Word: castros
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...office in 1999. Embarking on his first international tour as head of state, Chávez took a call from a high-ranking Clinton Administration official, who told the Venezuelan leader that it would be better for his country's relations with the U.S. if he avoided visiting Fidel Castro in Cuba. Chávez, a left-wing nationalist, had yet to develop his gushing friendship with Castro, but like other leaders all over Latin America - even those who dislike the Cuban leader and his politics - he took umbrage at Washington's assumption that it could veto his itinerary...
...Since then, of course, U.S.-Venezuela relations have plummeted farther than a Lake Maracaibo oil drill. Both sides share the blame. But the 1999 phone call bears significance. If anything, Chávez has lately supplanted Castro as Washington's priority regional pariah, yet he celebrated a decade in power this month by winning a democratic referendum that scraps presidential term limits, allowing him to run for re-election for as long as he chooses to. (See pictures of people around the world watching Barack Obama's Inauguration...
...foes fear that he intends to set up a democratically elected version of Fidel Castro's autocratic rule over Cuba. His fans counter that some democratic countries such as France allow their leaders to be re-elected indefinitely. But analysts say France has more developed political institutions that exert stronger checks and balances on chief executives. That's not always the case in Latin America, argues Walsh, who says Chavistas "are deluded if they think those institutions are working as they should right now in in Venezuela." (See pictures of Castro in the jungle...
...despite his authoritarian image, Chávez is not a dictator nor a 21st century Castro. He's been democratically elected three times, subjected himself to a 2004 recall vote (which he defeated) and permits a noisy opposition press. But John Walsh, senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent think tank, says Chávez's political hegemony already threatens checks and balances on the government. Like other analysts, Walsh points to the hundreds of opposition politicos, like López, barred from running in regional elections last year due to obscure corruption charges leveled...
...hemisphere's largest oil reserves but one of its most shamefully inegalitarian societies. Rather, they were part of the first Latin American generation raised on a democratic political diet, and they feared, fairly or not, that Chávez was out to become their generation's Fidel Castro...