Regional Overview
Latin America and the Caribbean
June 2025

Posted: 6 June 2025

In this Regional Overview covering May 2025

Bolivia: Tensions continue over candidacies for the August general elections
Colombia: Petro mobilizes citizens in support of a referendum on his stalled labor reform
Guatemala: Intensifying inter- and intra-gang disputes drive an uptick in violence in the Guatemala department
Haiti: Gang violence declines in frequency but increases in lethality
Mexico: Violence targeting politicians intensifies in Veracruz state and Mexico City
Venezuela: Repression and diplomatic tensions mark the regional and parliamentary elections

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Bolivia: Tensions continue over candidacies for the August general elections

Supporters of former President Evo Morales took to the streets to demand that Morales be accepted as a candidate for the 17 August general elections. The mobilization, which drove a 42% surge in demonstrations in May, came despite signs of détente between Morales and the incumbent Luis Arce over the leadership of the Movement for Socialism party (MAS). On 14 May, Arce withdrew his candidacy for the presidency and called for Morales to do the same for the sake of unity.¹ However, Morales tried to register his candidacy through the Front for Victory and Pan-Bol political movements, but the Supreme Electoral Tribunal blocked his attempt by denying both collectives’ legal status as political parties.² The Constitutional Court also ratified the decision that forbids Morales from running for a fourth term. With both politicians out of the race, the president of the senate, Andrónico Rodríguez, launched his candidacy and distanced himself from both Arce and Morales.³

Morales’ base has, however, refused to accept the court’s decision, demanding that his candidacy be accepted even after the 19 May deadline. ACLED records at least 25 demonstrations by Morales’ supporters, contributing to the over 140 demonstrations recorded in May. In one instance on 28 May, protesters clashed with police in La Paz, leaving dozens injured.⁴ Protests have continued into June, and unrelenting tensions risk embroiling the process as the elections approach.

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Colombia: Petro mobilizes citizens in support of a referendum on his stalled labor reform

In May, protests in support of President Gustavo Petro’s labor reform proposal drove a 136% increase in the number of demonstrations in Colombia, compared to the previous month. This increase occurred amid a feud between the National Congress and the government over a proposed labor reform bill that aims to improve overtime pay, labor contracts, and social security benefits. After the Congress rejected the reform bill in March,⁵ Petro called for a referendum that would allow citizens to vote directly on several aspects of the reform.⁶ Throughout May, Petro mobilized his base in support of the referendum in an attempt to pressure Congress to approve the referendum request. However, this was ultimately rejected on 14 May.

In response, Petro once again called for a nationwide mobilization. At least 120 of the almost 290 total demonstrations recorded in the country in May were in support of Petro’s proposals, including a 48-hour national strike on 28 and 29 May.⁷ Demonstrations were mostly peaceful. However, clashes with anti-riot police took place in Bogotá over the two-day strike, resulting in the arrest of at least eight demonstrators. Through the referendum, and by calling out Congress for not respecting workers’ rights, Petro is trying to obtain support on the streets for his political project and to deliver on one of his key campaign promises as the electoral cycle for legislative and presidential elections begins.

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Guatemala: Intensifying inter- and intra-gang disputes drive an uptick in violence in the Guatemala department

Violent events more than doubled in Guatemala in May compared to the month prior, driven by an intensification of gang violence. Clashes occurred in Guatemala City and Villa Nueva, where cliques affiliated with the Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street gangs are fighting turf wars for the control of extortion rackets and local drug markets.⁸ These tensions also escalated internecine fighting between factions of the same gangs. For example, on 11 May, members of the Solo Para Locos gang, an 18th Street gang faction, killed three fellow gang members in the Santa Maria La Paz neighborhood in Guatemala City.

As a result, May became the most violent month since President Bernardo Arévalo started his term in January 2024. The surging levels of gang violence are part of a longer-term trend in the country: Violence in the first five months of 2025 grew compared to the first five months of 2024. This surge in gang violence is mirrored in the government’s official homicide records: Between 14 January — a year after Arévalo took office — and 25 May, Guatemalan authorities recorded 1,117 homicides, 21% more than in the same period in 2024.⁹ Yet, Arévalo claims that he is not planning to implement heavy-handed security policies centered on imposing states of emergency similar to those in neighboring El Salvador and Honduras. Instead, he has suggested that his government will focus on dismantling corruption schemes and drug trafficking networks to reduce gangs’ abilities to operate in Guatemala.¹⁰

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Haiti: Gang violence declines in frequency but increases in lethality

