International
Lula enters the municipal campaign at the last minute in the face of a divided bolsonarism in São Paulo
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva entered at the last minute in the campaign for this Sunday’s municipal elections in support of his candidate in São Paulo, a key city and in which the far-right of former president Jair Bolsonaro is completely divided.
Lula, who had been almost absent from the campaign for the municipal elections, participated this Saturday in an act in favor of Guilherme Boulos, candidate for mayor of São Paulo, who with 9.3 million voters constitutes the largest electoral college in the country.
Both walked along the central Paulista Avenue, in an act without speakers due to the electoral ban and accompanied by several thousand followers of Lula, the great reference of Brazilian progressivism.
Boulos is a deputy of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) and is in coalition with the Workers’ Party (PT), of Lula, which has lost municipal weight and in these elections only has its own candidates for mayor in 1,379 of the 5,569 municipalities.
The Liberal Party (PL), which is led by Bolsonaro and had almost no national presence until 2018, when the far right broke out, has nominated 1,477 candidates for mayor, but in São Paulo it has been divided after the appearance of Pablo Marçal, a newcomer to politics even more extreme than the former president himself.
Provocation as the norm of the dissident ultra-right
During the campaign, Marçal has insulted his opponents in every way, provoked to the power and spread lies in bulk, which have earned him sanctions from the electoral authorities and that one of his adversaries lost patience and attacked him with a chair in a debate broadcast on television.
However, with a style that borders on the patanería, it has slipped among the favorites and the polls attribute about 20% support, as well as to Boulos and the current São Paulo mayor and candidate for re-election, Ricardo Nunes, supported by Bolsonaro, who like Lula has remained distant from the campaign in São Paulo.
Marçal caused his last scandal this Friday, when he disclosed an alleged medical document according to which Boulos was a cocaine user, which was immediately denied by the socialist, who intends to bring the matter to criminal justice.
According to the polls, the election in São Paulo will go to a second round on October 27, as will happen in the 103 cities with more than 200,000 voters, if no candidate exceeds 50% of the votes.
Put in this way, it is not ruled out that that instance will be disputed in the strategic São Paulo by two references of the far right, which could put Bolsonaro himself in a brete.
Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, the other jewels of the crown
The trilogy of municipal power, which can be important in the 2026 presidential elections for its influence from the local, is completed by Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte.
In Rio de Janeiro, the second polling station in the country, with five million voters, everything favors the centrist Eduardo Paes, who aspires to re-election supported by Lula and has a voting intention ranging from 50 to 55%.
In Rio, Bolsonaro supports Alexandre Ramagem, of the PL, whom he accompanied this Saturday in an event in the populous northern area of the city and does not exceed 20% in the polls.
They are the centrist Fuad Noman, who aspires to re-election, his adversary in that same field Mauro Tramonte, and the bolsonarista Bruno Engler. Lula’s PT presents Deputy Rogério Correia, whose intention to vote does not reach 10%.
In the rest of the country, the panorama distances itself from the polarized dispute between Bolsonaro and progressism that prevails at the national level and favors center parties, which are the true faithful of the political balance and tend to lean, depending on the situation of the moment, towards one or the other extreme.
International
Venezuela Refuses to Repatriate Citizens Amid Tensions Over Chevron’s Departure
The government of Venezuela privately warned the government of Donald Trump that it will not accept its own citizens being deported, following the United States’ decision to end Chevron’s license to operate in the Caribbean country, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the matter, notes that the Venezuelan repatriation agreement is becoming strained after a January meeting between Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell and the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro, who is not recognized as president by the U.S. The Chevron issue has exacerbated tensions.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration ended Chevron’s license in Venezuela and gave the company a month, until April 3, to leave the country after President Trump criticized Maduro for not accelerating the deportation of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as quickly as expected.
The WSJ indicates that Venezuela’s private warning could further hinder Trump’s promised mass deportation campaignof undocumented immigrants, which his administration has already had to pause due to the high costs of using military planes for repatriation flights.
