Latin America and the Caribbean Overview: September 2024

Bolivia:Evo Morales and Luis Arce’s supporters clash amid rising polarization over the 2025 election candidacy

On 16 September, former President Evo Morales called on his supporters to demonstrate against President Luis Arce and to back his presidential candidacy in a six-day march toward La Paz.¹ Farmers and Indigenous communities took to the streets across La Paz department, demanding Arce’s resignation and early elections and expressing dissatisfaction with the country’s economic situation.² This drove an increase in demonstrations in September, with over 80 events recorded in La Paz department — the highest since ACLED began coverage of the country in 2018. Although demonstrations were mostly peaceful, clashes took place between Morales and Arce supporters and between demonstrators and police forces, highlighting deepening political tensions.³

Morales is leveraging discontent over the government’s economic policy to push for his candidacy as the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party’s nominee in the August 2025 general elections, a position he is contesting with President Arce.⁴ In December 2023, the constitutional court issued a ruling barring Morales from a fourth term, which Arce attempted to ratify through a referendum later declared inadmissible.⁵ Morales had previously been forced to stand down from the presidency after a controversial 2019 election marred by unrest, allegations of electoral fraud, and constitutional concerns over his eligibility having exceeded a mandated two-term limit.⁶ The longstanding feud over MAS leadership and the country’s economic downturn have heightened political tensions that led to a failed coup attempt in June and could further fuel polarization as the next election year approaches.

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Brazil:Violence targeting candidates rises ahead of 2024 municipal elections 

Violence targeting political figures intensified ahead of the 6 October municipal elections, more than doubling levels during the month prior. In September, ACLED records at least 25 violent incidents targeting political figures, accounting for more than a quarter of all such incidents recorded thus far this year. These primarily involved direct attacks on candidates and their associates, clashes between party supporters, and acts of intimidation, such as the destruction of candidates’ properties. Organized crime’s influence on elections is significant, often involving violence, threats, and coercion against politicians and voters to ensure the election of candidates favoring their activities. In Rio de Janeiro state, the Electoral Supreme Court relocated 53 polling stations due to security concerns tied to organized crime,⁷ while in Bahia state, drug traffickers reportedly blocked candidates’ access to communities in the Camaçari municipality.⁸

Nonetheless, violence remains lower than in 2020, a year in which ACLED records over 280 violent incidents targeting political figures, which were concentrated around the November municipal elections. At the time, this reflected Brazil’s heightened political polarization amid a pandemic and economic crisis under Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency. In contrast, in 2024, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration and the fragmentation of the far-right opposition into multiple parties have created a more subdued political environment.

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Guadeloupe and Martinique:New security measures issued in response to cost-of-living demonstrations

Demonstrations coordinated by the Assembly for the Protection of Afro-Caribbean Peoples and Resources (RPPRAC) over the cost of living broke out in Martinique on 1 September. Despite the temporary detention of the movement’s leader, Rodrigue Petitot,⁹ for allegedly attempting to steal a public bus in the Dillon neighborhood, the mobilization continued. Demonstrators demanded that supermarket prices in the overseas territories be aligned with those in mainland France, where food prices are on average 40% lower.¹⁰ 

Initially, demonstrations involved peaceful sit-ins blocking supermarket access and looting. On 5 September, local authorities attempted to soothe the unrest by announcing a 20% price cut on 2,500 products.¹¹ However, the RPPRAC deemed the measure insufficient, and tensions escalated, particularly in Fort-de-France. From 12 September, rioters set up roadblocks, threw Molotov cocktails at police, and fired at the gendarmerie station in Fort-de-France, prompting police to fire back and resulting in one rioter and six gendarmes being injured. As unrest continued, authorities enforced a curfew in parts of Fort-de-France on 18 September and, for the first time since 1959, deployed anti-rioting police from mainland France.¹² Similar protests broke out in Guadeloupe on 20 September, with roadblocks and clashes with police, mainly in Saint-Rose. In response, the prefect imposed a curfew for unaccompanied minors on 23 September in Point-à-Pitre, Abymes, Gosier, Sainte-Rose, Capesterre-Belle-Eau, and Lamentin. ACLED records about 30 demonstration events in Martinique and over 10 in Guadeloupe this month, the highest since the anti-COVID-19 health pass demonstrations held in November 2021 and mobilization against pension reforms in March 2023, respectively.

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Honduras:Armed suspects kill environmental activist in Colón who exposed local government-criminal ties

On 14 September, gunmen killed environmental activist and councilor Juan Antonio López in Tocoa, Colón. A member of the ruling Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) party, López had advocated for the defense of water resources and opposed mining and hydroelectric projects in the Bajo Aguán region, spanning Colón and Yoró departments.¹³ Days before his killing, López had called for the resignation of Tocoa’s LIBRE mayor, Adán Fúnez, following the release of a 2013 video showing Fúnez and Carlos Zelaya, President Xiomara Castro’s brother-in-law, discussing a US $650,000 contribution to Castro’s presidential campaign with drug traffickers.¹⁴ The video emerged shortly after Castro suspended an extradition treaty with the United States.¹⁵ Prior to this, López had long been the target of threats linked to mining interests, and in October 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted him protection measures.¹⁶ Despite government pledges to enhance protection measures, human rights groups and environmental organizations report ongoing violence targeting activists.¹⁷ In 2023 alone, ACLED records at least 16 events of violence targeting environmental and land defenders and the reported killing of 22 activists and their relatives. López’s killing adds to at least seven other direct attacks targeting land defenders this year.¹⁸ 

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Mexico:Infighting within Sinaloa Cartel escalates in Sinaloa state, spilling into Sonora and Chihuahua 

Tensions between the Sinaloa Cartel’s Los Chapitos — led by the sons of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera — and El Mayo factions escalated into open conflict on 9 September, leading to the highest violence level in Sinaloa state since 2018, with around 100 reported fatalities, mostly concentrated in Culiacán and its surroundings. This escalation follows the arrests of Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, son of El Chapo, in the US earlier in July. Zambada has since accused Guzmán López of betraying him to law enforcement, fueling widespread speculation about imminent retaliation.¹⁹

The infighting has also affected other states with a strong Sinaloa presence, including Baja California, Chihuahua, and Durango, as rival groups have been exploiting the cartel’s internal fractures to expand their operations.²⁰ Similarly, in Sonora, gang-related violence rose by 33% in September compared to the month prior amid clashes between factions allegedly tied to the Sinaloa Cartel.²¹ 

This surge in violence poses a significant challenge for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who was sworn in on 1 October, amid expectations of further militarization following former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s constitutional reform placing the National Guard under military control, which was approved on 25 September.²²

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Venezuela: Opposition loses momentum after presidential candidate flees into exile

On 8 September, opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González fled to Spain, where he was granted asylum.²³ His departure followed an arrest warrant issued against him on alleged charges of usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, incitement to disobedience, conspiracy, sabotage, and illicit association.²⁴ Once in Spain, González claimed that pro-government officials coerced him into signing a letter recognizing Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the 28 July elections as a condition for leaving the country.²⁵ Despite opposition leader María Corina Machado’s assertion that the opposition would continue challenging the election results from abroad, González’s escape seems to have dampened hopes for political change in Venezuela.²⁶ This translated into weaker mobilizations; while thousands rallied both domestically and abroad in August, ACLED records only a handful of events in Venezuela in September.

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