that Fernández had previously said she would not do – not only further drains the coffers of the already financially-strapped government, but also sets up a tense relationship between Macri and the governors of these provinces as his administration scrambles to find the funds to pay them.
“Withholding the funds was originally meant as a way to deal with provincial governors, but now she delegated out the funds because it will create problems for Macri,” Bruno Binetti, a research associate at the Inter-American Dialogue, told FNL. “Less money means less way for Macri.”
Traditionally the staffs of outgoing and incoming presidents hold multiple meetings that last hours to discuss issues important to the country. So far, however, Fernández and Macri have met once for 20 minutes and all that was discussed was the inauguration ceremony.
The back-and-forth bickering has become so childlike that the two are even in a bitter fight over the presidential sash.
The Argentinian constitution says the president must be sworn in to office in the congressional building and that a procession should be held from Congress to the Casa Rosada, where the outgoing president bestows a sash on the country’s new leader. Fernández, however, has taken issue with handing over the sash at the presidential palace, saying it should be done in Congress – where she will likely be joined by many of her supporters.
This fights come after a bruising election that included a primary in August, a first round in October and then a runoff in November. They also come at a time of major transition in the South American nation of 41 million.
For 12 years, Fernandez and late husband and former President Néstor Kirchner dominated the political landscape. They spent heavily on social welfare programs for the poor, passed laws such as legalizing gay marriage, raised tariffs to protect local industries and greatly increased the size of government and its role in society.
Macri, a conservative who ran on free-market ideas, promised to undo many of those policies while combating corruption and myriad economic problems, like inflation near 30 percent, near-zero growth the last several years and byzantine controls on the buying of U.S. dollars that has created a booming black market.
Fernández’s actions in the waning days of her presidency have many people speculating that she has no plans to leave a politics behind once she steps down, especially since she still enjoys around 40 percent support in the latest polls and is viewed as the leader of the FPV party.
This is good news for her allies and bad news for Macri, who will need to act swiftly upon taking office to fend of attacks from Fernández and her cronies.
“She is going to continue to be a thorn in the side of Macri,” Marczak said. “There is going to be real pressure on Macri to deliver results early in his presidency so he can fend off any more attacks.”
The Taming of the Argentine Right?
10. CONSERVATIVES IN LATIN AMERICA GAZE TOWARD BUENOS AIRES IN SEARCH OF THEIR CITY ON A HILL (NACLA org)
By Ernesto Semán
12/02/2015
Early in the night on Sunday, November 22, Mauricio Macri became the first leader of a conservative coalition to win a presidential election in Argentina since 1910. A sense of hyperbolic exhilaration has been flowing through conservative movements in the region ever since. Just a few hours after the victory, one Mexican tabloid, not without reason, hailed the event occurring all the way at the other end of Latin America as “the first blow in 15 years to the chavista bloc.”
Change likely lies ahead for much of South America. In the case of Macri and Argentina, the lesson for the region is how a conservative businessman, mayor, and former president of one of Argentina’s most popular soccer clubs, made use of a period of political and economic stagnation to radically revamp right-wing politics. His election gave new and powerful steam to the idea of a “democratic right,” even if the two concepts remain, for many, in uncomfortable tension. To do this, Macri’s Cambiemos (Let’s Change) coalition incorporated liberal democratic jargon and widely shared notions of social rights into a broad-based, but notably tamed, conservative rhetoric. In that sense, then, Cambiemos’s victory can be read as a bittersweet success for departing president Cristina Kirchner and her late husband, as it proves how far their populist governments moved the political mainstream to the left over more than a decade. But against Cambiemos’s own narrative and the optimism of progressive forces about the endurance of populist legacies, what Macri will do in office starting next week could be a totally different matter.
When Sebastián Piñera became president of Chile in 2010, Argentines looked down disparagingly at their neighbors, criticizing the intrusion of a billionaire businessman into the realm of politics. In the early 1990s, Argentines laughed at the rise of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the Bolivian president who spoke Spanish with a marked English accent. Alas, what goes around comes around. Macri is the heir to one of the leading economic groups in Argentina. And like Sánchez de Lozada, his accent seems foreign to modern politics in the country. It contains little of the staccato of popular Argentine castellano. The new president’s words move fast and inward, the tongue one size larger than the mouth, the dispensable consonants buried under a free-flow of vowels that have typically characterized the accent of Argentina’s elites. It’s what Argentines, when mocking their country’s upper crust, refer to as “hablar con la papa en la boca” – literally, to talk with a potato in one’s mouth.