International
Hearing suspended in Guatemala on revocation of José Rubén Zamora’s house arrest
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín will know until next week if he should return to preventive detention, after this Friday the hearing was suspended for a possible revocation of his house arrest.
The resumption of the hearing was rescheduled for next Monday, at 10:00 local time (16:00 GMT), by order of criminal judge Erick García, since, as he indicated, he lacks the case file for the moment.
The possible return of Zamora Marroquín to prison is due to a case of alleged money laundering in 2022, the year in which the Public Ministry (Prosecution), whose leadership is sanctioned internationally under allegations of corruption, began a judicial prosecution against him.
The journalist’s potential return to prison takes place after this week an Appeals Chamber revoked the house arrest measures that had been granted since October 2024 to the former owner and founder of the media El Periódico, a morning in which he uncovered more than a thousand cases of state corruption.
According to the opinion of the magistrates of the Third Appeals Chamber, there was “an error” in the resolution of the judge who decided to release the journalist last year. The review of the measures was requested by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Zamora Marroquín was detained for the case for more than 800 days, between July 29, 2022 and October 2024, without his guilt being proven to date.
Before this Friday’s hearing, the journalist recalled in statements to the media that he has complied with all the court orders regarding his house arrest, and reiterated that he has not seen his family for more than two years, since they are abroad in the face of the risks they could encounter in the Central American country.
Likewise, he added that the persecution against him has been “physical and psychological but I am not going to give up” and described the Third Appeals Chamber as a court linked to the “corrupt” and Deputy Felipe Alejos, sanctioned by the United States for corruption.
Zamora Marroquín, with 30 years of journalistic career, was arrested on July 29, 2022, just five days after issuing strong criticism for corruption against then-President Alejandro Giammattei, between 2020 and 2024, and his close circle.
The journalist remained in prison for a judicial process for alleged money laundering, which according to international organizations such as the Inter-American Press Society (IAPA) has been plagued with irregularities.
International
Trump withdraws 400 million federal funds from Columbia University for anti-Semitism
Donald Trump’s government canceled this Friday subsidies and contracts with Columbia University in New York worth 400 million dollars “due to its passivity in the face of the persistent harassment of Jewish students,” after receiving on Monday a report commissioned by the administration on anti-Semitism on the campuses of several universities in the country.
This cancellation “is the first set of actions, and new cancellations are expected,” warns a statement signed by the general administrative services, which specify that Columbia currently has 5 billion federally committed.
The decision to cut subsidies and contracts has been made together with the federal departments of Justice, Health, Education and Administrative Services, after the operational group commissioned by the government with the specific task of detecting and denouncing anti-Semitic behavior has not received a satisfactory response from Columbia, according to the statement.
Complaints of anti-Semitism began to appear in Columbia and other campuses shortly after October 7, 2023, the date on which Hamas launched a terrorist attack against Israel, which was then followed by a war declared by Israel against Gaza that has been one of the deadliest in several decades.
That war gave rise to demonstrations against Israel as they had not been seen on university campuses for fifty years, with Columbia at the spearhead, with some anti-Jewish incidents that made the Joe Biden Government intervene and summon the rectors of several universities to Congress, several of which (including Columbia’s) had to resign.
Despite the fact that the protests have dropped a lot in terms of intensity, Trump went further than Joe Biden: first, he named that operative group on anti-Semitism on campuses, and second, he threatened to withdraw visas or residence permits from students accused of supporting “terrorist organizations like Hamas.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon says that Columbia “for too long has left its homework with Jewish students on its campus, but today we show Columbia and the other universities that we will no longer tolerate that terrible passivity.”
And the director of the group that sent his report last Monday, Leo Torrell, abounded in the threats: “Freezing funds is one of the tools at our disposal to respond to this upsurge in anti-Semitism. This is just the beginning,” he said.
Curiously, in the protests against Israel, one of the most active groups has been the left-wing Jews, who have denounced that under the premise of anti-Semitism, legitimate political criticisms against the State of Israel are being included.
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