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- ☀ Domingo Brief — Brazil’s Municipal Elections
☀ Domingo Brief — Brazil’s Municipal Elections
Each Sunday, take two minutes to catch key stories and opportunities shaping Latin America.
Latinometrics
October 13, 2024 • Reading Time: 5 minutes
Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re tracking Bolivian super-chefs, Dominican migration policy, and more.
Trivia of the Week 🎯
Less than 30% of you got it right, but Berta Cáceres was the indigenous environmental activist who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for her work protecting the land and rights of the native Lenca people. The 44-year old Lenca activist from Honduras was assassinated in 2016 on the orders of the president of a hydroelectric company, who in 2022 was sentenced to 22 years in prison for plotting her murder.
Each week, tune back in for the answer to the previous week’s trivia question. No cheating!
Which Latin American country famously lost about 10% of its population in a non-interstate conflict in the early 20th century? |
🇧🇴 Marsia Taha Mohamed has been named the best female chef in Latin America. The title, awarded by Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024, celebrates the chef, who was born in Bulgaria to a Palestinian father and a Bolivian mother, and who opened Sabores Silvestres to research and preserve Bolivian culinary heritage.
🇧🇷 Brazil held over 5K municipal elections last weekend, with diverse and varied results across the country. Eduardo Paes won reelection for a record-setting fourth term as the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, while controversial right-wing firebrand Pablo Marçal just barely failed to qualify for the runoff in the São Paulo mayoral election. In this latter election, it’s now a local battle to head Brazil’s largest country, with incumbent mayor Ricardo Nunes (backed by ex-president Jair Bolsonaro) taking on Guilherme Boulos (backed by sitting president Lula da Silva).
Latinometrics: The so-called Centrão bloc, which represents ideologically flexible parties driven by clientelist networks of pork barrel politics, were the most successful parties across the country, with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) winning the most elections.
🇩🇴 The Dominican Republic (DR) deported almost 11K Haitians in one week, and has announced it will try to deport up to 10K a week going forward. This policy by Santo Domingo comes as neighboring Haiti devolves into deeper chaos and a proposed peacekeeping mission seems both underfunded and under-supported by key international actors.
🇲🇽 Avery Dennison has officially inaugurated a new $181M plant in the city of Querétaro, its largest in the company’s global network. The Ohio-based multinational makes and distributes adhesive labels and tags and employs over 35K people worldwide.
🇵🇾 Paraguay officially shipped over 128K tons of beef to Chile last year, reflecting $665M in exports as part of an overall $1.8B bilateral trade relationship. Paraguay represents Chile’s fifth-largest regional trade partner and tenth-largest global trade partner, despite both being heavy commodity exporters which do not share a border.
Venture Capital
🇧🇷 Barte has raised an $8M Series A round led by AlleyCorp. The Brazilian fintech, which was founded in 2022 and provides a B2B payment ecosystem for medium-sized and large businesses in Brazil, currently serves clients such as Housi and Metlife.
🇧🇷 Brazilian SaaS fintech Tuna has secured $360K in a round led by ABSeed. The 2020-founded startup, which helps merchants connect with payment processors and anti-fraud providers, is preparing for an eventual Series A round.
Domingo Dispatch 🗞️
🇧🇷 Brazil's Supreme Court and Congress Push for Return of Corporate Donations in 2026 Campaigns (Bruno Boghossian & Julia Chaib, Folha de São Paulo)
🇪🇨 Ecuador goes dark in a power crisis that punishes economy (Stephan Kueffner, Yahoo Finance)
Visualizing Latin America via AI
This week, Paraguayan trucks haul beef to Chile.
We at Latinometrics hope you realize Latin America’s potential this week.
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