Yet few things are more misleading than Macri’s verbal intonation. What’s remarkable about the elections is how Macri was able to transcend the stigma associated with his social class to create a large, multi-class political movement. A prevalent theory during the 1960s posited that the Argentine elite’s inability to build popular consensus around their interests contributed to recurrent political instability and military coups. Macri’s victory appears to mark the unofficial end to that sort of thinking, showing how a conservative leader can win the majority of a socially progressive electorate in a contested election. Macri did what no other conservative predecessor was able to do: he turned right-wing thinking into an electorally competitive option.
There are many factors that explain Argentina’s apparent “right turn,” as María Esperanza Casullo, a political scientist from Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, recently explained. Beginning in 2003, when the late Néstor Kirchner came into power, kirchnerismo carried out a set of successful progressive policies: massive social programs that significantly reduced poverty, the maintenance of a low unemployment rate, and a good record on human and civil rights, including the prosecution of members of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship for human rights violations and the passage of a historic same-sex marriage law. In 2011, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner obtained reelection with 54 percent of the vote due to these achievements.
But since then, the government has been the victim of several self-inflicted blows. Starting around 2011, as the economy stalled, kirchnerismo rejected criticisms about the efficacy of many of its reforms; at the same time the government ignored new popular demands for more transparency, social inclusion, and citizen security. Decisions made out of some rigid notions about how economic agents would react made things worse. As Gerardo Aboy Carlés, a sociologist who studies populism at Universidad de San Martín in Argentina, said, “The last stage of Cristinismo does not do justice to kirchnerismo as a whole.” With a sectarianism “rarely seen in Argentina since the democratic restoration of 1983,” Peronism under Kirchner became, in Aboy Carlés’s words, something “increasingly alien from democratic Argentina,” and even “from Peronism itself.”
No scholar was more idolized by kirchnerismo than the political philosopher Ernesto Laclau, his name liberally trotted out as a source of legitimacy for populist politics in cafés and on TV programs. But kirchnerista activists disregarded one of Laclau’s most important messages about the nature of populist movements – the idea that no political identity is independent from the moment and discourse in which it is presented. Instead of responding to the changing concerns of constituents, acolytes of kirchnerismo have too often acted as if the government was intrinsically right, rather than understanding that “right” and “wrong” were the product of building a relationship of trust with their constituency, and then together establishing the movement’s priorities. Given these problems, it’s remarkable that Kirchner’s chosen successor, Daniel Scioli, still came just three percentage points shy of victory.
Macri argued that only the Argentine Right was capable of representing a broad range of demands for change, no matter the kind.
The irony of this all is that Cambiemos proved to be more observant of Laclau than his hagiographers. Macri presented Cambiemos as the only available means for political transformations in Argentina’s current climate. Bolstered by a sluggish economy and a sense of national fatigue after 12 years of Kirchner presidencies, Macri argued that only the Argentine Right was capable of representing a broad range of demands for change, no matter the kind. He embodied right-wing politics not as an ideological mandate but as a social construct, capable of representing even those interests that were not inherently conservative.
How exactly did Macri do this? Although his political ascent occurred outside the two most powerful political parties of Argentina, the liberal Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and Peronism, he incorporated bits of each party’s political rhetoric into Cambiemos. Macri embedded Cambiemos within a broader defense of republican values – not always a comfortable lexicon for movements historically associated with military coups. As Jennifer Adair, a historian at Fairfield University who studies the post-dictatorship democratic “transition” that was led by President Raúl Alfonsín, explained, Macri’s alliance with Alfonsín’s heirs “allowed PRO [Macri’s political party and the dominant party within the Cambiemos coalition] to build off the remaining territorial base of the Alfonsín’s UCR.” This proved to be a crucial advantage for Macri on Election Day.
