 Hello and welcome to this special episode of daily debrief where we go to Latin America and two vital electoral processes in Mexico and Guatemala. But before we go any further, don't forget to subscribe to our channel. In today's show we take a look at two important elections, one that is already concluded and one that is scheduled for next year. We begin with the election to come in Mexico in June 2024. Now the ruling progressive Morena party has decided its presidential candidate Dr. Claudia Sheenbaum, the former head of government of Mexico City. An environmental scientist, a former student activist and a veteran politician, Sheenbaum will now seek to carry forward the legacy of the incumbent Unreal Manuel Lopez Obrador Amlo under whose administration the country has made some substantial gains. We have with us Zoe to understand more about these primates. Well it has been officially defined that two women will be contesting the presidency in Mexico in 2024. These are when the general elections will be held. And on Wednesday, September 6, Morena, which is the national regeneration movement, the Morena party, defined who its presidential candidate would be. This was defined through a month's long internal consultation process, through rigorous polling and consulting amongst the base of the party. And there were four different pollsters used and all of them, which the results were handed over on Wednesday and announced that Claudia Sheenbaum, Dr. Claudia Sheenbaum, one of the founders of the Morena party and a protege of current president Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador would be the presidential candidate for this party. She was running against five other contenders, including the former foreign minister Marcelo Obrador. He, on the other hand, had been for the past several weeks kind of building up to a sort of intent to say that there was fraud in the process. He had previously denounced publicly how the consultation was taking place, despite it being the product of an extensive agreement between all six of the candidates that were running for this candidacy. On the day that the ticket was announced, which was this past Wednesday, he declared on social media that fraud had been taking place and that he was stepping out of the process. Then, of course, later that day it was confirmed that Claudia Sheenbaum had been picked as the favorite. She had got around 40% in all of the polls that had been done, whereas Marcelo Obrador polled behind her, which was already predicted in all of the prior polling that had been taken place by different news agencies and pollsters. He received about 25% of the vote share, of course, disqualifying him for becoming a candidate. But he announced that night that he was no longer, he said, there's no longer space for me in Morena and that he was going to potentially run for president without this party. So a very interesting development, Claudia Sheenbaum will, of course, be running against right-wing candidate, Sotito Galvez. She is the candidate for the right-wing opposition alliance, frente amplio por México, the broad front for Mexico. This is composed of the two ruling class parties, PRI and PAN, who have ruled over Mexico for decades. The election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018 was actually breaking with the long tradition of these two parties ruling over the country. And as we know, the fourth transformation, which was brought forward by AMLO during his presidency, which had a massive impact on the population of Mexico, the indexes, for example, of extreme poverty and of poverty in the country have decreased importantly. The Mexican peso has gained strength as opposed to the dollar. There have been a number, there's been a raise in minimum wage for people across the country. So these are really important advancements that have taken place through this fourth transformation of Mexico. And of course, the right-wing very much used to having control over the country, being able to take from the state and do all sorts of other things, have impunity for corruption, impunity for human rights violations has not been so happy with this government. And so it is going to be a very, very intense race in 2024. Again, Claudia Schaenbaum, Dr. Claudia Schaenbaum facing off against Sotirio Galvez in these upcoming elections. And our next story is from Guatemala recently, but not our Rivalo was elected as president, but we're definitely in a weird situation as this president-elect just a week ago, warned that there was an ongoing coup against his victory. And now there's not something new there with a lot of attacks, political attacks against his party over the years. And this definitely does not port well for democracy in Guatemala. We go back to Zoe for more details. So on August 20th, Guatemala held the second round of its presidential elections and Bernardo Rivalo of the Central Semia Movement had actually won the second round of presidential elections. This was a historic victory. Again, he faced off against Sandra Torres, who's from the National Unity of Hope Party, a center-right party. They both had already defeated the traditional ruling parties in Guatemala in the first round of the elections. But of course, Bernardo Rivalo ran and is running with a sort of progressive platform, an anti-corruption platform, and really breaking with traditional politics that have ruled in Guatemala for the past several decades. Very important to note that throughout this whole electoral process, as we've covered on people's dispatch, there have been numerous irregularities. There had been an attempt to to bar certain candidates from participating, to not only from the left, but also from other sectors. These had been successful in some cases. And for example, even Rivalo's own party, the Movimento Semilla, had also faced judicial repression. There had been a back and forth between the courts that the party had been barred, it had had their legal representatives suspended, even following the first round of the elections. And following the victory of Rivalo, once again, the party was barred, actions taken against it. Again, there had been a back and forth with the court, the constitutional court ruling that this was illegal, the supreme electoral tribunal, also taking actions. And this is sort of taking, this has raised the alarm bells across Guatemala, but also across the world in terms of what is, what is the motivation, what's behind all of these actions and an attempt to kind of bar the party in an attempt to make sure that Rivalo does not actually get sworn in. Again, he won the elections on August 20th, but for example, Sandra Torres has still refused to actually accept his victory. Most recently this week, Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of the American States, which as we know, a historic instrument of US imperialism in the region, actually visited Guatemala because of concerns over the results in this electoral process. Because, for example, Torres is not recognizing the results. And he met with both parties in an attempt to kind of bridge this dialogue. There's already been manifestations from even governments of the global north in recognizing Rivalo's victory and saying that his victory should be protected and that his rights should be protected. It is again a very tenuous situation. Sandra Torres refuses to back down, continues to allege the frauds at place and continues to demand that there be a recount and that her essentially demanding that she be declared victorious in these elections, Rivalo has requested, for example, protective measures from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. There has been a lot of back and forth regarding this. And there have even been rumors of death threats made against him and members of the Simeon party. So it's a very tense situation. And of course, it hopefully will be resolved without any escalation in any of these threats. And it will definitely be developing over the next couple of days in terms of what is going through the response to the right-wing sectors. Again, many governments in the region have already recognized his victory. And so it's really just pending on the Guatemalan authorities to kind of back off of this repression against the party, against him and really respect the rule of law and the will of the people. And that's all we have time for in today's episode. Do keep watching future episodes of Daily Debrief on People's Dispatch. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button.