Contrary to popular belief, indigenous people vote in equal or higher numbers than ladinos and are well represented in local government. However, few Mayan politicians are elected to Congress and top government jobs are largely inaccessible for indigenous Guatemalans, who constitute about 60% of the country's population. While some analysts have argued that the only way to increase indigenous participation on a central government level, is for parties to include a greater number of indigenous candidates, Mayan leaders believe that increasing the “ethnic quota” in political parties is not enough and have warned that putting forward a greater number of indigenous candidates can achieve little, when the party's structure and agenda has been designed by ladinos.

During the second week of August, Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, embarked on a tour of Central America , Mexico and Jamaica to promote the production and consumption of biofuel. During the trip, he adopted a conciliatory and diplomatic stance between the US, which has forcefully advocated a switch to biofuel, and some isthmus countries, such as Nicaragua who are wary of the initiative, fearing that the use of corn for the production of ethanol could endanger food security in the region. Lula's proposal focuses on a regional integration process in which energy plays a key role.

Isthmus presidents recently gathered for the 20th anniversary of the Esquipulas II Accords in San José, Costa Rica. During this celebration for the “process to establish firm and long-lasting peace in Central America,” there was much praise for Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, but few achievements to speak of in terms of development. The big absentee of the meeting was Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who does not hide his ideological differences with Arias and recently accused Arias of “conspiring” against the Sandinista Revolution. Despite the fact that regional integration was one of the strong points of the Peace Agreement, Costa Rica has kept its distance from these initiatives, while the “egalitarian societies free of extreme poverty” that were promised in the accords remain nothing more than a dream.

According to a recent report by the Inter-American Development Bank ombudsman, the Bank's 2001-2006 Honduras program failed to meet one of its key objectives: poverty reduction. The report notes that the program relied on a model in which overall economic growth would cause poverty rates to fall. After five years, the economy had grown, but poverty rates were nearly static. Meanwhile, the Bank Information Center (BIC), a finance institution watchdog, recently released a report claiming that massive reforms driven by IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno have led to widespread discontent among the Bank's staff.

Over the past few years, the Saca administration has blamed the country's soaring murder rate on urban youth gangs. However, two recent murders that bear the hallmark of death squads have forced the authorities to admit that rogue police officers are involved in so-called “social cleansing operations”. Security experts and human rights activists say that this is not an isolated case, as many such murders are never properly investigated, and have called for the national police to be purged of corrupt officers.