However, when historians look back on Macri’s victory, the day that will remain most significant will be Sunday, July 19, 2015, when Macri acknowledged that he would not roll back all kirchernista reforms. In a speech after his party won by a narrow margin local elections in the city of Buenos Aires, he said that the Universal Child Allowance, the largest and most successful social program of the Kirchner years – and a policy denigrated by one leader of Cambiemos as a subsidy for drug consumption – would continue. Macri added that the nationalization of Argentina’s national airline, one of the most contested economic actions taken during Cristina Kirchner’s presidency, would not be reversed. (Advisors to Macri had made similar comments about the country’s national oil company). In just a few words, Macri insisted, clearly and publicly, that should he be elected, the state would still have a significant presence in the economy, particularly with respect to social policies targeting the poor.
This was a game changer. Those vitriolically opposed to the Kirchners whined, yet they remained by their candidate’s side. And through Macri, social rights – the notion that social sectors like workers and the unemployed are entitled to protections, as a group, to put them on an even playing field with the rest of society – have now been incorporated into Cambiemos. A vast electorate, which over decades internalized the idea that social rights are intrinsic components of democracy, opened itself to the conservative candidate, arguably for the first time in the twentieth-century. (Less than a year ago, I mentioned to one of Macri’s advisors that the then-candidate’s only hope in winning laid in recognizing the Kirchners’ achievements, accepting comprehensive ideas of social policies and state intervention. At the time, I judged that he would not be able to do so. I was right in the first part. And clearly wrong in the second one.)
Of course, against these changes, the rhetoric of Cambiemos remains plagued with clichés originating in the modernizing theories of decades past. These include tropes about the risks of collective action, the limits of guaranteed government benefits, and the fear of strongmen squashing individual freedom. Argentina’s future Secretary of Treasury has said that every few decades a caudillo from the backwards provinces does away with progress made by advanced urban politics. Another member of Cambiemos has also suggested that women in poor neighborhoods get pregnant so they can obtain social benefits designed for mothers. But such extreme claims can be deceiving; fears about populism mask its threatening proximity and influence. Consider the fact that as recently as the late 1940s, Macri’s grandfather, an Italian immigrant, settled in a Buenos Aires housing project that Eva Perón paternalistically made available to new immigrants, the embodiment of the sort of populism that Macri’s coalition decries today.
If the experience of Chile’s Sebastián Piñera, who hailed the importance of Macri’s victory, indicates anything about what may be in store for Argentina during a conservative presidency, the future might not be as dark as many on the Left may think. Jennifer Pribble, a political scientist at the University of Richmond who studies social policies in Latin America, notes that Piñera “did not undo any of the center-left Concertación’s emblematic social reforms under Bachelet.” While Piñera “had initially criticized Bachelet’s pension reform as a new handout, he made no effort to roll it back.” But as Pribble also points out, with Chile’s economy booming at the time, Piñera had few incentives to cut social policies. Economic expansion, high international prices for copper, and social programs passed by law (with their funding secured), all prevented a radical revision of social policies there.
But Macri will have incentives to change. The Argentine economy is entering its fourth year with little to no growth. Soybean prices are at their lowest in a decade. Macri’s economic advisors have already promised to target Argentina’s large fiscal deficit. And inflation this year will be around 25 percent. What’s more, not all of the social programs in Argentina have secured funds, making them far more vulnerable to belt-tightening measures. Given this context, Macri’s new economic team has already announced some of its intended first measures. These include the reduction of export taxes on soybeans and the elimination of such taxes on Argentine beef, wheat, and corn. They also include the end of massive subsidies for domestic utilities and transportation. The gamble is to reduce the fiscal deficit and incentivize foreign investment, but the chance of generating more inflation while reducing fiscal resources looms on the horizon. If history has taught us anything, it’s that hawkish attempts at reducing the fiscal deficit tend to expand it. If that happens, the incentives for a more conservative austerity plan, and the coercive measures that would accompany it, will be greater. The hope that populist legacies will restrain Macri’s conservativism clash against a more Leninist notion of politics: that a brief moment of broad support should be taken advantage of to carry out the most radical reforms. No wonder The Economist, thrilled with Macri’s victory, predicts reforms that are “likely to be faster and more profound” than some may expect.