Gang-related violence in Haiti decreased by 56% in May compared to the month prior. Despite fewer incidents of gang violence, however, the ones that did occur were more lethal. Fatality figures remained relatively unchanged, with nearly 250 deaths recorded across the month. In the month’s deadliest incident that occurred on 20 May, the Coalition des Révolutionnaires pour Sauver l’Artibonite — also known as the Jean Denis Coalition — killed at least 22 residents of Préval, Artibonite, who were suspected of supporting the Gran Grif gang. The attack came in retaliation for the killing of a Jean Denis Coalition member earlier that day. While the group has positioned itself as a self-defense group, it is known to adopt gang-like tactics and has carried out other massacres. In December 2024, members of the Jean-Denis Coalition killed 150 people in Petite Rivière de L’Artibonite for similar retaliatory reasons.¹¹

But it was anti-gang operations that drove much of the increase in the lethality of the violence, thanks to security forces’ heightened use of drones. In just eight events involving drones, ACLED records at least 111 fatalities. Security forces notably used explosive-laden drones to target the strongholds of the Grand Ravine, Kraze Barye, and 5 Segond gangs in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. According to a New York Times investigative report, United States contractors, including Erik Prince, have been assisting security forces in deploying drones to fight gangs in recent months.¹² While various sectors of Haitian society have supported the drone strikes against gangs, questions remain about their effectiveness, as no gang leaders have been apprehended in these operations to date. Others warn that such tactics could affect civilians and provoke further escalation as gangs may adopt similar practices in response.¹³

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Mexico: Violence targeting politicians intensifies in Veracruz state and Mexico City

On 11 May, unidentified armed men killed a National Regeneration Movement mayoral candidate and four of her supporters during a rally in Texistepec, Veracruz. This deadly incident was one of the 20 events of violence targeting political figures in this state during May. In total, at least ten politicians, supporters, and collaborators were killed in Veracruz. As a result, May became the month with the most recorded incidents of violence targeting political figures in Veracruz since June 2021, when local and federal elections were held. Most of these events were likely linked to criminal groups seeking to gain political influence in local politics ahead of Veracruz’s municipal elections on 1 June, confirming the outsized risk that local elections pose for violence targeting political figures in this state.¹⁴

But local elections were not the only driver of violence targeting political figures in May. On 20 May, armed men killed two close collaborators of Mexico City Mayor Clara Burgada in broad daylight. This was an unusually high-profile attack against public officials in the capital. The last time such a prominent attack took place was the attempted assassination of then-Mexico City Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch in 2020. While investigations into this attack are ongoing, authorities have not ruled out the involvement of local criminal groups and cartels that operate in the city.¹⁵

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Venezuela: Repression and diplomatic tensions mark the regional and parliamentary elections

On 25 May, Venezuela held regional and parliamentary elections amid the government’s intensified crackdown on the political opposition. The National Electoral Council declared that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 83% of the votes for the National Assembly seats and 23 out of 24 governorates, including the newly created Guayana Esequiba, an oil-rich region administered by Guyana and claimed by Caracas.¹⁶ According to electoral authorities, the election day was marked by a low turnout — 42% of the electorate, but opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed the participation rate was closer to 15%. Machado and most opposition parties had called for a boycott of the elections to protest the results of the 2024 presidential election, which they considered fraudulent.¹⁷ In the days that preceded the elections in May, the government intensified its crackdown on dissent: It arrested more than 70 human rights activists, opposition leaders, lawyers, and journalists for what the government described as conspiracy to destabilize the electoral process. Human rights organizations denounced the arrests as arbitrary and equated them to political persecution.¹⁸

Frictions with neighboring Guyana also permeated the vote, as President Nicolás Maduro defied an International Court of Justice ruling that ordered Venezuela to refrain from holding elections until the territorial dispute with Guyana is settled.¹⁹ Reports of violence along the border have also increased tensions. On 13 and 14 May, armed assailants in civilian clothes from the Venezuelan side of the border attacked Guyanese military forces in Eteringbang and Makaba at least three times. The attacks followed a similar event in February that left six Guyanese soldiers injured and three suspected perpetrators killed. The Guyanese foreign minister called on Venezuelan authorities to investigate these cases, but the Venezuelan government treated these claims as “false-flag” events in the past, accusing Guyanese authorities of spreading fake news designed to manipulate public opinion in their favor.²⁰

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Methodology

See the Codebook and the User Guide for an overview of ACLED’s core methodology. For additional documentation, check the Knowledge Base. Region-specific methodology briefs can be accessed below.

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