Question

A new student is joining your class today. You want to help them catch up with the material that they missed from this lesson. Write a summary paragraph about the governments of Latin America based on information from this text. Be sure to state each type of government used in Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba. Include the title and the role of the leader in each of these governments as well as how the leader is chosen for this role. Also, include information about the role of the citizen in the governments of each of these three countries.

Answer 1

Mexico and Brazil are federal presidential republics in which the chief executive is the President: in Mexico the President is both head of state and government, serves a single six‑year term with no reelection, and is chosen by direct popular vote in multiparty elections; citizens participate by voting for the president, members of the national legislature, and local officials and exercise political rights in a competitive party system. Brazil’s President is also head of state and government, chosen by direct popular vote (a two‑round system if no candidate wins an absolute majority) for a four‑year term with the possibility of one consecutive reelection; Brazilian citizens take part in compulsory, multiparty elections for president, legislators, and subnational offices in a representative democracy. Cuba is a socialist, one‑party state dominated by the Communist Party; the formal head of state and government is the President of the Republic (and the President of the Council of Ministers in the recent institutional arrangements), but the most powerful position is often the First Secretary of the Communist Party; the national leaders are elected indirectly by the National Assembly (whose candidates are nominated through state‑organized procedures), and citizens participate in managed, noncompetitive elections with limited space for opposition and with political activity organized largely through state institutions.