In the meantime, Macri will also roll back the foreign policy of the last decade. Crucial in that agenda will be Venezuela. Macri has already said he will request the removal of the country from the Mercosur trade bloc. It’s a bold proposal, but one that seems to currently have little regional support. But the region, which has been effective in keeping U.S. pressures for regime change at bay, is increasingly ineffectual in having a positive impact in what seems to be a toxic domestic dynamic in the oil-producing country. That vacuum will keep space open for Macri to make demands on Venezuela, and for the United States to back Argentina.
Yet the real signs for the rest of Latin America will not be read in Macri’s foreign policy but back at home. The new administration’s ability to appeal to the country’s popular sectors as it tries to maintain ideological commitments is likely to define the success or failure of Macri’s presidency. It is also likely to underscore the legacies of kirchnerismo. As this process unfolds, conservative movements in the region will be looking toward the flat, western shoreline of the Rio de la Plata in search of their city upon a hill.
11. ARGENTINA TO LAUNCH CRACKDOWN ON ‘BARRAS BRAVAS’ SOCCER GANGS (Insight Crime.org)
By Mike LaSusa
Thursday, 03 December 2015
Argentina’s incoming security secretary has called for the creation of an “elite force” targeting hardcore soccer fans known as “barras bravas,” illustrating the serious threat posed by gangs that have blurred the lines between sports hooliganism and organized crime.
President-elect Mauricio Macri’s chosen security secretary, Eugenio Burzaco, recently told local media outlets that Macri has ordered him to “dismantle these mafias that are the barras.”
According to Clarin, the new administration considers the barras “illicit associations,” and plans to combat them by modeling intelligence-gathering and investigative efforts after those used by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Their aim, said Burzaco, was to put an end to the Barras extortion activities, and that this should not be delegated to the soccer clubs but must be done by the state.
The move against the barras comes as part of a wider anti-crime crackdown planned by Macri’s incoming administration, who made security a central pilar of his election campaign.
InSight Crime Analysis
President-elect Macri will have had the opportunity to witness firsthand the impact of Argentina’s barras bravas as the president of the popular Boca Juniors soccer club between 1995 and 2007. Over the years, the Boca-supporting barra “La Doce” has gained a reputation as one of the most powerful and dangerous barras in Argentina. Bocas Juniors’ fans were known for being so fanatical that fans from opposing teams were sometimes barred from attending the Bocas’ home games due to safety concerns.
The propensity of Argentina’s barras for starting riots and brawls certainly generates concern among security officials. An Argentine organization called “Let’s Save Soccer” estimated that dozens of people have been killed in soccer-related violence in recent years. However, many barras have evolved beyond being mere violent thugs and it is likely that it is the barras’ involvement in ticket scalping, drug running and other criminal activities, combined with their sizeable political influence, that has drawn the attention of the new government.
However, reining in the barras will be no easy task. Many have garnered enormous influence within the power structures of the clubs themselves, and the club hierarchies have been known to use them as security, to rig club elections and intimidate opponents. Without cooperation from the clubs, the security forces will struggle to dismantle groups that evidence suggests are becoming ever more organized and powerful.
12. WHAT ARGENTINA’S BISHOPS ARE PROPOSING TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS (Catholic News Agency)
Dec 3, 2015
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec 3, 2015 / 12:04 am (CNA).- The Argentine bishops’ conference issued “a strong call to conversion” to those involved in drug trafficking and dealing, urging them to take advantage of the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy which begins Dec. 8.
“We are especially addressing those who belong to criminal groups, those who look with indifference upon the tragedy their brothers are going through, those who are collaborating by omission or commission in the spread of this scourge,” the bishops of Argentina said.
Their appeal came in their message “No to drug trafficking, yes to the fullness of life,” written during their 110th Plenary Assembly in early November.
The Argentine bishops also called for efforts to combat the plague of drug trafficking in their country. They warned that its presence and spread entails the complicity of power “in its various forms.” The prelates warned of “the gravity of the situation our country is facing on this issue” and reminded all of society of “the need for urgent conversion.”
This transformation, they explained, “can’t be understood from just one aspect” since “any response on just one level will turn out to be just as inefficient as it is useless.”
The prelates emphasized that drug trafficking is “a business of global dimensions, that extends its network into governments, businesses and multiple sectors of society.”
“The government needs to deploy an organized force to neutralize the enormous damage it causes” they pointed out. They lamented that drug trafficking is “deeply rooted in our country.”
The bishops’ conference connected drug trafficking with the “global culture of consumerism” which “creates unsatisfied desires and imposes on our countries a market with an inadequate scale of values.”
This consumerist culture, they said, “is constantly sending out the false notion that without having certain things you can’t be happy.”
The bishops connected this to the “globalization of indifference,” an often-used phrase of Pope Francis. They said this phenomenon “creates an individualistic culture based on consumption which creates a favorable framework for the expansion of drug trafficking networks.”
“Drug trafficking is conducted in the most brutal spirit of capitalism and the idolatry of money: it’s inseparable from them,” they reiterated.
Argentina is seeing a rise in the manufacture and use of a drug called “paco,” a highly addictive cocaine-based drug that is smoked like crack.
The bishops referred to “the growing number of people who make ‘paco’ or other very harmful preparations at home.” They lamented that these small-scale manufacturers then act “without any scruples to the outrageous point of sending out their own children or grandchildren to sell drugs.”
“This reality offends against the Fifth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’!” they warned. At the same time, they said drug dealers are more morally culpable than “the poor kid who’s finally used to deliver the drugs.”
One response to drugs is to have the “best possible security forces.” But the Argentine bishops emphasized the most appropriate response is “a profound cultural transformation.”
“Drug trafficking ensures the success of the person who with little effort gains a lot and who’s outside the law,” they stated. This discourages those who try to succeed through honest work.
The bishops called on governors, legislators and members of the judiciary to take responsibility for these situations. They called for strong and appropriate policies to eliminate drug trafficking and sales.
They called upon “all the People of God and so many people of good will” to fight against drug trafficking. They also called for a commitment to care for those who are suffering from drug use “directly or indirectly.”
“The Church wants to be close to families who are hurting because some of their members are addicted to drugs,” they added.
FRIDAY, 12/4
1. OUTGOING ARGENTINE PRESIDENT TO LEAVE BIG TAB FOR SUCCESSOR (The Wall Street Journal)
2. CASE UPENDS SOCCER POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA (The New York Times)
3. ARGENTINA SEEKS LOANS TO ADD 7 GIGAWATTS OF RENEWABLE POWER (Bloomberg News)
4. SPORTS AGENT NAMED ARGENTINA’S NEXT SPY CHIEF (Fox News)
5. FITCH: ARGENTINA’S POST-ELECTION CREDIT OUTLOOK FACES POLITICAL AND POLICY CHALLENGES (Dow Jones Institutional News)
6. ARGENTINE GRAINS CHAMBER SEES TAX CUTS AHEAD FOR SOYOIL, SOYMEAL (Reuters News)
7. BE WARY OF ARGENTINA’S RECOVERY: NEW PRESIDENT MAURICIO MACRI IS NO GENIUS (Forbes)
8. IS ARGENTINA’S NEW PRESIDENT MACRI THE REAL DEAL? (PanamPost)
9. WILL ARGENTINA’S NEW PRESIDENT BRING A NEW REALITY – OR MORE OF THE SAME? (Value Walk)
10. MACRI’S ARGENTINA ELECTION SIGNALS RIGHTWARD SHIFT IN LATIN AMERICA (World Politics Review)
11. AFTER ELECTIONS, ARGENTINA STAYS THE COURSE ON SCIENCE (Sciencemag.org)
1. OUTGOING ARGENTINE PRESIDENT TO LEAVE BIG TAB FOR SUCCESSOR (The Wall Street Journal)
By Taos Turner
Dec. 3, 2015
In her last weeks in office, Cristina Kirchner raises public spending, fills government jobs and increases debt
BUENOS AIRES—With only a week left in office, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner is moving at a breakneck pace to increase public spending, fill government jobs and increase the debt that may have to be paid by her successor, Mauricio Macri.
Mrs. Kirchner signed a decree this week to turn over billions of dollars to provincial governors, a move that could force Mr. Macri to find fresh funding just as he tries to reduce the biggest fiscal deficit in Argentina since 1982.
In a news conference Wednesday, Mr. Macri said Mrs. Kirchner was trying to create as many “new roadblocks and problems as she can” for his incoming administration. Mr. Macri, leader of the “Let’s Change” coalition, will replace Mrs. Kirchner, of the Peronist party, on Dec. 10. His inaugural ceremony, which he and Mrs. Kirchner are now bickering over, will formally end more than 12 years of populist rule by Mrs. Kirchner and her late husband, Néstor.
“This is a sad choice that the president has made. Everything she does that she thinks will hurt our government will in reality hurt all Argentines,” Mr. Macri added.
A spokesman for Mrs. Kirchner didn’t respond to a request for comment. Earlier Thursday, her cabinet chief, Aníbal Fernández, said he didn’t think Mrs. Kirchner was trying to cause problems for Mr. Macri. A day earlier, Mr. Fernández had said the problem could make it hard for the incoming government to pay pensions.
But Mr. Macri’s advisers say there are legal ways to reverse Mrs. Kirchner’s move regarding the provinces and are confident it will not hamstring the new administration.
Throughout her tenure, Mrs. Kirchner withheld billions of dollars in tax funds that belonged to the provinces. Governors say she used the money to fund the pension system, but also to make them dependent on financing from the executive branch. That gave her political leverage, which she used to encourage governors to support her policies in Congress.
“She never would have done this if she were staying in office,” said Aldo Abram, director of Liberty and Progress, a local think tank. “Mr. Macri hasn’t even sat down in the job yet and he already has to figure out how where he’s going to find all these funds.”
If Mr. Macri is unable to overturn the decree, he could need almost $7 billion in additional funding, estimates Diego Giacomini, an economist at Economy and Regions, a research firm that specializes in provincial economic issues.
Mrs. Kirchner’s move comes after Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled last week that she was illegally withholding money from three provinces. Instead of abiding by the ruling, which would have obligated the Macri administration to distribute a much smaller sum to those provinces, she signed a decree that forces Mr. Macri to return funds that had been withheld from 23 of Argentina’s provinces and this capital city.
Even if Mr. Macri undoes the decree, Mrs. Kirchner’s actions have focused attention on the issue and could force Mr. Macri to “sit down and negotiate with provincial governors, most of whom belong to the Peronist party,” Mr. Giacomini said.
Mrs. Kirchner’s spending policies have put Argentina on track to post a fiscal deficit of more than 7% of gross domestic product this year. Along with a constantly rising money supply, that could make it harder for Mr. Macri to fulfill a pledge to cut inflation from around 25% annually to one digit within two years.
Mrs. Kirchner has also been quickly appointing new ambassadors and filling new government jobs. A recent count by The Wall Street Journal indicates she has moved to fill more than 2,500 positions in recent weeks, some of which are lifelong posts.
2. CASE UPENDS SOCCER POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA (The New York Times)
By Simon Romero and Elisabeth Malkin
4 December 2015
RIO DE JANEIRO — No one epitomizes the ups and downs of Brazilian soccer quite like Ricardo Teixeira.
As the leader of Brazil’s powerful soccer federation for more than 20 years, Mr. Teixeira helped land the 2014 World Cup. But as public rage erupted over spending for the tournament, demonstrators burned his effigy — replete with his signature jowls, sturdy frame and tailored suit — in street protests.
Even after his resignation in 2012 amid claims of illicit enrichment, Mr. Teixeira, 68, kept a high profile. Shuttling among luxurious homes in Monaco, Miami and Rio de Janeiro, he became a symbol for the excesses of the Brazilian sports world and the failings of Brazil’s legal system in prosecuting corruption.
But on Thursday, Mr. Teixeira came to represent something else entirely when he figured among 16 of the most powerful figures in Latin American soccer who were charged in the latest chapter of the United States’ broad investigation of corruption in international soccer.
Joining Mr. Teixeira on the list, in a region that is a pillar of world soccer, were members of the elite of several countries who led or played a role in regional soccer federations, including Rafael Callejas, a former president of Honduras; Marco Polo del Nero, the president of Brazil’s soccer federation; and Héctor Trujillo, a magistrate on Guatemala’s highest court.
Virtually every head or former head of soccer in Central America was charged, and the heads of Concacaf, the regional soccer governing body for North and Central America and the Caribbean, and Conmebol, the body that covers South America, were also charged and arrested in Zurich before a FIFA meeting.
The indictment accuses the group of routinely accepting bribes and kickbacks that sometimes reached six figures, through the sale of lucrative marketing and media rights for an array of tournaments and matches.
The charges, coupled with a round of indictments in the spring that first shook up world soccer, mean three successive presidents of both Concacaf and Conmebol have now been charged, puncturing soccer leadership’s air of invincibility in a region that has long struggled with corruption and impunity.
”There have been various attempts to investigate the business practices of the Brazilian Football Federation, but the political favoritism and cultural capital of football in Brazil have always limited these attempts,” said Christopher Gaffney, a scholar at the University of Zurich who studies the politics of soccer. ”While we may question the role of the United States as a global watchdog in many respects, this is one instance in which the extraordinary power of the Justice Department is working in ways that benefit the world at large.”
A number of analysts were stunned at the audacity of some of the officials, who made arrangements for bribes at meetings in the United States and, in some cases, even after the latest scandal first broke in May, despite worry about investigators.
”Nothing should be said over the telephone. Nothing! … Nothing! Nothing!” the indictment quotes Brayan Jiménez, the president of the Guatemala soccer federation, as saying at a meeting in Chicago in July to negotiate an alleged bribe payment.
The indictment sent shock waves through soccer heavyweights like Brazil and Argentina as well as smaller countries like Guatemala and Costa Rica. Mr. Callejas, the president of Honduras from 1990 to 1994 and the president of the Honduran football federation for 13 years until this past August, was quick to defend Alfredo Hawit, the current head of the Honduras federation and Concacaf president, after his arrest in Zurich, and early in the day Mr. Callejas seemed unaware that the investigation was closing in on him, too.
Later, when prosecutors announced that Mr. Callejas had been charged, he appeared ashen-faced as he addressed local reporters. ”I wasn’t expecting this,” he said, admitting it was ”a complex, difficult situation.”
Mr. Callejas said he was innocent and added, ”I did not take one single dollar or lempira from” the Honduran football federation.
In May, shortly after the first arrests and newly installed as the president of Concacaf, Mr. Hawit declared his innocence to the Honduran newspaper Diez and denied he was under investigation.
Mr. Hawit was named president of Concacaf in May to replace Jeffrey Webb, who was arrested when the scandal broke in May. Mr. Hawit had spent many years as the secretary of the Honduran federation and then took it over from Mr. Callejas on Aug. 1. He was on the law faculty of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, the country’s main university.
The indictment’s accusations against Mr. Callejas and Mr. Hawit were repeated in variations against the region’s federation bosses. According to prosecutors, a sports marketing company, Media World, paid a bribe of $600,000 in December 2012 for the rights to Honduran qualifier matches in advance of the 2022 World Cup. The pair was also accused of taking bribes for the rights to 2014 and 2018 World Cup qualifier matches.
In a situation similar to that of Mr. Hawit, Mr. del Nero, the president of the Brazilian football federation, had recently replaced José María Marin, the octogenarian soccer grandee who led the organization until April. Mr. Marin was arrested in May in Zurich in the first sweep and was extradited to the United States.
Mr. del Nero returned to Brazil at the time of the arrests. Last week, he resigned from FIFA’s executive committee and was replaced by Fernando Sarney, a scion of the Sarney political dynasty from northeast Brazil.
The indictment describes a meeting in Miami in April 2014 when José Hawilla, a Brazilian sports marketing executive, asked Mr. Marin if he needed to keep paying bribes to Mr. Teixeira. ”It’s about time to — to have it coming our way. True or not,” Mr. Marin replied. Mr. Hawilla, who is cooperating with the investigation, agreed that it was.
The indictment also accuses Mr. Teixeira of soliciting and receiving millions of dollars in bribes from 1990 to 2009 in connection to the media rights for the Copa do Brasil tournament.
Efforts to reach Mr. Teixeira, who recently